This book and its accompanying online resources are designed to be a complete preparation tool for your MS-700 Exam.

The book is written in a way that you can apply everything you’ve learned here even after your certification. The online practice resources that come with this book (Figure 1.1) are designed to improve your test-taking skills. They are loaded with timed mock exams, chapter review questions, interactive flashcards, and exam tips to help you work on your exam readiness from now till your test day.

Before You Proceed

To learn how to access these resources, head over to Chapter 13, Accessing the Online Practice Resources, at the end of the book.

Figure 1.1: Dashboard interface of the online practice resources

Here are some tips on how to make the most out of this book so that you can clear your certification and retain your knowledge beyond your exam:

For this chapter, you need access to the Microsoft Teams admin center, which you can reach at https://admin.teams.microsoft.com. You will also need the Global Administrator, Teams Service Administrator, or Teams Communications Administrator role to complete the steps provided in this chapter.

Before diving into the technical assessment of your network’s preparedness for a Microsoft Teams deployment, it is essential to recognize the value Microsoft Teams will bring to your organization.

Beyond its core functionalities, Teams offers unique advantages tailored to various organizational needs:

• For educational institutions: Teams integrates seamlessly with educational tools such as OneNote class notebooks and assignments, providing a virtual classroom environment where educators can distribute coursework, conduct assessments, and collaborate in real time with students, all within a single platform.
• In healthcare: Microsoft Teams enables secure messaging, video meetings, and file sharing that comply with healthcare regulations such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Hospitals and clinics can use Teams for telehealth consultations, multidisciplinary...

When you wish to identify your organization’s network requirements for Microsoft Teams, you should use the Network Planner tool. This section introduces you to Network Planner and shows you how to use it to plan for your Teams deployment.

Network Planner can be found in the Microsoft Teams admin center and is used to calculate and plan your organization’s network requirements for connecting to Microsoft Teams. Once you provide the details relating to your organization’s network, as well as your anticipated usage of Teams, Network Planner calculates network requirements for you to successfully deploy Teams to your business locations.

Network Planner works using personas that you create that represent your specific Teams usage scenario. You can, alternatively, use some preconfigured, generic personas provided by Microsoft. Running these persona exercises enables you to extract reports that guide you on your optimal...

Now that you have an idea of Teams bandwidth requirements and how to use Network Planner for your Microsoft Teams deployment, you need to learn which network ports and protocols on your organization’s firewalls are required to ensure that Teams features work as expected.

UDP ports 3478 through 3481 for IP address ranges of 13.107.64.0/18, 52.112.0.0/14, and 52.122.0.0/15, along with the 2603:1063::/38 IPv6 range, must be opened at all your business locations for Teams media requirements, ensuring seamless audio and video communications across your organization. You can view an extensive list of additional endpoints used by Microsoft 365 for various workloads at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/urls-and-ip-address-ranges.

Next, you will look at configuring an optimal network architecture for Teams by reviewing topics such as the WAN optimizer, proxy, and load-balancer options for...

Creating an optimal network architecture for Microsoft Teams requires careful planning and implementation. As a Teams Administrator, your goal is to ensure a seamless and efficient communication environment for your organization. This involves not only addressing the basics of network setup but also diving deeper into network optimization strategies that cater specifically to the unique demands of Microsoft Teams.

You will now delve into the key areas to focus on to optimize your network for Teams.

Content Delivery Network Utilization

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) can significantly enhance the Microsoft Teams experience by efficiently distributing content, reducing network consumption, and accelerating the delivery of Teams meeting content. By leveraging Azure CDN, which integrates directly with Microsoft 365 services including Teams, content is cached closer to end users. This minimizes latency and optimizes performance...

Now that your network is optimally configured, you can test its efficiency. Microsoft offers the Microsoft 365 network connectivity test to help administrators evaluate network readiness for Teams. This tool, accessible via https://connectivity.office.com, provides insights into the quality of network connectivity by comparing it to benchmarks from other local customers. It is straightforward to use and delivers immediate feedback on network performance. For comprehensive analysis, including advanced tests and detailed outcomes, running this tool on a Windows computer is recommended. This step is crucial for ensuring that your network is adequately prepared for optimal Teams functionality.

The Microsoft 365 network connectivity test dashboard is shown in Figure 1.31.

Figure 1.31: Microsoft 365 network connectivity test

Note that you can opt for the test to automatically detect your location, or you can manually...

In this chapter, you learned the steps for assessing your network readiness for a Microsoft Teams deployment. You understood what the network and bandwidth requirements are, and how to analyze your network for readiness with Network Planner. You also examined several ports and protocols that need to be configured on your network to allow Microsoft Teams to work. Finally, you explored optimal network architecture principles, including topics such as implementing a CDN and QoS to ensure your users get the best experience when interacting with Teams media types and experiences such as audio, video, and screen sharing.

In the next chapter, you will explore the security and compliance settings available for Microsoft Teams.

To learn more about the topics that were covered in this chapter, take a look at the following resources:

• Prepare your organization’s network for Microsoft Teams: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/prepare-network
• Switch from Microsoft Teams live events to town halls: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/switch-from-microsoft-teams-live-events-to-town-halls-c71bf6e2-ece1-4809-900e-51271f39ac72
• Use the Network planner for Microsoft Teams: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/network-planner
• Using Network Planner – example scenario: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/microsoftteams/tutorial-network-planner-example
• Examine network requirements for Microsoft Teams: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/training/modules/plan-configure-network-settings-for-microsoft-teams/02-examine-network-requirements-microsoft-teams
• Microsoft 365 URLs and IP address ranges: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365...

Apart from a solid understanding of key concepts, being able to think quickly under time pressure is a skill that will help you ace your certification exam. That is why working on these skills early on in your learning journey is key.

Chapter review questions are designed to improve your test-taking skills progressively with each chapter you learn and review your understanding of key concepts in the chapter at the same time. You’ll find these at the end of each chapter.

How to Access These Materials

To learn how to access these resources, head over to the chapter titled Chapter 13, Accessing the Online Resources.

To open the Chapter Review Questions for this chapter, perform the following steps:

1. Click the link – https://packt.link/MS700E3_CH01.

   Alternatively, you can scan the following QR code (Figure 1.33):

Figure 1.33: QR code that opens Chapter Review Questions...

Target: Your aim is to keep the score the same while trying to answer these questions as quickly as possible. Here’s an example of how your next attempts should look like:

Table 1.2: Sample timing practice drills on the online platform

Note

The time limits shown in the above table are just examples. Set your own time limits with each attempt based on the time limit of the quiz on the website.

With each new attempt, your score should stay above 75% while your “time taken...