Microsoft Purview Sensitivity Labels: Sensitivity label grouping modernization coming this fall (?)

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There is a change coming to Microsoft Purview Information Protection that simplifies sensitivity label architecture. The goal is to make label management easier, more scalable, and less rigid for organizations. The new model will only include standalone labels and sublabels. Parent labels will be replaced by label groups, which act as organizational containers. These groups cannot be applied to content and have no actions or scope, but they retain color and priority for visual organization. Hopefully, this change will make it much easier to move labels around and make other changes in production: for example, converting a standalone label into a sublabel or moving sublabels between groups without breaking dependencies.  From my experience, this update solves one of the biggest challenges in large environments: rigid label hierarchies. The new dynamic model gives admins the agility they need to adapt quickly as compliance and business needs evolve. For admins, migration will be quic...

Hah! Never trust the E1 provider

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Here is a little problem I ran into after deploying a Sonus 1000 SBA/SBC at customers branch office in Singapore.

The customer had a couple of faxes connected to the old PBX, but instead keeping the analog equipment, they went for a fax service "in the cloud". This is simply done by redirecting incoming calls to the faxes to a number at the provider, the fax is received and forwarded as an email to the destination.

We tested the service by calling from internal lines to the service. This all seemed to be going well (we heard fax tones in the other end, when calling). I set up a redirecting rule in the SBC (A transformation rule) and started testing. But the call never got through. it was immediately dropped after leaving the SBC. According to the logs, we received the following cause code: "Cause No. 28 - invalid number format (address incomplete)"


I immediately tried calling the external provider from a user attached to the SBA, and got through. Quite puzzling.

That's when it was time to dig out the LX tool, and start comparing the working and the non-working calls. And true enough, there was a slight difference between the calls.

Here is what I found on the working calls:


I compared this to the non-working redirected calls:


Now wait a minute, I never told the Sonus to add a numbering type or plan. This called for an investigation of the originating incoming call:


Lo and behold; The incoming call has the type and plan set. And when the call was returned back to the PSTN, these values were all wrong. To solve this situation, I simply manipulated the plan and type in my original transformation rule:


The carrier didn't care about the calling plan and type, as long as the called plan and type was "unknown" they excepted all calls.

The moral of this blogpost? Never trust the trunk provider, and always invest in equipment capable of tweaking all aspects of a call setup ;)