The document discusses capacity planning and design examples for Lync Server deployments of various sizes, from small to very large. It covers topics like standard vs enterprise editions, front end pool sizing and redundancy, remote access planning, and designing for large meetings. Examples range from a 1,000 user single-site standard edition deployment to a 100,000 user global deployment spread across data centers with high availability. The key takeaway is to understand capacity and availability needs to properly size all aspects of the architecture.

1. Lync Server Top to Bottom, Big to Small
Justin Morris
Lync MVP
Senior Consultant – Modality Systems
@justimorris
http://www.justin-morris.net
justimorris@outlook.com

2. What I’ll Cover
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Introduction
Understanding Capacity Planning
Design Examples – Small to Large
Interesting and Unusual Deployments
Architecting for Large Meetings
Key Takeaways
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3. Introduction
• Gathering business requirements drives these
architecture decisions.
• High availability and capacity are generally the
biggest drivers.
• Right-sizing all parts of the environment is
important.
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4. Understanding Capacity Planning
• Standard Edition still has 5,000 user capacity
• Planning for Pool Pairing impacts capacity planning
for SE
• 2x SE servers paired = 2,500 users per server
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5. Understanding Capacity Planning
• One Enterprise Edition Front End server can host
6,600 users
• Maximum number of users in a Front End pool is
80,000
• Maximum number of Front End Servers in a pool is
12
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6. Understanding Capacity Planning
• One Edge Server and/or Director Server per 12,000
remote users
• Conferencing capacity per pool is based on 5% of
the user pop being in a conference at any one time
• Maximum conference size is 250 participants
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7. Understanding Capacity Planning
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Don’t forget voice capacity planning!
How many ISDN circuits do you need to support?
How many gateways/SBCs do you need?
How many channels do you need on your SIP
trunks (both to PSTN and legacy PBX)?
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8. Design Example – 1000 users
• Standard Edition
• Single site or
multiple site?
• In-site or cross-site
DR? Very hard to
provide both with
pool pairing
INTERNET
DMZ
EDGE1
LAN
Lync Server 2013
Standard Edition
Server 1
EDGE2
Federated Partners &
External Users
Reverse
Proxy
Reverse
Proxy
Lync Server 2013
Standard Edition
Server 2
PSTN
Sonus SBC 1000 x2
Office
Web Apps
Server 1
SQL1
London Data Centre
SIP/TLS (5061)
SIP/TCP (5060)
HTTPS (443)
Backup Service
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9. Design Example – 5000 users
• Enterprise Edition – 3x Front
Ends with SQL Backend
Mirroring
• Recommended minimum is 3
FEs for any EE pool
• Overspecced, but too many
users for Standard Edition
Lync 2013 Front End Pool
Lync
FE1
Lync
FE3
Principal
Mirror
SQL Mirroring
Local Storage
PChat 1
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Lync
FE2
Microsoft Unified Communications User Group London (MUCUGL)
Witness
Local Storage
WAC 1
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10. Design Example – 25,000 users
• Enterprise Edition – 5x
FE
• Provides 1+1
redundancy
• Pool pairing? Scope a
second pool with the
same # of FEs
Lync 2013 Front End Pool
Lync
FE1
Lync
FE3
Lync
FE5
Lync
FE4
Principal
Mirror
SQL Mirroring
Local Storage
PChat 1
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Lync
FE2
PChat 2
Microsoft Unified Communications User Group London (MUCUGL)
Witness
Local Storage
WAC 1
WAC 2
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11. Design Example – 100,000 users
• 2x Enterprise
Edition pools
• 66k user capacity
per pool
• Location of pools
depends on
location of users
• Provides 1+1
redundancy
Lync 2013 Front End Pool 1
Lync
FE2
Lync
FE3
Lync
FE4
Lync
FE6
Lync
FE7
Lync
FE8
Lync
FE9
Principal
Lync
FE5
Lync
FE2
Lync
FE3
Lync
FE4
Lync
FE5
Lync
FE10
Mirror
Lync
FE1
Lync
FE6
Lync
FE7
Lync
FE8
Lync
FE9
Lync
FE10
Principal
Mirror
SQL Mirroring
Local Storage
PChat 1
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Lync 2013 Front End Pool 2
Lync
FE1
PChat 2
Witness
SQL Mirroring
Local Storage
WAC 1
Local Storage
WAC 2
PChat 1
Microsoft Unified Communications User Group London (MUCUGL)
PChat 2
Witness
Local Storage
WAC 1
WAC 2
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12. Interesting and Unusual Deployments
• True Global Deployment – FE pool
in London, SEs in New York,
Singapore and Sydney. 20+ SBAs
scattered around the globe
• 15k+ user deployment with
resiliency within and across data
centres
50% of users
50% of users
DC1
DC2
Lync 2013 Director Pool
File
Share
File
Share
Lync 2013 Front End Pool 1
Lync
FE1
Lync
FE2
Lync 2013 Front End Pool 2
Lync
FE3
Principal
Lync
FE1
Pool Pairing
Mirror
Witness
Lync
FE3
Principal
Mirror
SQL Mirroring
Local Storage
Lync
FE2
SQL Mirroring
Local Storage
Local Storage
Witness
Local Storage
Lync 2013 Persistent Chat Pool
UM 1
PChat 1
UM 3
PChat 2
Office Web Apps Farm
UM 2
UM 4
WAC 1
WAC 2
Lync 2013 Mediation Server Pool
MED 1
SBC 1
MED 2
MED 3
MED 4
SBC 2
SBC 3
SBC 4
Existing Sonus SBC 2000 Platform
SIP/TLS (5061)
SQL
SMB
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13. Architecting for Large Meetings
• 1000 participant meetings require a dedicated
Front End pool
• One, single conference at a time
• Minimum of 1 FE required, HA is up to you
• Best practice is to create a special user account in
this pool to be used only to host large meetings
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14. Key Takeaways
• Understand capacity and feature requirements
early to enable you to plan the architecture
• Balance capacity and availability requirements
• Right-size every piece of the environment, not just
the Front End pool
• At the very least, optimise architecture for voice
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15. Questions?
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