• Article

Edge Deployment Tools

 

Topic Last Modified: 2011-04-11

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 includes two tools to facilitate planning and deployment of both internal servers and Edge Servers. We recommend running them on a local workstation first to plan your design. After the topology is completed, upload the resulting topology definition to your production environment. To do this, you must be a member of the Domain Admins group and the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group.

  • Planning Tool   Office Communications Server 2007 R2 included a Planning Tool and an Edge Planning Tool that you could use to help guide topology design. In Lync Server 2010, these two tools have been combined into a single Lync Server 2010, Planning Tool that has additional features and functionality, including the ability to generate an XML-based topology document.

  • Topology Builder   Lync Server 2010 Topology Builder helps you define your topology and components. Topology Builder is essential to deploying servers running Lync Server 2010. Topology Builder can use the XML topology file provided by the Planning Tool to start the initial design of your topology, or you can skip the Planning Tool and use the Topology Builder to design your deployment. Topology Builder publishes the results to a Central Management store that is used to configure all of the servers running Lync Server 2010 in your organization. You cannot install Lync Server 2010 on servers without using Topology Builder.

If you built your edge topology during your planning process, including running Topology Builder to define your edge topology, you can use those results to start your Edge Server deployment. If you did not finish building your edge topology earlier or you want to change the information you previously specified, you must finish running Topology Builder before proceeding with other deployment steps. For details about how to build your topology, see Topologies for External User Access.

For details about the Planning Tool and Topology Builder, see Beginning the Planning Process in the Planning documentation.