Cross-Cloud Communications between the 21Vianet Teams in China and the Worldwide Teams

We are pleased to announce the GA of the Cross-Cloud Communication features between 21Vianet and WW Teams! Let’s talk about it today. If you are not familiar with 21vianet Teams, it is a version of Microsoft Teams that is operated by 21vianet, a leading internet data center services provider in China. 21vianet Teams is designed to meet the needs for secure, reliable, and scalable cloud services in China, while keeping data within China. 

 

With the release of this cross-cloud communication capability, users of 21vianet Teams can chat, call, and meet with users of WW Teams, regardless of their location or cloud environment. This opens new possibilities for collaboration and productivity across borders and regions. 

 

In this blog post, I will explain how to configure and use cross-cloud Interop, and how to join cross-cloud meetings anonymously. I will also share some user experience tips and insights and give you a sneak peek of what's coming next for cross-cloud capabilities. 

 

Cross-Cloud Interoperability 

 

This is a feature that allows 21vianet Teams users to communicate with Teams users in WW cloud. This feature is enabled by default for all 21vianet Teams users, but it requires some simple configuration steps in the Teams Admin Center (TAC) for each tenant in BOTH 21Vianet and WW Clouds. 

 

 

• To enable to interop in TAC, you need to do the following in both clouds: 

 

• Go to Org-wide settings > External access. 
• Turn on Users can communicate with other Skype for Business and Teams users.
• Add domains that you want to allow or block for external access. You can use * as a wildcard to allow or block all domains.
• Save the changes. 

Ref: Turn guest access in Microsoft Teams on or off - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn 

 

After you configure External Access in TAC, you can start communicating with WW Teams users from your 21vianet Teams or Skype for Business client.  

 

 

The following communication scenarios that are supported by SFB Interop: 

 

• Chat: You can initiate or receive one-to-one chats with WW Teams users through plain text. 
• Audio call: You can initiate or receive one-to-one with WW Teams users.
• Video call: You can initiate or receive one-to-one calls between Teams clients.  

 

Note: The Co-existence modes configured in 21Vianet Teams may also impact the Cross-Cloud communication experience.  

User Coexistence-mode	Scenarios	Notes
TeamsOnly	Set to “TeamsOnly” if you want to grant your users access to Teams Client only. They will not be able to login to SFB Client anymore.	See more details here
Islands	Set to “Islands” if you want to grant your users access to both Teams Client & SFB Clients. They will be able to login to SFB & Teams Client.	To avoid missing any messages, it’s recommended that users keep SFBO & Teams clients online all the time.   See more details here
Skype for Business only	Set to “Skype for Business only” if you want to grant your users access to SFB Client only. They will not be able to login to Teams Client.	See more details here

 

Cross-Cloud Meeting Join (Anonymously) 

 

Another feature that allows cross-cloud collaboration is the ability to join WW Teams meetings anonymously from your 21vianet Teams client, and vice versa. This means that users in either cloud can join the Teams meeting directly through different Teams clients, including desktop, web and mobile.  

 

To enable this feature, you need to Enable Anonymous Meeting join in both tenants, let’s take the configuration steps in WW Teams for an example  

 

Teams admin center > Meetings > Meeting policies

 

 

Then to join a WW Teams meeting anonymously from your 21vianet Teams client, you need to do the following: 

 

• In your Teams Windows desktop client, check out the meeting instance which is sent by WW Teams users in your calendar 
• Click on the meeting link or the Join button. 
• You will be prompted to enter your name (except for Mobile client) and choose your audio and video settings. Then click Join now. 

 

• In the meeting, the Organizer sees the 21Vianet attendee waiting in the lobby 

 

• After admitting, the 21Vinet attendee joins the meeting successfully.  

 

The following functions are supported in the Cross Cloud meetings:  

• Chat: You can send and receive messages in the meeting chat.  
• Audio: You can speak and listen to other participants in the meeting. You can also use audio controls such as mute, unmute, and device settings. 
• Video: You can turn on and off your video in the meeting.
• Screen sharing: You can share your screen or an individual window in the meeting. You can also request or give control of the shared screen.
• Raise hand: When joining a WW Teams meeting, you can raise your hand to indicate that you want to speak or ask a question in the meeting.
• Reactions: When joining a WW Teams meeting, you can use reactions such as applause, heart, laugh, thumbs up, and thumbs down to express yourself in the meeting. 

Notes: For detailed feature availability in 21Vianet Teams, please refer to the 21Vianet Teams Service Description site 

 

User Experience 

 

Now that you know how to configure and use cross-cloud communications and meetings, let me share some user experience tips and insights that will help you make the most out of these features. 

 

First of all, you need to be aware of the latency and bandwidth issues that may affect your cross-cloud communications and meetings. Since 21vianet Teams and WW Teams are hosted in different data centers across different regions, there may be some network delays or interruptions when you chat, call, or meet with WW users. To minimize these issues, make sure that you have a stable and fast internet connection when you communicate across clouds. 

 

Secondly, you need to respect the privacy and security policies of both clouds when you communicate across clouds. For example, you should not share any sensitive or confidential information that may violate the company security and compliance requirements.  

 

What's Next? 

 

I hope this blog post has given you a good overview of the 21vianet Teams and the cross-cloud capabilities with WW Teams. These features are just the beginning of what's possible for cross-cloud collaboration and productivity. In CY23H2, we will see more cross-cloud capabilities coming to 21vianet Teams, such as: 

 

• Cross-cloud guest access: This will allow 21vianet Teams users to be added as guests to WW Teams tenants and vice versa. This will enable deeper collaboration across teams and organizations in different Microsoft clouds. 
• Cross-cloud meeting join (authenticated): This will allow 21vianet Teams users to join WW Teams meetings using their own identity and credentials instead of joining anonymously. This will provide more security and functionality for cross-cloud meetings. 

 

Stay tuned for more updates on these features and more! 

 

Thanks and if you have questions or feedback on 21vianet Teams and the cross-cloud capabilities with WW Teams, please tell us.