SharePoint 2013 - Office Web Apps - Internal and External Use

Question

I have successfully installed SharePoint 2013 and Office Web Apps on Azure VMs inside an Azure Virtual Network (IaaS model). Everyting is working well. However, my testing has shown that external users and internal users can't use Office Web Apps at the
same time.
Office Web Apps, installed on its own vm, accomodates an external and internal URL quite well. However, SharePoint 2013 appears to only allow one setting for WOPI Zone, either internal or external but not both. I've set the WOPI zone to Internal-HTTPS (Set-SPWOPIZone
–Zone “internal-https”). OWA works just fine if accessed from inside the Azure Virtual Network. However, if I try to access from outside the Virtual Network, from the Internet, Office Web Apps fails. The exact oppisite is also true. I can set WOPI Zone to
External-HTTPS and accessing from the Internet works fine, but accessing inside the Virtual Network fails.
Am I missing something? I, obviously, want Office Webs Apps to function properly for both internal and external users simultaneously.
I appreciate any help anyone can provide here.
Glenn

Answer 1

Hi Glenn,
To have both the use of Internet and Internal available to your end-users, you first need to configure AAM setting. Open Central Administration > Application Management > Configure alternate access mappings. Let's say there is an existing web application
named http://sharepoint and my end-users from local network are able to access it using the URL http://sharepoint (root site collection). Here you need to add the Internet URL by select the web application and click Edit Public URLs. Add the Internet domain
to the web application, e.g http://sharepoint.abc.com. You don't necessarily have to edit binding setting in IIS. Before continuing next steps, make sure you are able to access http://sharepoint.abc.com from the Internet while being able to access http://sharepoint
from local network (aka Internal).
On the machine where Office Web App (OWA) Server 2013 is installed, open PowerShell to add OWA module and use the following command to re-create a new OWA server farm if you've completed configuring it previously.
New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl "http://owa" -ExternalUrl "http://owa.abc.com" -EditingEnabled.
In this case, I'm not using SSL certificate to encrypt data over the Internet. You can use Internet-public IP of the OWA server like -ExternalUrl "http://198.xxx.xxx.xx". Add CertifcateName parameter if you want to use whether CA-issued certificate
or self-signed certificate.
On your SharePoint machine, you need to re-bind all WFE machines to WAC farm using the cmdlet New-SPWOPIBinding. Next, you need to set the WOPI zone for both internal and external.
Set-SPWOPIZone -zone "external-http"
Note: I'm not all using certificate in my guidance. But the steps to have it configured is just to add more parameter. 
I've recently successfully deployed OWA multi-server farm for both internal and internet uses for two big clients. In real-world scenario, ideally OWA should be published through firewall (Forefront UAG, TMG, F5...etc). Please let me know if you still have
issues after following my steps. My email: [email protected]
Regards,
-T.s
Thuan Soldier
A 23-year-old man loving Microsoft technologies and making crazy ideas on business journey.
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