Microsoft Lync 2010: Finally, a communications server worth the effort

It looks like, in true Microsoft tradition, the third time is the charm. The new Lync Server 2010 unified communication server is not merely a relabeling of the previous Office Communications Server lineup — it’s real step forward in Microsoft’s communication product line.

To me, the first version of Exchange 2000 that provided an in-house corporate instant messaging feature was pure genius. Microsoft pulled that feature in Exchange 2003 and started down a path that has led us to the Office Communications Server lineup of servers and apps. But it was very complex to deploy, making it a less than satisfying product. Now comes Lync Server 2010.

Lync Server: Easier to deploy, while being more granular One of the first things I looked for in working with Lync Server deployment was the number of servers (physical or virtual) that I would need to get it up and running. Exchange, for example, has five server roles, but you need just one server (two is better). By comparison, Office Communications Server had an unwieldy number of required server roles and required too many servers to run them, so I was concerned about Lync Server’s role count and server requirements.

The good news is that although Lync Server has even more roles than Office Communications Server, you don’t need to install as many of them, and the net result is a reduction in server requirements. Note that alll of these roles must run on x64 hardware with a 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2, so you may need new server hardware and new server operating systems to deploy Lync Server 2010.

One nice aspect of having this higher number of finer-grained roles in Lync Server is that as with Exchange, you can deploy many of them together on one machine (aka collocation) or install them separately for larger environments that require each role to have more individual power. For the record, here are Lync Server’s roles: archiving and monitoring, audio/videoconferencing, central management, director, edge server, group chat, Lync Web application, mediation, reach application sharing, survivable branch appliance, unified communications application server, and Web conferencing.

Deploying Office Communications Server was always a huge pain, requiring a tremendous amount of education for IT admins already struggling to learn about SharePoint collaboration, unified messaging, and BI tools in the past 10 years. Lync Server is unfortunately just as complex as Office Communication Server, but the new Lync Server 2010 planning tool takes some of the stress out of the deployment. At first, it looks like the Office Communications Server planning tool, but as you get into it you’ll see the many new features, such as improved Visio site topology drawings, support for more topologies for Enterprise Voice and dial-in conferencing, and firewall and IP addressing views.

One of the best aspects of the Lync Server 2010 planning tool is its ability to let you design your deployment, then export that design to a configuration file you can use to automate the deployment of the Lync Server.

What’s better in Lync Server 2010 There are several changes in the overall architecture of Lync Server that differentiates it from its predecessors:

• Central management store: A centralized configuration database that saves configuration data for the deployment. This master configuration database replicates configuration information to all servers in the deployment. (Previously, the data was held in both a database and in Active Directory.)
• New management control panel: Based on Silverlight and built from PowerShell, this new interface replaces the MMC version and allows administration through a Silverlight-supported browser so that an administrator can log on to the control panel from any compatible computer.
• PowerShell support: Lync Server has some configuration options not available through the control panel; you access these options through the Lync Server PowerShell interface, which replaces WMI configuration.

In addition to some of these bigger changes to the management side to the server, there are improvements to the monitoring features as well. For example, Microsoft plans to release a better management pack for System Center Operations Manager that will more accurately issue alerts, reducing false positives. Microsoft also plans PowerShell-based synthetic transactions, which are basically simulation tests you can run through cmdlets to test your system. There is a new dashboard report for administrators to see at-a-glance information regarding the health and usage of the server.

Lync Server also includes the following new voice capabilities:

• Branch office resiliency and data center resiliency: If you are to trust your voice calls to a Lync environment, you have to believe there is some resiliency in play. New options provide greater branch office and data center resiliency by letting you look at failures of the WAN link for the branch office, or the loss of an entire data center, so that core voice features are still available to users. The key to this resiliency will be devices called survivable branch appliances that will be backup registrars (ready to be the primary) for Lync clients in the event there is a failure. The appliance will route calls through a local gateway to the public phone network if the WAN goes down.
• CAC (Call Admission Control): This has been the focus of quite a bit of attention for Office Communication Server admins because it lets you ensure there is enough bandwidth before establishing the call. CAC allows administrators to control the number of calls that occur simultaneously based upon the bandwidth available. There are some incredibly powerful policies that admins can take advantage of by having audio and video sent over different routes if necessary, as well as reroute calls to the Internet or over the public phone network if the WAN link bandwidth is not sufficient.
• Call park: A feature for receptionists to place calls on hold where the intended person called can retrieve the call.
• E.911 (Enhanced 911): This is a required VoIP feature for handling emergency calls that the FCC has pushed providers to offer.
• Common-area phones: These are phones you see in lobbies, conference rooms, hot-desk situations, and so forth — phones that aren’t assigned to a specific user. Admins can deploy these special phones and configure them to meet certain standards (for example, you might not want to allow long-distance calls on the common-area phone).
• Media bypass: This allows the Mediation Server role to be bypassed, which ultimately allows for the Mediation Server role to be installed on the front end, reducing the number of servers needed for a Lync deployment.
• Conferencing and real-time collaboration: Live Meeting is no longer needed as conferencing is integrated into Lync 2010. The applications have been improved, including the Office Web App-based conference experience.
• SharePoint integration: This allows users to perform keyword or skill-based searches from Lync clients. In addition, recorded meetings can be saved directly to a SharePoint asset library.

There is more to talk about here, so stay tuned for a review of the clients that work with Lync Server 2010.

And I have to say that renaming Office Communication Server to the snazzier Lync Server was a good idea — the change might get admins to take another look at this product and see if it fits in their environment of ever-aging PBXs. But more important, Lync Server is about needed enhancements.

This article, “Microsoft Lync 2010: Finally, a communications server worth the effort,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of J. Peter Bruzzese’s Enterprise Windows blog and follow the latest developments in networking and Windows at InfoWorld.com.