Specifications

6 Reference Architecture | Dell
TM
Unified Communication Solution with Microsoft® Lync® Server 2013 for Single Site
Implementation | Version 1.0
1 Introduction
Unified Communication is becoming increasingly critical for organizations to have an efficient, flexible and
effective work experience. It not only enables and provides the benefits of having real-time
communication between peers, whether local, remote or geographically disbursed, but also enables
instant communication with partners, suppliers and directly with customers. Further, all of these
capabilities are provided while reducing the telephony, travel and IT cost.
This Dell
TM
Unified Communications Solution provides a complete solution not only with essential instant
messaging, presence and audio-video conferencing but also with web conferencing and telephony
integration (Enterprise Voice). The fully featured solution integrates Dell products, and Microsoft® Lync®
Server 2013 software with Dell Services available for assistance if requested. The products consists of
Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers, Dell™ Networking switches and wireless, third-party voice gateways, client
devices such as Dell™ Latitude
TM
laptops and Dell™ XPS
TM
tablets and Ultrabooks™. The solution is
designed to leverage server virtualization offered by Microsoft® Windows Server® 2012 with Microsoft®
Hyper-V® to allow better consolidation and utilization of resources. Further, the architecture is designed
for availability and functions upon the failure of a server
1
, network or voice gateway. Such a design
enables IT administrators to perform maintenance tasks without incurring any Lync application downtime.
Microsoft Lync Server 2013 enables instant messaging, presence, audio-video conferencing, web
conferencing and telephony solutions that support enterprise-level collaboration requirements. It can also
integrate with existing PBX systems or replace aging PBX systems to offer a complete unified-
communications experience, including telephony integration through the use of Lync clients.
Designing a complete Unified Communication Solution can be complex. To help with the process, the
following reference architecture details the design and implementation for a 1,000-user Microsoft Lync
Server 2013 implementation on a single site. The architecture provides resilient voice and conference
services for the users that enable Lync features, including Enterprise Voice. Sizing of the architecture
followed the Microsoft Best Practices and used the Microsoft Lync Stress and Performance Tool
to
generate real-time workloads on Lync servers. The voice gateways were also validated through a thorough
lab study.
This reference architecture is structured in multiple sections. Section 2 goes over a quick introduction of
the Lync Server 2013 and its key features and roles. It also briefly touches upon some of the major
changes in the Lync Server architecture. Section 3 details the end-to-end design and implementation of
the Dell Unified Communication Solution. It discusses the design principles that dictated the architecture.
For simplicity, it breaks down the solution into five portions and goes in depth into each of them.
Following this, Section 4 provides the technical specification, including detailing all the virtual and physical
components that make up the complete solution. Toward the end of this guide, Section 5 provides an
overview of the verification that was performed to ensure that the solution met the design principles.
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Failure of the Front End Server requires the IT administrator to bring up another backup Front End registrar manually.