Configuring port ranges and a Quality of Service policy for your Edge Servers in Skype for Business Server

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This article describes how to configure port ranges for Edge Servers and how to configure a Quality of Service policy for your A/V Edge Servers.

Configure port ranges

With Microsoft Edge servers, you don't have to configure separate port ranges for audio, video, and application sharing; likewise, the port ranges used for Microsoft Edge servers don't have to match the port ranges used with your Conferencing, Application, and Mediation servers. Before we proceed with our example, it's important to stress that while this option exists, we recommend you not change the port ranges, as this might adversely affect some scenarios if you move out of the 50000 port range.

For example, suppose you have configured your Conferencing, Application, and Mediation servers to use these port ranges:

Packet Type Starting Port Number of Ports Reserved

Application sharing

40803

8348

Audio

49152

8348

Video

57500

8034

Totals

--

24730

As you can see, your port ranges for audio, video, and application sharing start at port 40803 and encompass a total of 24732 ports. If you prefer, you can configure a given Microsoft Edge Server to use these overall port values by running a command similar to this one from within the Skype for Business Server Management Shell:

Set-CsEdgeServer -Identity EdgeServer:atl-edge-001.litwareinc.com -MediaCommunicationPortStart 40803 -MediaCommunicationPortCount 24730

Or, use the following command to simultaneously configure all the Edge Servers in your organization:

Get-CsService -EdgeServer | ForEach-Object {Set-CsEdgeServer -Identity $_.Identity -MediaCommunicationPortStart 40803 -MediaCommunicationPortCount 24730}

You can verify the current port settings for your Edge Servers by using this Skype for Business Server Management Shell command:

Get-CsService -EdgeServer | Select-Object Identity, MediaCommunicationPortStart, MediaCommunicationPortCount

Again, while we do provide these options, we strongly recommend you leave things as they are for the port configuration.

Configure a QoS policy for your A/V Edge Servers

In addition to creating QoS policies for your Conferencing, Application, and Mediation servers, you must also create both audio and video policies for the internal side of your A/V Edge servers. However, the policies used on your Edge servers are different from the policies used on your Conferencing, Application, and Mediation servers. For the Conferencing, Application, and Mediation servers, you specified a source port range; with Edge servers, you need to specify a destination port range. Because of this, you can't apply the Conferencing, Application, and Mediation server QoS policies to your Edge servers: these policies don't work. Instead, you must create new policies and apply those policies to your Edge servers only.

The following procedure describes the process for creating Active Directory Group Policy objects that can be used to manage Quality of Service on Edge Servers. It's possible that your Edge servers are stand-alone servers that do not have Active Directory accounts. If that's the case, you can use local Group Policy instead of Active Directory Group Policy: the only difference is that you must create these local policies using the Local Group Policy Editor, and must individually create the same set of policies on each Edge Server. To start the Local Group Policy Editor on an Edge server, do the following:

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.

  2. In the Run dialog box, type gpedit.msc, and then press ENTER.

If you are creating Active Directory-based policies, then you should log on to a computer where Group Policy Management has been installed. In that case, open Group Policy Management (click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Group Policy Management), and then complete the following steps:

  1. In Group Policy Management, locate the container where the new policy should be created. For example, if all your Skype for Business Server computers are located in an OU named Skype for Business Server, the new policy should be created in the Skype for Business Server OU.

  2. Right-click the appropriate container, and then click Create a GPO in this domain, and Link it here.

  3. In the New GPO dialog box, type a name for the new Group Policy object in the Name box (for example, Skype for Business Server Audio), and then click OK.

  4. Right-click the newly-created policy, and then click Edit.

From here the process is identical regardless of whether you are creating an Active Directory policy or a local policy:

  1. In the Group Policy Management Editor or the Local Group Policy Editor, expand Computer Configuration, expand Policies, expand Windows Settings, right-click Policy-based QoS, and then click Create new policy.

  2. In the Policy-based QoS dialog box, on the opening page, type a name for the new policy (e.g., Skype for Business Server Audio) in the Name box. Select Specify DSCP Value and set the value to 46. Leave Specify Outbound Throttle Rate unselected, and then click Next.

  3. On the next page, make sure that All applications is selected, and then click Next. This setting instructs the network to look for all packets with a DSCP marking of 46, not just packets created by a specific application.

  4. On the third page, make sure that both Any source IP address and Any destination IP address are selected, and then click Next. These two settings ensure that packets will be managed regardless of which computer (IP address) sent those packets and which computer (IP address) will receive those packets.

  5. On page four, select TCP and UDP from the Select the protocol this QoS policy applies to dropdown list. TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) are the two networking protocols most-commonly used by Skype for Business Server and its client applications.

  6. Under the heading Specify the destination port number, select From this destination port or range. In the accompanying text box, type the port range reserved for audio transmissions. For example, if you reserved ports 49152 through ports 57500 for audio traffic, enter the port range using this format: 49152:57500. Click Finish.

After you have created the QoS policy for audio traffic, you should create a second policy for video traffic. To create a policy for video, follow the same basic procedure you followed when creating the audio policy, making these substitutions:

  • Use a different (and unique) policy name (for example, Skype for Business Server Video).

  • Set the DSCP value to 34 instead of 46. (Note that you do not have to use a DSCP value of 34. The only requirement is that you use a different DSCP value for video than you used for audio.)

  • Use the previously configured port range for video traffic. For example, if you have reserved ports 57501 through 65535 for video, set the port range to this: 57501:65535. Again, this should be configured as the destination port range.

If you decide to create a policy for managing application sharing traffic, you must create a third policy, making the following substitutions:

  • Use a different (and unique) policy name (for example, Skype for Business Server Application Sharing).

  • Set the DSCP value to 24 instead of 46. (Again, you do not have to use a DSCP value of 24. The only requirement is that you use a different DSCP value for application sharing than you used for audio or for video.)

  • Use the previously configured port range for video traffic. For example, if you have reserved ports 40803 through 49151 for application sharing, set the port range to this: 40803:49151.

The new policies you have created will not take effect until Group Policy has been refreshed on your Edge servers. Although Group Policy periodically refreshes on its own, you can force an immediate refresh by running the following command on each computer where Group Policy needs to be refreshed:

Gpudate.exe /force

This command can be run from within the Skype for Business Server or from any command window that is running under administrator credentials. To run a command window under administrator credentials, click Start, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. Note that you might need to restart the Edge server even after running Gpudate.exe.

To help ensure that network packets are marked with the appropriate DSCP value, you should also create a new registry entry on each computer by completing the following procedure:

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.

  2. In the Run dialog box, type regedit, and then press ENTER.

  3. In the Registry Editor, expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, expand SYSTEM, expand CurrentControlSet, expand services, and then expand Tcpip.

  4. Right-click Tcpip, point to New, and then click Key. After the new registry key is created, type QoS, and then press ENTER to rename the key.

  5. Right-click QoS, point to New, and then click String Value. After the new registry value is created, type Do not use NLA, and then press ENTER to rename the value.

  6. Double-click Do no use NLA. In the Edit String dialog box, type 1 in the Value data box, and then click OK.

  7. Close the Registry Editor and reboot your computer.