Edge Servers for Lync Server 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2011-05-02

The Microsoft Lync Server 2010 perimeter network is home to three edge services, each of which handles a particular type of traffic across the corporate firewall:

• The Access Edge service, formerly known as the Access Proxy, handles all SIP traffic crossing the corporate firewall. The Access Edge service is required for all external user scenarios, including conferencing, remote user access, federation, and public IM connectivity.

• The Web Conferencing Edge service proxies Persistent Shared Object Model (PSOM) traffic between the Web Conferencing service and external clients. External conference traffic must be authorized by the Web Conferencing Edge service before it is forwarded to the Web Conferencing service. The Web Conferencing Edge service requires that external clients use TLS connections and obtain a conference session key.

• The A/V Edge service provides a single trusted connection point through which audio and video traffic enters and exits your network. With an A/V Edge service, users can:

  • Add audio and video data to meetings with external participants.

  • Share audio and video directly with an external user (point-to-point).

  • Share their desktop and applications with external users through the Application Sharing Server, using IM and conferencing.

  • The A/V Edge service also handles audio for Enterprise Voice for external users.

For details about Edge Server configurations and topologies, see Planning for External User Access in the Planning documentation.

You must deploy an HTTP reverse proxy in your perimeter network to support participation of remote and federated users in IM and conferencing. The reverse proxy manages distribution-group expansion, address book file download, access to meeting content (such as slides) for remote and federated users, and software updates to clients and devices.