How to Plan for a Lync

Deployment on a Global Scale

Presented by Certified Lync Masters Keenan Crockett & Jason Sloan

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We help clients implement business-driven technology solutions that integrate business

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Our Speakers

Jason Sloan | Lead Technical Consultant

• Microsoft Certified Master - Lync Server, over 5 years of IT consulting experience focused on UC, has deployed Lync for some of the largest global companies with upward of 140k seats

• Responsible for design and delivery of Unified Communication solutions

• Co-organizer of the Kansas City Lync Users Group

• Avid contributor in the Lync Community, active on Twitter and Perficient Microsoft blog

Keenan Crockett | Lync Team Lead & Senior Solution Architect

• Microsoft Certified Master - Lync Server, over 9 years of IT consulting experience focused on UC, has deployed Lync for some of the largest global companies

• Responsible for selling and delivering UC solutions for complex business environments

• Supervises all Lync team members and provides architecture, escalation and oversight for large and complex UC projects

Agenda

• Project Overview

– Goals & Requirements

– Project Approach Overview

– Project Resourcing

• Lync Server/Pool Considerations

• Hardware vs. Virtualization Debate

• Network Readiness

• Deployment Considerations

• PSTN Connectivity Considerations

• What’s Next

Goals & Requirements

• What are your business requirements?

• What are your business goals?

• What are your technical requirements?

• What are your technical goals?

• Have you documented and tracked these goals and

requirements?

• Have you communicated these goals and requirements with

global stakeholders?

Project Overview

Reduce operational costs by implementing Lync 2013

Establish Lync Infrastructure Design

Detail Infrastructure Design

Change Management

Deploy Infrastructure Architecture

Build and Deploy Lync

Project Overview

Project Goals and Steps

Project Stage Consisting Of:

Establish Lync Infrastructure Design Review Current State: AD Forest and Domain, Regional Data Centers, Network Points, Communication InfrastructureReview VoIP CapabilitiesDocument, Review and Approval of Design

Detail Infrastructure Design Regional AssessmentRegional Infrastructure Design: Server Placement, PBX Gateway Placement, SIP Trunking Gateway PlacementMigration StrategyRisk Analysis and Mitigation

Change Management Communication and Training Planning

Build & Deploy Lync Deployment as Defined in Detailed Design

Project Overview

Successful Project Resourcing

Project Manager

Program Manager

Regional Resources

Technical Resources

Technical Resources

Project Manager

Perficient Client

Global Design Assumption

• Lync Server 2013 “Core” Design

– Lync Server 2013 to be distributed to all major regions

Assessing Lync Server 2013 Global Readiness Agenda

• What does your business demand? Business requirements drive the design.

– Server Design and Pool Placement (Localization)• Internal Servers

• DMZ’s, Reverse Proxies and Edge Servers

• Overlooked Infrastructure

– Hardware vs. Virtualization debate

– Network • Capacity and Bandwidth Planning

• Health and assessing things like latency and jitter

• Traffic Prioritization (QoS)

– Deployment Considerations• End User Acceptance

• Lync Server/Client Support and Management

• Deployment Ownership

• Involve other regions from the beginning

– PSTN Connectivity Considerations• SIP Trunking

• Hardware Considerations

Server Design and Pool Placement

• Infrastructure Choices (Assuming full workloads)

– Standard Edition Server “Pool”: Non HA deployment Per Region• 4 Servers minimum: Supports up to 5000 Users

– Front End

– Edge

– SQL

– Office Web Apps

– Enterprise Edition Server “Pool”: Full HA Deployment Per Region• 12 Servers minimum: Supports up to 6600 Users per Front End

– Front Ends (3)

– Edge (2)

– SQL (3)

– Office Web Apps (2)

– Persistent Chat (2) (Less Common)

– Disaster Recovery• Lync Server Front End Server Pools “Pair” in a 1:1 relationship

• 1:1 pairing relationship pushes your organization to an even number of “Pools”

• Must be same version for pairing

Server Design and Pool Placement

• DMZ Per Region… Ideally

– Edge Servers for media

• Keeps media local

• Media traveling between regions can be problematic

• Optimal user experience

• Disaster Recovery

– Reverse Proxy for web

• Web Access is “light weight”

• Can be a bit more relaxed on total amount of Reverse Proxies

• Still want at least 2 regions with Reverse Proxies for DR

– Overlooked Hardware Infrastructure

• Session Border Controllers and Gateways

• Firewalls, switches and Routers

• Hardware Load Balancers

Server Design and Pool Placement

Be prepared to make this decision and avoid “Sticker Shock”:

It is generally understood that an organization may not know exactly all

infrastructure needed until after design sessions.

To keep the project moving, understand now that a significant investment

may be required once your partner or internal team understands the

business requirements and then ultimately presents you with a best

practice design.

Lync Server 2013 Global Footprint

Hardware vs. Virtualization

Hardware

– Advantages

• Dedicated to the application

• Don’t need to collaborate with VM teams

• Generally more stable, SQL Mirroring typically exposes issues with

VMs

– Disadvantages

• Hardware failure, not easy to “spin up” another Lync Server

• Can be cost prohibitive

• If an organization has standardized on VMWare, using Hardware is

difficult to procure

Hardware vs. Virtualization

Virtualized

– Advantages

• Generally considered cheaper, Lower TCO

• Can quickly “spin up” a failed server

• Requires less hardware to manage

– Disadvantages

• Lync Server has tight requirements

• Cannot use HA and DR capabilities at the Hypervisor level

• Can be flaky. As stated above, SQL Mirroring will expose issues

• Does not support Live Migration, Vmotion or dynamic resource

Hardware vs. Virtualization

Be prepared to make this decision in the best interest of

your organization:

Unsupported features such as Vmotion and lack of dynamic resources

typically lead to long, drawn out conversations of back and forth between

VM teams and Lync teams, which ultimately delays the project.

If your organization has a requirement to stay within supportability, then

it’s best to follow the recommendations.

If an organization chooses the unsupported path, then the organization

should open a support ticket with Microsoft directly to explain the situation

and come to an agreement with Microsoft.

Network Readiness

Network Elements

– Bandwidth Planning

• Assess user locations and available bandwidth

• Determine user profiles

• Work with network team on Lync Server Bandwidth Calculator to determine

impact/upgrades

• Create policies based on results

• Apply Call Admission Control

– Health Check (Optional)

• Network Assessment (third party) using probes

– Test lines for jitter, latency and things of that nature

– QoS and Prioritization

• Use existing queues

• Create new queues

• Tag at the desktop using Group Policy

Network Readiness

Be prepared to make this decision:

It is generally recommended to get your network “Lync Ready” prior to

rolling out the Lync client for heavy media usage.

The primary reason for this recommendation is to achieve optimal user

experience and adoption without creating a negative tone around Lync.

It is not, however, a reason to slow infrastructure decisions such as server

requirements mentioned above for deployment of Lync Server 2013.

If Lync will be the voice and conferencing replacement, it is highly

recommended to identify network restrained areas, fix them with policies

or upgrades, or simply communicate to users the expectations.

Network Readiness

Conferencing using hosted provider

– Traffic may be leaving locally

Network Readiness

Conferencing using Lync Server 2013

– Traffic will traverse MPLS

Deployment Considerations

• End user acceptance and rollout

– Avoid “poisoning the well”

– Consider training

– Device choices – provide workshops

• Client and back-end system support

– RBAC model

– Consider tiered support model

– Server and voice teams will now blend

– Managed services

Deployment Considerations

• Deployment ownership

– Identify stakeholders

– Identify business requirements

– Expect to make plenty of decisions along the way

– Own the project

– Partners will bring best practices and recommendations, not all will

be applicable to your environment

• Involve all regions from the beginning

– Regional deployment should be viewed as individual deployments

– Countries have different laws and regulations

– If not included early, the Lync project essentially restarts in each

region… from the beginning

PSTN Connectivity for Voice

• SIP Trunking is not the “end-all, be-all” solution

– North America is spoiled

– International carriers don’t typically share

– PSTN connectivity may stay the same in some locations

– Based on research and references, many locations (e.g. European

Union member states and Russia) restrict global SIP providers from

providing access

• (e.g. Belgium, Finland, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Dubai)

– The single trunking vendor approach may cause unnecessary

expenses

• Telco providers make agreements with the local vendors in each of the different

countries to provide the service.

• This creates an additional cost that they describe as “interconnection charges,”

typically based on expensive per minute usage.

PSTN Connectivity for Voice

• Hardware considerations

– Replace “core” telephony system with Lync

– Branch sites may require hardware swap

– Consider SBA vs. SBS+Gateway, vs. Full blown Lync

server+Gateway

– Savings will come from reducing PBX maintenance sprawl and

various “soft-costs”

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