The Director server role is supported only in the internal, trusted network. A Director authenticates internal users, external users, or both. When it is used to authenticate external users, the Director is deployed between an Edge Server and a Front End Server of an Enterprise pool.
When a Director is used to authenticate external users, it relieves Enterprise pool servers from the overhead of performing authentication of these users. It also helps insulate home servers and Enterprise pools from malicious traffic such as denial-of-service attacks; if the network is flooded with invalid external traffic in such an attack, this traffic ends at the Director, and internal users should not see any effect on performance.
A Director is recommended in topologies that support external user access. This recommendation applies to either single or multiple internal pools for either Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition.
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| A Director is recommended, but not required, in topologies that support external user access. |
A Director is supported in the following topologies:
- A single Standard Edition server configured as a Director
- An Enterprise pool configured as a Director
An array of Standard Edition servers cannot be used as a Director.
A Director can be deployed by using an Office Communications Server Enterprise Edition product key. In an Enterprise Edition topology, a pool of Directors is deployed as an array behind a hardware load balancer for internal, external, or both types of users.
See Also