Skype for Business / Teams Network Assessment Tool


The Skype for Business network assessment Tool brings the ability to perform a simple test of network performance and network connectivity to determine how good the network will perform for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business online calls. This tool gives you an easy to test your network quality and your connection to Skype for Business Online and Microsoft Teams. You can easily collect the result and share them with the network administrator to examine insight into potential network issues.

This tool is very useful in the planning phase of Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams deployment. If you are using Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business online already, the tool can be used to troubleshoot voice quality or simply to check your network connection before you make a call or after you’ve experienced a poor-quality.

Skype for Business Online has specific network necessities in order to provide end-users with the best experience. You can use this simple tool to assess the readiness of the network segments that will be using SfB Online or Teams Cloud voice.


Background: 

The following diagram illustrates the requirements for an optimal audio/video and meeting experience when using Skype for Business Online.

The intent is to run the Essentials Assessment tool to get a baseline against the below recommended metrics, and identify any potential weak areas.

Metric


The tool can help:

Unveil risk areas

 Helps to identify potential weak spots in the network
 Prevents congestion points before implementation

Network recommendations

 Provides recommendations for network configuration
 Guides through network optimization such as QoS
 Prepares for additional network activities
 Provides insight into network performance


Installing the Skype for Business Network Assessment Tool:

The Skype for Business Network Assessment Tool will generate a traffic simulation on the network by measuring against our published networking targets found here. The test must be run on every site that will be enabled for Skype for Business Online or Teams (on both client and edge machines if in Hybrid). This tool can be run on any Windows laptop, desktop or server capable of running the Skype for Business Client (i.e. Windows 7+\Server 2008 R2+ Dual-core 2,4 GHz, 4GB RAM). The tool will use the same ports and protocols as Skype for Business or Teams Clients. Click the Office 365URLs and IP address ranges link to find the ports and protocols that are used by the client.

Note: You must have a local administrator privilege to install or upgrade the Skype for Business Network Assessment tool on a Window


To download the tool, browse to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53885 and click Download:

 Skype for Business Network Assestemet


Once downloaded, run the exe installer to deploy the tool. The tool will be installed within the directory: 
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Skype for Business Network Assessment Tool

Run the Network Performance Test
Next, to run the tool launch a command prompt, navigate to the install directory and type the following command: NetworkAssessmentTool.exe then press Enter

NetworkAssessmentTool.exe


Windows Firewall security alert may prompt you with the following dialogue box, click Allow Access

Allow Access


The simulation tests will commence. Allow ~17 seconds for this to complete: 

NetworkAssessmentTool.exe


Once the tests are completed, the results are written to a CSV file, follow the below steps to retrieve the results and send to the Telstra project team for analysis:

1. Type the following command to retrieve the results ResultsAnalyzer.exe results.tsv and press Enter.
2. Navigate to the following directory to retrieve the TSV file, and grab the file to review  
    %localappdata%/Microsoft Skype for Business Network Assessment Tool

NetworkAssessmentTool.exe


Network Connectivity Checks

You should use the SfB Network Assessment tool to check connectivity on a port by port basis out to the Skype for Business cloud infrastructure and whether it is reachable. This is a good indicator that your corporate firewalls are allowing traffic out to the Skype infrastructure.

You should run the results, and generate a text results file by following the below steps:

1. From a command prompt, run the command: 
    NetworkAssessmentTool.exe /connectivitycheck /verbose

2. Navigate to the following directory to retrieve the TSV file, and grab the file to review 
   %localappdata%/Microsoft Skype for Business Network Assessment Tool

If you have any questions please post here.

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