Test-CsPhoneBootstrap said that we were doing the right thing. Jeff Schertz’s guide to configuring Lync for Lync Phone Edition devices said that we were doing the right thing. Elan Shudnow’s post about Cisco switches and PIN authentication said we were doing the right thing.

But our Lync Phone Edition devices just were NOT authenticating.

One of my network guys mirrored one of the wall ports for me, and I alternated between the happily-authenticating AudioCodes 420HD and the stubborn Polycom CX3000, capturing WireShark traces I could barely read (I’ve since gotten to know the handshake process those LPE devices need way better than I ever wanted to). But what a pain.

msxfaq.de, long-time Exchange and now Lync MVP Frank Carius’ mostly-German variety shop of Lync and Exchange experience to the rescue – most specifically, his page on port mirroring. He recommends the NetGear ProSafe Plus series, the least expensive of which is the 5-port, non-PoE (Power over Ethernet) version, the GS105E. If you can read German, he explains several other options, along with exploring how you might connect to it without using Adobe AIR (and Windows) and some possible security implications of it having a default, hardcoded password to a web interface (theoretically, someone could break in and set up mirroring). If you can’t read German, it’s still good for screenshots of how to set up the port mirroring on the ProSafe Plus switches.

I, on the other hand, found the GS108PE, with 4 PoE ports and 4 regular ones to be the right balance between cost and convenience. This means up to four phones plugged in at once, and without power adapters. The non-PoE (and less expensive) versions will require you to use the phones’ power adapters. Later, if you want VLANs, VLANs you can have.

Port Mirroring made easy – too bad about the Adobe AIR interface…

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