Xadean's Empirical Musing

While configuring a new, Lync 2010 branch site, I ran into several issues with an Audiocodes Mediant 1000 with SBA (OSN3 module) during installation.  Without going in depth on the issues/errors encountered, I ultimately discovered that the issues/errors where due to incorrect steps being taken during installation.  Therefore, I am providing some key highlights to look out for.

1. Computer Name - This field must be in NetBIOS format.  If your SBA's FQDN is SBA01.domain.com, then this field should only contain "SBA01" (without quotes).
2. Join Domain - the domain name must be specified as an FQDN rather than NetBIOS.  If your domain FQDN is hq.domain.com, it must be entered as "hq.domain.com" (without the quotes) rather than "hq".
3. MCS Certificate - If you are using an internal CA to issue the SSL certificate that will be used by the SBA, you must install the internal CA's certificate chain in the Trusted Root CA store first.  You do this by connecting to the SBA via RDP and then open the Certificates snap-in within MMC.  Then import the internal CA certificate into the Trusted Root CA store.  After this has been done, you will be able to import the certificate during the MCS certificate step.
4. Logging in to the web GUI after the Join Domain step - Prior to this point, you have been logging on to the web GUI via local Administrator.  In order to see the additional steps, you must logon as domain admin account.  I had to connect to the SBA via RDP and manually add my domain account to the local Administrators group (prior to being able to RDP, I had to logon as local Administrator and grant my domain admin account ability to logon remotely).  The format to use when logging on to the web GUI as domain admin is "USERNAME" without "DOMAIN\".
5. Be Specific on SBA Lync Version Required - I made it through most of the steps only to find out later that the Lync version was 2013 when I was intending on installing Lync 2010.  Apparently, Audiocodes is now sending 2 USB dongles with the gear; one is for Lync 2013 and the other Lync 2010.