Chapter 1: Planning Primer

Planning for Your Organization

Microsoft Lync Server 2010

Published: November 2010

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Contents
Planning Primer: Planning for Your Organization.........................................................................5 Beginning the Planning Process............................................................................................... 5 Topology Basics You Must Know Before Planning...................................................................8 Sites...................................................................................................................................... 8 Server Roles......................................................................................................................... 9 Initial Planning Decisions....................................................................................................... 13 Clients for Lync Server 2010.................................................................................................. 14 Reference Topologies............................................................................................................. 16 Reference Topology With Limited High Availability..............................................................16 Reference Topology With High Availability and a Single Data Center.................................18 Reference Topology for Multiple Data Centers....................................................................21

Planning Primer: Planning for Your Organization

The topics in this section help you get started with planning your Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software deployment.

In This Section
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. Important: At this time, the Planning Tool that is described in this documentation is a prerelease version. Final release of the Planning Tool is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2011. For details about the release candidate, see the release notes that accompany the Planning Tool. Importing from a prerelease version of the Planning Tool to the final version of Topology Builder is not supported. Note that the capacity planning numbers in the Planning Tool are preliminary and are not supported for the final release. 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. Clients for Lync Server 2010 describes the different types of client software that you can deploy to your organizations users, including computer-installed client software, web-based clients, and mobile devices. 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 Process

Important: At this time, the Planning Tool that is described in this documentation is a prerelease version. Final release of the Planning Tool is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2011. For details about the release candidate, see the release notes that accompany the Planning Tool. Importing from a prerelease version of the Planning Tool to the final version of Topology Builder is not supported. Note that the capacity planning numbers in the Planning Tool are preliminary and are not supported for the final release. While 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 presents a series of questions about your organization, the Lync Server features that 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 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. Note: At this time, the Planning Tool that is described in this documentation is a prerelease version. Final release of the Planning Tool is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2011. For details about the release candidate, see the release notes that accompany the Planning Tool. Importing from a prerelease version of the Planning Tool to the final version of Topology Builder is not supported. Note that the capacity planning numbers in the Planning Tool are preliminary and are not supported for the final release.

Lync Server 2010 Topology Builder

Topology Builder takes the XML file provided by the Planning Tool, and displays the topology. Then, you can use Topology Builder to make final adjustments, such as specifying IP addresses and fully qualified domain names (FQDNs). After you are satisfied, you use Topology Builder to 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. When you 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 in the Getting Started documentation to familiarize yourself with the new features and requirements in Lync Server 2010. 3. Read the other topics in this section: Topology Basics You Must Know Before Planning, Initial Planning Decisions, Clients for Lync Server 2010, 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. 5. If there are particular workloads or features you are interested in or need to learn about, read the appropriate sections of Planning for Microsoft 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 Determining Your System Requirements and Determining Your Infrastructure Requirements in the Planning documentation to familiarize yourself with the prerequisites and necessary infrastructure for Lync Server. Additionally, be sure you have read all the sections of Planning for Microsoft Lync Server 2010 that apply to the workloads and features that you plan to deploy. Note: At this time, the Planning Tool that is described in this documentation is a prerelease version. Final release of the Planning Tool is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2011. For details about the release candidate, see the release notes that accompany the

Planning Tool. Importing from a prerelease version of the Planning Tool to the final version of Topology Builder is not supported. Note that the capacity planning numbers in the Planning Tool are preliminary and are not supported for the final release.

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 Planning

You 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. Note: At this time, the Planning Tool that is described in this documentation is a prerelease version. Final release of the Planning Tool is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2011. For details about the release candidate, see the release notes that accompany the Planning Tool. Importing from a prerelease version of the Planning Tool to the final version of Topology Builder is not supported. Note that the capacity planning numbers in the Planning Tool are preliminary and are not supported for the final release. Before you learn about the various components in more depth, you should understand the following basic aspects of Lync Server topologies.

In This Section
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 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 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. The Survivable Branch Appliance is an industry-standard blade server with a Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Registrar and Mediation Server running on Windows Server 2008 R2. The Survivable Branch Appliance also contains a PSTN gateway. The Survivable Branch Appliance is designed for branch sites with between 25 and 1000 users. A Survivable Branch Server, which is another new device introduced in Lync Server 2010. The Survivable Branch Server is a server running Windows Server that meets specified hardware requirements, and that has Lync Server 2010 Registrar and Mediation Server software installed on it. It must connect to either a PSTN gateway or a SIP trunk to a telephone service provider. The Survivable Branch Server is designed for branch sites with between 1000 and 5000 users. 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 third option, a PSTN gateway and optionally a Mediation Server. Branch office sites with less-resilient links should use a Survivable Branch Appliance or Survivable Branch Server, which provide resiliency in times of wide-area network failures. For example, in a site with a Survivable Branch Appliance or Survivable Branch Server 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, Survivable Branch Server, and resiliency, see Planning for Enterprise Voice Resiliency in the Planning 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 to the branch site that are not located locally at the branch site, such as presence and conferencing.

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. Important: At this time, the Planning Tool that is described in this documentation is a prerelease version. Final release of the Planning Tool is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2011. For details about the release candidate, see the release notes that accompany the Planning Tool. Importing from a prerelease version of the Planning Tool to the final version of Topology Builder is not supported. Note that the capacity planning numbers in the Planning Tool are preliminary and are not supported for the final release. 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. 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, including 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. One Standard Edition server supports as many as 5,000 users. 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 multiparty IM conferences Web conferencing and application sharing (if deployed)

Application hosting services, for both applications included with Lync Server (for example, Conferencing Attendant andResponse Group application) and third-party applications Application services for application hosting and hosts applications (for example, Response Group application, and several others)

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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 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, users' Contacts lists, conferencing data including persistent data about the state of all current conferences, and conference scheduling data. Front End Server Scalability In a Front End pool, you should have one Front End Server for every 10,000 users homed in the pool, plus an additional Front End Server to provide good performance when one server is unavailable. The maximum number of users in one Front End pool is 80,000. If you have more than 80,000 users at a site, you can deploy more than one Front End pool. The additional Front End Server ensures good performance in case one server is unavailable. When an active server is unavailable, its connections are transferred automatically to the other servers in the pool. For example, if you have 30,000 users and three Front End Servers, then when one server is unavailable, the connections of 10,000 users need to be transferred to the other two servers, for an average of 5,000 per server. If you start with four Front End Servers for your 30,000 users, then when one is unavailable a total of 7,500 users will be moved to three other servers, for an average of 2,500 per server. This is a much more manageable load. 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 documentation. A/V Conferencing Server Scalability If you deploy A/V Conferencing Server separately, you need one A/V Conferencing Server for each 20,000 users at a site. At a minimum we recommend two A/V Conferencing Servers for high availability. Edge Server Edge Server enables your users to communicate and collaborate with users outside the organizations firewalls. These external users can include the organizations 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 Planning for External User Access in the Planning documentation. Edge Server Scalability

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For performance, you should deploy one Edge Server for every 15,000 users you expect to access a site remotely. At a minimum we recommend two Edge Servers for high availability. 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 a public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateway, IP-PBX, or a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunk. For details, see Mediation Server Component in the Planning documentation. Mediation Server Scalability For details about Mediation Server scalability, see Estimating Voice Usage and Traffic in the Planning 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 Planning for Monitoring in the Planning documentation. Monitoring Server Scalability One Monitoring Server can support up to 250,000 users if it is not collocated with Archiving Server. If collocated, it can support up to 100,000 users. 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 in the Planning documentation. Archiving Server Scalability One Archiving Server can support up to 500,000 users if it is not collocated with Monitoring Server. If collocated, it can support up to 100,000 users. 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 documentation. Director Scalability For performance, you should deploy one Director for every 15,000 users who will access a site remotely. At a minimum we recommend two Directors for high availability.

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Initial Planning Decisions

The 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 documentation. 2. Instant messaging (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 users presence status provides information to help others decide whether they should try to contact the user, and by what means. For details, see Planning for IM and Presence in the Planning 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 Planning for Conferencing in the Planning 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 is unavailable. 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 or VoIP phones 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 conferencingavailable and integrated on their computers. For details, see Planning for Enterprise Voice in the Planning documentation.

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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 voice mail notices and listen to voice mail from Outlook or Outlook Web Access, 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 organizations own users to benefit from Lync Server features even when they are working outside your organizations 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 others presence. Additionally, your users can use an email message to invite specific outside users to conferences that 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 data center, you can install a Survivable Branch Appliance or Survivable Branch Server 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 Planning documentation.

Clients for Lync Server 2010

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software supports several types of client software that you can deploy to your organizations 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 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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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, 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 in the Planning 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 isnt practical or possible to install Lync 2010 Attendee. All of the in-meeting features except computer audio, video, and PowerPoint presentations are available to Lync Web App users. 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 in the Planning 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 onscreen routing. Although previous versions of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Attendant supported both manager/delegate scenarios and receptionist scenarios, Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendant is designed for the receptionist scenario only. If necessary, a delegate can use Lync 2010 Attendant to receive calls for the manager, but delegate features are now provided in Lync 2010.

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.

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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.

Reference Topologies
The ideal Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software topology depends on your organizations 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.

In This Section
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.

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Reference topology with limited high availability

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.

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 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 and receive calls (both calls within the organization and PSTN calls), have voice mail functionality, communicate with two-party instant messaging (IM). Users can also be authenticated when the WAN link is unavailable as well. Edge Server deployment is recommended. Although deploying an Edge Server is not required for internal 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 organizations firewalls. The benefits include the following: Your organizations 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! A separate license might be required for public IM connectivity with Windows Live, AOL, and Yahoo! If you also deploy the Lync Server XMPP Gateway, you can enable your users to exchange instant messages with the users of providers and servers that use Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), such as Google Talk and Jabber. Note: To use XMPP, you must install the XMPP Gateway. You can download the XMPP Gateway from the Microsoft Download Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/? LinkId=202714. After you install the XMPP Gateway, you need to install the hotfix, which is available for download from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/? LinkId=204561.

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-tomedium 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.

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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. Accommodate more users by adding more Front End Servers. The exact topology in this diagram has three Front End Servers, so it supports up to 20,000 users. If you have a single central site and more users, you can simply add Front End Servers to the pool. The maximum number of users per pool is 80,000, with eight Front End Servers. 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 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 Services 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.

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 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 maintain many Lync Server features 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 2. For details about deciding what to deploy at a branch site, see Planning for Branch-Site Voice Resiliency in the Planning documentation. 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 the 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 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 documentation. Edge Servers are 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 organizations firewalls. The benefits include the following: Your organizations 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! Note that a separate license might be required for public IM connectivity with Windows Live, AOL, and Yahoo! If you also deploy the Lync Server XMPP Gateway, you can enable your users to exchange instant messages with the users of providers and servers that use Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), such as Google Talk and Jabber. Note: To use XMPP, you must install the XMPP Gateway. You can download the XMPP Gateway from the Microsoft Download Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/? LinkId=202714. After you install the XMPP Gateway, you need to install the hotfix, which is available for download from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/? LinkId=204561.

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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. This topology is shown in multiple diagrams, with an overview first followed by detailed views of the central sites. Overview of the reference topology for multiple data centers

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Reference topology for multiple data centers: Detailed view of Central Site A

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Reference topology for multiple data centers: Detailed view of Central Site B

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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. Accommodate more users by adding 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. The maximum number of users per pool is 80,000, with eight Front End Servers. 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, 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

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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. Important: At this time, the Planning Tool that is described in this documentation is a prerelease version. Final release of the Planning Tool is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2011. For details about the release candidate, see the release notes that accompany the Planning Tool. Importing from a prerelease version of the Planning Tool to the final version of Topology Builder is not supported. Note that the capacity planning numbers in the Planning Tool are preliminary and are not supported for the final release. 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 Voicevoice 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. When collocated, Monitoring Server and Archiving Server can each support up to 100,000 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 temporarily 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 Enterprise Voice Resiliency in the Planning documentation. SIP trunking and Mediation Server. Notice that at Site A, Mediation Server is not collocated with the Front End Servers. This is because standalone Mediation Server is recommended for sites that use SIP trunking. In most other instances, we recommend you collocate Mediation Server with Front End Server. For details about Mediation Server

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topologies, see Components and Topologies for Mediation Server in the Planning documentation. 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 the internal interface of the 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 the hardware load balancers are needed only for HTTP traffic. For details about DNS load balancing, see DNS Load Balancing in the Planning documentation. Exchange UM deployment. Lync Server 2010 works with both on-premises 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 documentation.

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