planning for your organization lync server 2010 (rc)
DESCRIPTION
Documents you can use when planning your deployment of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 (Release Candidate). Includes planning documents for IM and Conferencing, Enterprise Voice, Edge Servers, Monitoring Server, Archiving Server, virtualization and DNS load balancing, along with guidelines for planning your network infrastructureTRANSCRIPT
Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Published: September 2010
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Contents
Planning for Your Organization....................................................................................................1
Beginning the Planning Process..............................................................................................1
Topology Basics You Must Know Before Planning...................................................................3
Sites...................................................................................................................................... 3
Server Roles......................................................................................................................... 4
Initial Planning Decisions.........................................................................................................7
Deciding Which Clients To Deploy...........................................................................................8
Reference Topologies............................................................................................................10
Reference Topology With Limited High Availability.............................................................10
Reference Topology With High Availability and a Single Data Center.................................12
Reference Topology for Multiple Data Centers...................................................................14
Planning for Your OrganizationThe topics in this section help you get started with planning your Microsoft Lync Server
2010 communications software deployment.
Beginning the Planning Process helps you understand how to get started, and how the
planning documentation works with the Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Planning Tool and
Topology Builder.
Topology Basics You Must Know Before Planning describes the basics of Lync Server
topologies, including sites and server pools. You must understand these concepts when using
the Lync Server 2010, Planning Tool.
Initial Planning Decisions takes you through the questions you must answer to decide what
workloads and features of Lync Server to deploy.
Reference Topologies shows three sample topologies that illustrate good topology design in
three typical organization types, and explains the reasoning behind many of the decisions in
designing those topologies.
Beginning the Planning ProcessWhile planning a unified communications deployment may seem intimidating, Microsoft Lync
Server 2010 communications software provides two valuable tools to help you:
Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Planning Tool is a wizard that interactively asks you a series
of questions about your organization, the Lync Server features you want to enable, and your
capacity planning needs. It then creates a recommended deployment topology based on your
answers, and produces several forms of output to aid your planning and installation.
Topology Builder is an installation component of Lync Server 2010. You use Topology
Builder to create, adjust and publish your planned topology. It also validates your topology
before you begin server installations. When you install Lync Server on individual servers, the
servers read the published topology as part of the installation process, and the installation
program deploys the server as directed in the topology.
Lync Server 2010 Planning Tool
The Lync Server 2010, Planning Tool takes your answers to the questions in the tool and
generates a topology based on Lync Server guidelines and best practices. It also provides
several views of a deployment based on your answers. It shows both a global view of all your
sites (that is, including both central sites and branch sites), and detailed views showing the
servers and other components at each site.
Running the Planning Tool does not commit you to any specific deployment or initiate any
processes. In fact, running the Planning Tool even before you have a firm plan in mind can be a
1
very instructive way to understand the kinds of questions you need to think about in your planning
process.
You can run the Planning Tool multiple times, answering questions differently, and compare the
outcomes. If you have a design you are mostly satisfied with but that you need to make changes
to, you can return to the Planning Tool, load the design, and make the changes. It takes about 15
minutes to complete the Planning Tool once.
After you are completely satisfied, you can use the Export to Topology Builder option to export
your planned topology to an XML file that you can then input to Topology Builder.
You use the Planning Tool only for your initial topology design. After you export the topology to
Topology Builder and begin working with it there, you can no longer use the Planning Tool to
modify your topology.
Lync Server 2010 Topology Builder
Topology Builder takes the XML file provided by the Planning Tool, and displays the topology. You
can then use Topology Builder to make final adjustments such as specifying IP addresses and
fully qualified domain names (FQDN). After you are satisfied, you have Topology Builder validate
the topology, and then, if it passes, you can publish the topology. When you publish the topology,
Lync Server puts the topology into the Central Management store (which is created at this time if
it does not already exist). Then, when you go to install Lync Server on each server in your
deployment, the server reads the topology from the Central Management store and installs itself
to fit into its role in your deployment.
Alternatively, if you are very familiar with Lync Server and need less prescriptive guidance, you
can skip the Planning Tool and use the wizards in Topology Builder for the initial design of your
deployment, as well as for the validation and publishing steps.
Using Topology Builder to plan and publish a topology is a required step. You cannot bypass
Topology Builder and install Lync Server individually on the servers in your deployment. Each
server must read the topology from a validated, published topology in the Central Management
store.
High-Level Planning Process
We recommend the following general process for using both the documentation and the Planning
Tool to plan your Lync Server deployment
1. Run the Planning Tool to get a sense of the kind of questions you need to think about as you
begin the planning process.
2. Read New Server Features to familiarize yourself with the new features and requirements in
Lync Server 2010.
3. Read the other parts of this section: Topology Basics You Must Know Before Planning, Initial
Planning Decisions, Deciding Which Clients To Deploy, and Reference Topologies.
4. Now that you are more familiar with Lync Server features and the kinds of questions that
must be answered, run the Planning Tool again and view the resulting topology and its
details.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
5. If there are particular workloads or features you are interested in or need to learn about, read
the appropriate sections of Planning for Lync Server 2010.
6. Run the Planning Tool again. You can start with the deployment you created in step 3 and
modify the results, or start over from the beginning.
If needed, run the Planning Tool a third time and repeat until you are satisfied with the output.
7. When you have finalized the topology plan, use the export feature of the Planning Tool to
create an XML file that you can use with Topology Builder. Load that XML into Topology
Builder and add final details such as IP addresses.
8. Before you begin deployment, read Preparing Your Environment and Determining Your
Infrastructure Requirements to familiarize yourself with the prerequisites and necessary
infrastructure for Lync Server. Additionally, be sure you have read all the sections of Planning
for Lync Server 2010 that apply to the workloads and features that you plan to deploy.
Migrating from Previous Versions
If you are migrating to Lync Server from a previous version, see the Migration documentation for
specific instructions for your migration and deployment.
Topology Basics You Must Know Before PlanningYou do not have to be an expert on Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software to run
the Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Planning Tool. In fact, running the Lync Server 2010, Planning
Tool multiple times, answering questions differently, and comparing the output is a good way to
learn about Lync Server 2010.
Before you learn about the various components in more depth, you should understand the
following basic aspects of Lync Server topologies.
Sites
Server Roles
Sites
In Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software, you define sites on your network that
contain Lync Server 2010 components. A site is a set of computers that are well-connected by a
high-speed, low-latency network, such as a single local area network (LAN) or two networks
connected by a high-speed fiber optic network. Note that Lync Server sites are a separate
concept from Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) sites and Microsoft Exchange Server
sites. Your Lync Server 2010 sites do not have to correspond to your Active Directory Domain
Services (AD DS) sites.
Site Types
Each site is either a central site, which contains at least one Front End pool or Standard Edition
server, or a branch site. Each branch site is associated with exactly one central site, and the
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
users at the branch site get most of their Lync Server functionality from the servers at the
associated central site.
Each branch site contains one of the following:
A survivable branch appliance, which is a new device introduced in Lync Server 2010 that
combines a public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateway with some Lync Server
functionality.
A PSTN gateway and, optionally, a Mediation Server.
A branch office with a resilient wide area network (WAN) link to a central site can use the second
option, a PSTN gateway and optionally a Mediation Server. Branch office sites with less-resilient
links should use a Survivable Branch Appliance, which provide resiliency in times of wide-area
network failures. For example, in a site with a Survivable Branch Appliance deployed, users can
still make and receive Enterprise Voice calls if the WAN connecting the branch site to the central
site is down. For details about the Survivable Branch Appliance and resiliency, see Planning for
Branch-Site Voice Resiliency in the Planning for Enterprise Voice documentation.
Site Topologies
Your deployment must include at least one central site, and can include zero to many branch
sites. Each branch site is affiliated with one central site. The central site provides the Lync Server
2010 services, such as presence and conferencing, that are not located locally at the branch site.
Server Roles
Each server running Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software runs one or more
server roles. A server role is a defined set of Lync Server 2010 functionality provided by that
server. You do not need to deploy all available server roles in your network. Install only the server
roles that contain the functionality that you want.
Even if you are not familiar with server roles in Lync Server, the Microsoft Lync Server 2010,
Planning Tool can guide you to the best solution for the servers you need to deploy, based on the
features that you want. This section provides a brief overview of the server roles and the general
features they provide:
Front End Server and Back End Server
A/V Conferencing Server
Edge Server
Mediation Server
Monitoring Server
Archiving Server
Director
For most server roles, for scalability and high availability you can deploy pools of multiple servers
all running the same server role. Each server in a pool must run an identical server role or roles.
For some types of pools in Lync Server, you must deploy a load balancer to spread traffic
between the various servers in the pool.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Standard Edition Server
The Standard Edition server is designed for small organizations, and for pilot projects of large
organizations. It enables many of the features of Lync Server 2010, as well as the necessary
databases, to run on a single server. This enables you to have Lync Server functionality for a
lesser cost, but does not provide a true high-availability solution.
Standard Edition server enables you to use instant messaging (IM), presence, conferencing, and
Enterprise Voice, all running on one server.
For a high-availability solution, use Lync Server 2010 Enterprise Edition.
Front End Server and Back End Server
The Front End Server is the core server role, and runs many basic Lync Server functions. The
Front End Server, along with the Back End Servers that provide the database, are the only server
roles required to be in any Lync Server Enterprise Edition deployment.
A Front End pool is a set of Front End Servers, configured identically, that work together to
provide services for a common group of users. A pool provides scalability and failover capability
your users.
Front End Server includes the following functionality:
User authentication and registration
Presence information and contact card exchange
Address book services and distribution list expansion
IM functionality, including multi-party IM conferences
Web conferencing and application sharing (if deployed)
Application hosting services, for both applications included with Lync Server (for example,
Conferencing Attendant and Response Group application) and third-party applications
Application services for application hosting and hosts applications (for example, Response
Group Service, and several others)
Additionally, one Front End pool in the deployment also runs the Central Management Server,
which manages and deploys basic configuration data to all servers running Lync Server 2010.
The Central Management Server also provides Lync Server 2010 Management Shell and file
transfer capabilities.
The Back End Servers are database servers running Microsoft SQL Server that provide the
database services for the Front End pool. You can have a single Back End Server, but a cluster of
two or more servers is recommended for failover. Back End Servers do not run any Lync Server
software. If you already have a SQL Server cluster that you are using for other applications, you
can also use this cluster for Lync Server 2010, if performance allows.
Information stored in the Back End Server databases includes presence information, user’s
contact lists, conferencing data including persistent data about the state of all current
conferences, and conference scheduling data.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
A/V Conferencing Server
A/V Conferencing Server provides A/V conferencing functionality to your deployment. It can be
collocated with Front End Server, or deployed separately as a single server or A/V Conferencing
Server pool.
For details, see Web Conferencing and A/V Conferencing in the Planning for Conferencing
documentation.
Edge Server
Edge Server enables your users to communicate and collaborate with users outside the
organization’s firewalls. These external users can include the organization’s own users who are
currently working offsite, users from federated partner organizations, and outside users who have
been invited to join conferences hosted on your Lync Server deployment. Edge Server also
enables connectivity to public IM connectivity services, including Windows Live, AOL, and Yahoo!.
For details, see the Planning for External User Access documentation.
Mediation Server
Mediation Server is a necessary component for implementing Enterprise Voice and dial-in
conferencing. Mediation Server translates signaling and, in some configurations, media between
your internal Lync Server infrastructure and an Internet Protocol/Public Switched Telephone
Network (IP-PSTN) gateway or a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunk.
For details, see Mediation Server Component in the Planning for Enterprise Voice documentation.
Monitoring Server
Monitoring Server collects data about the quality of your network media, in both Enterprise Voice
calls and A/V conferences. This information can help you provide the best possible media
experience for your users. It also collects call error records (CERs), which you can use to
troubleshoot failed calls. Additionally, it collects usage information in the form of call detail records
(CDRs) about various Lync Server features so that you can calculate return on investment of your
deployment, and plan the future growth of your deployment.
For details, see the Planning for Monitoring documentation.
Archiving Server
Archiving Server enables you to archive IM communications and meeting content for compliance
reasons. If you do not have legal compliance concerns, you do not need to deploy Archiving
Server.
For details, see Planning for Archiving.
Director
Directors can authenticate Lync Server user requests, but do not home user accounts, or provide
presence or conferencing services. Directors are most useful in deployments that enable external
user access, where the Director can authenticate requests before sending them on to internal
servers. Directors can also improve performance in organizations with multiple Front End pools.
For details, see Director in the Planning for External User Access documentation.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Initial Planning DecisionsThe first part of the planning process is deciding which Microsoft Lync Server 2010 workloads and
major features you want for your organization.
1. Do you want a physical or virtualized topology? Microsoft Lync Server 2010 supports all
workloads and server roles in both physical and virtualized topologies. User capacity in a
virtualized topology is roughly 50 percent of the capacity in a physical topology. For details,
see Running in a Virtualized Environment in the Planning for Other Features documentation.
2. IM and presence are always enabled. In any Lync Server deployment, the instant
messaging (IM) and presence workload is installed and enabled by default. IM enables your
users to communicate with real-time text messages, and presence enables them to see the
status of other users on the network. A user’s presence status provides information to help
others decide whether they should try to contact the user, and by what means. For details,
see the IM and Presence documentation.
3. Do you want to deploy any modes of conferencing? Conferencing is another core feature
of Lync Server. Several modes of conferencing are supported. You can choose to deploy all
supported types of conferencing, or just some of them. Web conferencing enables users to
see a file, such as a slide deck created with Microsoft PowerPoint presentation graphics
program, that is being presented. Application sharing enables users to share all or part of
their desktop with each other in real time. With A/V conferencing, users can add audio (and
possibly video) to their conferences and peer-to-peer communications. Dial-in conferencing
enables users to use standard PSTN phones to join the audio portion of conferences hosted
at your organization. For details, see the Conferencing documentation.
4. If you deploy A/V conferencing, you should also monitor the audio quality of these
conferences. Many factors affect the audio and video quality of Lync Server A/V
conferences. By using the A/V quality monitoring features provided by the Monitoring Server
role, you can detect issues that affect media quality, and ensure that your users have the best
possible media experience.
5. Do you want high availability for your IM, presence, and conferencing servers? If you
have only one server at a site providing IM, presence and conferencing features, your users’
productivity will be greatly affected if that server goes down. By deploying a pool of multiple
servers for these functions, you make it possible for Lync Server to continue functioning with
all of these features intact even if a server goes down. Additionally, if you have more than
12,500 users at a site, you must deploy a pool to serve this large number of users. This pool
also provides high availability.
6. Do you want to deploy Enterprise Voice? Enterprise Voice is the voice over IP (VoIP)
solution provided by Lync Server. It provides an attractive alternative to traditional PBX-based
telephony. Enterprise Voice enables users to place calls from their computers by clicking a
contact in Outlook or Microsoft Lync 2010. They can place calls over the IP network from
computer to computer, computer to telephone, or telephone to computer. Users benefit from
having all of their communications options-voice, e-mail, IM, and conferencing-available and
integrated on their computers. For details, see the Planning for Enterprise Voice
documentation.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
7. If you deploy Enterprise Voice, you should also monitor the audio quality of these
calls. We recommend you use Monitoring Server to ensure the audio quality of your
Enterprise Voice calls, if you deploy Enterprise Voice.
8. Do you want to deploy Exchange UM? If your organization uses Microsoft Exchange
Server for its email services, you can deploy the Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) features
of both Microsoft Exchange and Lync Server to enhance communications capabilities for your
users. Exchange UM features include enabling users to receive voicemail notices and listen
to voicemail within their Microsoft Exchange mailbox, to access their Microsoft Exchange
mailboxes using a telephone, and to receive faxes in their Microsoft Exchange mailboxes.
9. Do you need to archive IM content or meeting content for compliance purposes? If your
organization has to archive IM content or meeting content for compliance purposes, you can
deploy an Archiving Server.
10. Do you want to enable your users to communicate and collaborate with external
users? Enabling communication and collaboration with external users can increase your
return on investment in Lync Server. This enables your organization’s own users to benefit
from Lync Server features even when they are working outside your organization’s firewalls.
You can also federate with your partner or customer organizations that run Lync Server. By
doing so, your users and federated partner users can easily send and receive IM messages,
invite each other to meetings, and see each other’s presence. Additionally, your users can
use an email message to invite specific outside users to online meetings they organize.
11. Do you have branch offices in your organization? If your organization has branch offices,
Lync Server 2010 supports a variety of ways to support them and ensure their resiliency for
voice and other features. In particular, at a branch office that does not have a resilient WAN
link to a datacenter, you can install a Survivable Branch Appliance to maintain Enterprise
Voice support should the wide area network (WAN) link go down. For details, see Enhanced
Voice Resiliency in Central Sites and Branch Offices in the Getting Started documentation.
Deciding Which Clients To DeployMicrosoft Lync Server 2010 communications software supports several types of client software
that you can deploy to your organization’s users, including computer-installed client software,
web-based clients, and mobile devices. This topic outlines the different clients that you can use.
For a detailed comparison of the features provided by different clients, see Client Comparison
Tables in the Planning for Clients and Devices documentation.
Microsoft Lync 2010
Microsoft Lync 2010 is the default client for Lync Server 2010 meetings. Features include
presence, contact management, instant messaging (IM), telephony, and greatly enhanced
conferencing.
To implement the manager/delegate scenario with Lync 2010, both manager and delegate need
to install and use Lync 2010.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendee
Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendee is a rich conferencing client that allows users without Lync 2010
installed to fully participate in Lync Server 2010 meetings. Lync 2010 Attendee can be installed on
a per-user basis, so you can choose to selectively deploy this client during migration, or you can
allow users to download and install it as needed.
For details about how to control the conferencing client choices that appear on the online meeting
join page, see the “Configuring the Meeting Join Web Page” section in Migration Considerations
for Meetings topic in the Planning for Clients and Devices documentation.
Microsoft Lync Web App
Microsoft Lync Web App is a web-based conferencing client that supports most Lync 2010
collaboration and sharing features, as well as presenter meeting controls and dial-in and dial-out
voice conferencing.
For users who do not have Lync 2010 installed, you can offer this conferencing option when it
isn’t practical or possible to install Lync 2010 Attendee
For details about how to control which client options appear on the meeting join page, see the
“Configuring the Meeting Join Web Page” section in Migration Considerations for Meetings topic
in the Planning for Clients and Devices documentation.
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Attendant
Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendant is an integrated call management application that enables a
receptionist to manage multiple conversations at once through rapid call handling, IM, and on-
screen routing.
Lync 2010 Attendant no longer supports the manager/delegate scenario. Both manager and
delegate must have Lync 2010 installed to access these features.
Microsoft Lync 2010 Mobile
Microsoft Lync 2010 Mobile provides IM, enhanced presence, and telephony for users in your
organization who are connecting from a smartphone or a phone running a Professional edition of
Windows Mobile.
Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition
Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition is software that runs on intelligent Internet Protocol (IP)
phones (for example, USB-attached phones), and supports placing and receiving calls, enhanced
presence, and client audio capabilities for conferences.
Online Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Lync 2010
The Online Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Lync 2010 supports meeting management from within
Outlook. This software is installed automatically with Lync 2010.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Reference TopologiesThe ideal Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software topology depends on your
organization’s size, the workloads you want to deploy, and your preferences for high availability
versus cost of investment.
The following topics outline three reference topologies, including the reasoning behind many of
the decisions that drive the requirements for each topology.
Reference Topology With Limited High Availability
Reference Topology With High Availability and a Single Data Center
Reference Topology for Multiple Data Centers
Reference Topology With Limited High Availability
The reference topology with limited high availability is for an organization that wants to deploy
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software functionality at a minimum cost. Typically,
the specific topology shown in the following diagram is recommended for organizations with 5,000
or fewer users, although you can support additional users by adding additional Standard Edition
servers.
Note:
All capacity and performance numbers in this section pertain only to the Microsoft Lync
Server 2010 (Release Candidate) release, and are subject to change in future releases.
Reference topology with limited high availability
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Active Directory Deployment All Lync Server deployments reside in a single Active
Directory forest. For this topology, the customer has Lync Server deployed in the child
domain, retail.contoso.com.
Voice Pilot The organization using the exact topology shown in this diagram is currently
running a pilot program of the Enterprise Voice feature of Lync Server. Some users are using
Lync Server as their sole voice solution.
If they go on to fully deploy Enterprise Voice and remove the PBX system, they should
provide high availability for their voice solution by deploying a second Standard Edition server
or moving to a Front End pool. A single Standard Edition topology as shown in this diagram is
recommended only if you are not deploying Enterprise Voice in a production environment.
Because being able to make calls is mission critical for almost every organization, you should
provide high availability if you use Enterprise Voice as your telephone solution.
Another Standard Edition Server Can Be Added A single Standard Edition server can
support up to 5,000 users. If you want to accommodate more users or provide some high
availability capability for Enterprise Voice (at a minimum cost), you could add another
Standard Edition server to this topology.
For a true high availability solution, you should deploy Enterprise Edition and deploy a Front
End pool. Although having two Standard Edition Servers would maintain Enterprise Voice
functionality should one of these servers go down, a Front End pool provides much better
continuity of service for other Lync Server features.
Branch Site Survivability This organization is running the Enterprise Voice pilot with some
branch site users as well. The branch office does not have a reliable wide area network
(WAN) link to the central site, so a Survivable Branch Appliance is deployed there. With this
deployed, if the WAN link goes down users at the branch site can still make calls, receive
calls from both PSTN users and other Enterprise Voice users, and have peer-to-peer instant
messaging and application sharing sessions.
Edge Server Recommended Although deploying an Edge Server is not required for
internal instant messaging (IM), presence and conferencing, it is recommended even for
small deployments. You can maximize your Lync Server investment by deploying an Edge
Server to provide service to users currently outside your organization’s firewalls. The benefits
include the following:
Your organization’s own users can use Lync Server functionality, if they are working from
home or are out on the road.
Your users can invite outside users to participate in meetings.
If you have a partner, vendor or customer organization that also uses Lync Server, you
can form a federated relationship with that organization. Your Lync Server deployment
would then recognize users from that federated organization, leading to better
collaboration.
Your users can exchange instant messages with users of public IM services, including
any or all of the following: Windows Live, AOL, and Yahoo!, as well as XMPP-based
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
providers and servers, such as Google Talk and Jabber. A separate license might be
required for public IM connectivity with Windows Live, AOL, and Yahoo!
Reference Topology With High Availability and a Single Data Center
The reference topology with high availability and a single data center is designed for a small-to-
medium size organization with one central site. The exact topology in the following diagram is for
an organization of 15,000 users. Typically, the type of topology shown in the following diagram is
recommended for organizations with 5,000 to 30,000 users, but it can support over 30,000 users.
Note:
All capacity and performance numbers in this section pertain only to the Microsoft Lync
Server 2010 (Release Candidate) release, and are subject to change in future releases.
Reference topology with high availability and a single data center
Active Directory Deployment All Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software
deployments reside in a single Active Directory forest. For this topology, the customer has
Lync Server deployed in the child domain, retail.contoso.com.
To Accommodate More Users, Add More Front End Servers The exact topology in this
diagram has two Front End Servers, so it supports up to 16,000 users. If you have a single
central site and more users, you can simply add Front End Servers to the pool. One Front
End pool can have as many as 10 servers, so a single Front End pool at a single site can
support up to 80,000 users.
However, the single site topology can support even more users by adding another Front End
pool to the site. To support these extra users, you need to add only one additional Front End
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
pool (that is, just one pool each of A/V Conferencing Servers, Edge Servers, and Directors
are sufficient, although more servers may need to be added to these pools).
A/V Conferencing Can Be Collocated in Smaller Organizations If this organization has
10,000 or fewer users, you could decide to collocate A/V Conferencing Services with the
Front End pool, instead of deploying a separate A/V Conferencing pool. For organizations
with 10,000 or more users, collocating these services is not recommended for performance
reasons.
Monitoring Server Database Options In this topology, the Monitoring Server is using the
same pair of database servers that the Front End pool uses. A topology in which the
Monitoring Server has its own database servers is also supported.
High Availability for All Server Pools In this example organization with 15,000 users, just
one Director server, Edge Server and A/V Conferencing server would be sufficient for
performance. However, there are pools of two servers of each type deployed to provide high
availability for each feature.
Branch Site Deployment Options The organization in this topology has Enterprise Voice
deployed as their voice solution. Branch Site 1 does not have a resilient wide area network
(WAN) link to the central site, so it has a Survivable Branch Appliance deployed to provide
telephone service in case the WAN link to the central site goes down. Branch Site 2 however
has a resilient WAN link, so only a public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateway is
needed. The PSTN gateway deployed there supports media bypass, so no Mediation Server
is needed at Branch Site B. For details about deciding what to install at a branch site, see
Branch Site Voice Resilience.
DNS Load Balancing The Front End pool, Edge Server pool, and the Director pool have
DNS load balancing for SIP traffic deployed. This eliminates the need for hardware load
balancers for Edge Servers, and significantly lessens the setup and maintenance of the
hardware load balancers for the other pools, as the hardware load balancers are needed only
for HTTP traffic. For details about DNS load balancing, see DNS Load Balancing in the
Planning for Other Features documentation.
Exchange UM Deployment This reference topology includes an Exchange Unified
Messaging (UM) Server, which runs Microsoft Exchange Server, not Lync Server. The
Exchange UM routing functionality for Lync Server runs on the Front End pool.
For details about Exchange UM, see On-Premises Exchange Unified Messaging Integration
and Hosted Exchange Unified Messaging Integration in the Planning for Enterprise Voice
documentation.
Edge Servers Recommended Although deploying an Edge Server is not required, it is
recommended for any size of deployment. You can maximize your Lync Server investment by
deploying an Edge Server to provide service to users currently outside your organization’s
firewalls. The benefits include the following:
Your organization’s own users can use Lync Server functionality, if they are working from
home or are out on the road.
Your users can invite outside users to participate in meetings.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
If you have a partner, vendor or customer organization that also uses Lync Server, you
can form a federated relationship with that organization. Your Lync Server deployment
would then recognize users from that federated organization, leading to better
collaboration.
Your users can exchange instant messages with users of public instant messaging (IM)
services (including Windows Live, AOL, and Yahoo!) and XMPP-based providers and
servers (for example, Google Talk and Jabber). A separate license might be required for
public IM connectivity with Windows Live, AOL, and Yahoo!
Reference Topology for Multiple Data Centers
The reference topology for multiple data centers is for any size of organization with more than
one central site. The exact topology in the following diagram is for an organization of 70,000
users, with 40,000 users at Central Site A and 30,000 at Central Site B. The type of topology
shown in this diagram can accommodate organizations with any number of users.
Note:
All capacity and performance numbers in this section pertain only to the Microsoft Lync
Server 2010 Release Candidate) release, and are subject to change in future releases.
This topology is shown in multiple diagrams, with an overview first followed by detailed views of
the central sites.
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Overview of the reference topology for multiple data centers
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Reference topology for multiple data centers: Detailed view of Central Site A
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Reference topology for multiple data centers: Detailed view of Central Site B
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Reference topology for multiple data centers: Detailed view of Central Site C
Active Directory Deployment All Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software
deployments reside in a single Active Directory forest. For this topology, the customer has
Lync Server deployed in two child domains, retail.contoso.com and
manufacturing.contoso.com.
To Accommodate More Users, Add More Front End Servers The organization in this
diagram has five Front End Servers at Central Site A (for 40,000 users), and four Front End
Servers at Central Site B (for 30,000 users). If either site needs to accommodate more users,
you can simply add Front End Servers to the pool at that site. One Front End pool can have
as many as 10 servers, so a single Front End pool at a single site can support up to 80,000
users.
However, each site can support even more users by adding another Front End pool to the
site. To support these extra users, you need to add only one additional Front End pool (that
is, just single pools at each site of A/V Conferencing Servers, Edge Servers, and Directors
are sufficient, although more servers may need to be added to these pools).
Using Standard Edition Server at a Branch Site Aside from its use in Lync Server, this
organization considers Site C as a branch site because it has only 600 employees. However,
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
the users there have many A/V conferences among themselves. If it was deployed in Lync
Server as a branch site, the media for these conferences would run across the wide area
network (WAN) to and from a central site with A/V Conferencing Server installed. To avoid this
potential performance problem, they have installed a Standard Edition server at this site,
which will host these conferences. And because a Standard Edition server is installed there,
Lync Server by definition considers it a central site, and it is treated as such in Topology
Builder and the Planning Tool.
As long as the users at this site have a pool in another site set as their backup registrar pool,
they will have high availability for Enterprise Voice—voice support will fail over to the backup
registrar site automatically. For a more complete high availability solution at this site, you
could deploy a second Standard Edition server there.
Although Site C is considered a central site, you do not have to deploy Edge Servers there. In
this example, Site C will use the Edge Servers deployed at Site A.
Monitoring Server and Archiving Server Collocation This organization deploys both
Monitoring Server and Archiving Server. For organizations that deploy both, we recommend
that you collocate them to save server investment. One Monitoring Server can support up to
100,000 users, and one Archiving Server can support up to 300,000 users.
Note that you need to deploy Monitoring Server and Archiving Server in only one central site.
If the link between the two central sites goes down, the Message Queuing (also known as
MSMQ) technology used by both Monitoring Server and Archiving Server helps preserve data
while the link is down.
In this topology, Monitoring Server and Archiving Server use a separate database server than
any Front End pool.. Topologies in which the Monitoring Server and Archiving Server share
the same database servers as the Front End pool are also supported, although on large
deployments such as this, separate database servers are recommended for performance.
Branch Site Deployment Options The organization in this topology has Enterprise Voice
deployed as their voice solution. Branch Sites 1 and 3 do not have a resilient WAN link to the
central site, so they have Survivable Branch Appliances deployed to provide telephone
service in case the WAN link to the central site goes down. Branch Site 2 however has a
resilient WAN link, so you need only a public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateway.
The PSTN gateway deployed there supports media bypass, so no Mediation Server is
needed at Branch Site B. For details about deciding what to install at a branch site, see
Planning for Branch-Site Voice Resiliency in the Planning for Enterprise Voice documentation.
SIP Trunking and Mediation Server Notice that at Site A, Mediation Server is not
collocated with the Front End Servers. This is because sites that use SIP trunking must
deploy Mediation Server in a separate pool from the Front End Servers. In all other instances,
we recommend you collocate Mediation Server with Front End Server.
DNS Load Balancing The Front End pool, Edge Server pool, and the Director pool have
DNS load balancing for SIP traffic deployed. This eliminates the need for hardware load
balancers for Edge Servers, and significantly decreases the amount of time you have to
spend on the setup and maintenance of the hardware load balancers for the other pools, as
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Planning for Your Organization: Microsoft Lync Server 2010
the hardware load balancers are needed only for HTTP traffic. For details about DNS load
balancing, see DNS Load Balancing in the Planning for Other Features documentation.
Exchange UM Deployment Lync Server 2010 works with both on-premise deployments of
Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) and hosted Exchange UM. Central Site A includes an
Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) Server, which runs Microsoft Exchange Server, not Lync
Server. The Exchange UM functionality for Lync Server runs on the Front End pool.
Central Site B uses hosted Exchange, so the Exchange UM Server functionality is also
hosted.
For details about Exchange UM, see On-Premises Exchange Unified Messaging Integration
and Hosted Exchange Unified Messaging Integration in the Planning for Enterprise Voice
documentation.
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