Reference topology for Lync Server 2013 in small organizations

Topic Last Modified: 2013-10-07

The reference topology for small organizations shows how you can deploy a robust, highly available solution by deploying only three servers running Lync Server.

Reference topology for small organizations

• Pair of Standard Edition Servers Deployed    This organization has 4,000 users at their central site. The organization has deployed two Standard Edition servers and paired them together to enable high availability and disaster recovery. Each server homes 2,000 users, but information about all users is synchronized between the two servers. If one goes down, an administrator can fail over those users to be served by the other server, with a minimum of disruption to users. For more information about high availability and disaster recovery features in Lync Server 2013, see Planning for high availability and disaster recovery in Lync Server 2013.

• Edge Server deployment is recommended.   Although deploying an Edge Server is not required for internal IM, presence and conferencing, we recommend it 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, Yahoo!, and Google Talk. A separate license might be required for public IM connectivity with these services.

    Important

    • As of September 1st, 2012, the Microsoft Lync Public IM Connectivity User Subscription License (“PIC USL”) is no longer available for purchase for new or renewing agreements. Customers with active licenses will be able to continue to federate with Yahoo! Messenger until the service shut down date. An end of life date of June 2014 for AOL and Yahoo! has been announced. For details, see Support for public instant messenger connectivity in Lync Server 2013.

    • The PIC USL is a per-user per-month subscription license that is required for Lync Server or Office Communications Server to federate with Yahoo! Messenger. Microsoft’s ability to provide this service has been contingent upon support from Yahoo!, the underlying agreement for which is winding down.

    • More than ever, Lync is a powerful tool for connecting across organizations and with individuals around the world. Federation with Windows Live Messenger requires no additional user/device licenses beyond the Lync Standard CAL. Skype federation will be added to this list, enabling Lync users to reach hundreds of millions of people with IM and voice.

• Branch site survivability.   This organization is running a pilot program of the Enterprise Voice feature of Lync Server. Some users are using Lync Server as their sole voice solution. Some of these Voice pilot users are located at the branch site. The branch site 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, and communicate with two-party instant messaging (IM). Users can also be authenticated when the WAN link is unavailable as well.

• Exchange UM deployment. This reference topology includes an Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) Server, which runs Microsoft Exchange Server, not Lync Server.

  For details about Exchange UM, see Planning for Exchange Unified Messaging integration in Lync Server 2013 and Hosted Exchange Unified Messaging integration in Lync Server 2013 in the Planning documentation.

• Office Web Apps Server. We recommend deploying an Office Web Apps Server or Office Web Apps Server farm in every organization that uses web conferencing. Office Web Apps Server makes it possible for PowerPoint slides to be presented in web conferences. For more information, see Configuring integration with Office Web Apps Server and Lync Server 2013.