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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hi all,<br>
<br>
having had some requests to publish the insights about MS Lync
here is what I got so far.<br>
Mostly I'll refer to Lync 2010.<br>
<br>
Lync Integrates perfectly in your Office Environment, but it needs
Office 2007 or higher to work<br>
Lync comes in three flavours: Standard, Enterprise and Plus. These
three flavours are additive, meaning that for PLus you need the
other two first too. <br>
These flavours are also only the Client Access Licenses (CAL)
which allow Clients to connect to the server. <br>
The server software, which is based on Win 2008 R2 server, has to
be bought separately. <br>
Lync Standard edition can't do conference calls or conference
video, only peer to peer calls and video<br>
You can join conference calls though, if they have been created
somehow magically from an Enterprise edition which is somehow
magically connected...<br>
The Standard edition is rather simple to deploy (1 server), rather
cheap and supports 5000 users.<br>
The Enterprise Edition becomes quite complex and gets also
expensive:<br>
You need the following servers:<br>
<ul>
<li> Front End Server and Back End Server<br>
</li>
<li> A/V Conferencing Server<br>
</li>
<li> Edge Server<br>
</li>
<li> Mediation Server<br>
</li>
<li> Monitoring Server<br>
</li>
<li> Archiving Server<br>
</li>
<li> Director</li>
</ul>
Additionally you need an MS SQL Server, MS Exchange Server and AD
DS server.<br>
The Back End Server does all the codec work in software with risks
to run into resource issues.<br>
All of them have to be quite recent versions, so take care.<br>
You need to buy Licenses for the Clients too.<br>
Licenses are cheap if you fall into a category like Charity,
Education or something similar which MS supports.<br>
Otherwise not.<br>
The desktop client is quite intuitive, and lets you share the
desktop as well as allowing remote desktop service. You can also
share only a single app. But not on Mac OS.<br>
With Lync usually you don't use a hardware VoIP phone, but just a
headset on your PC, although vendors are selling compatible
phones.<br>
Lync has a client for smartphones (iOS, Android, Windows Phone,
Symbian) which can be used to chat and make phone calls.<br>
Calls from the smartphoneclient use VoIP only if you're on WiFi.
If you move from one WLAN AP to another within your corporation,
Lync relies on the Infrastructure to provide seamless transition
(You probably need some fancy Cisco setup anyways).<br>
If you leave the WLAN, your call will end, and you'll have to call
again using 2G/3G voice.<br>
No video conferencing support on the smartphone either.<br>
If you're not on the LAN/WAN, and want to participate in a
conference call, you can dial-in to a conference.<br>
Lync can setup conference calls with users which are on the move
on 2G/3G, if you use a 3rd party provider. It seems to be
supported. People use JahJah, but reports say that voice quality
is terrible.<br>
The conference calls don't support DTMF. So if you need a call
center, you have a problem.<br>
You can't record calls made from a Lync smartphone client outside
the LAN to a client, as it bypasses the server completely. If you
need call recording in any situation, don't use Lync. Try
Blackberry MVS. Or Cisco/Avaya/Siemens and have a big fat data
plan for mobiles ready.<br>
There is no such thing as call transfers from the mobile voice
network to the company VoIP network.<br>
Lync provides fallback to PSTN and an appliance called a
survivable branch appliance, which provides Lync services to the
branches and also includes PSTN fallback.<br>
High availability deployments are possible, but not simple
compared to Cisco, Avaya and the like.<br>
Traffic engineering seems to be a problem, as the DSCP is set on
the host, and switches seem to have a hard time trusting the port.<br>
Lync includes a bandwidth calculation tool, which allows you to
plan ahead for the required bandwidth. <br>
A table about bandwidth usage can be found here
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/library/gg413004%28v=ocs.14%29.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/library/gg413004%28v=ocs.14%29.aspx</a><br>
The proprietary codecs use little bandwidth, but make it
impossible to talk to non Lync clients (mostly a problem for Video
calls)<br>
Lync servers can be run on VMs (well, you need a lot of servers
for the Enterprise Edition), but then PSTN fallback becomes
somewhat difficult.<br>
Lync supports IPv6 (at least with Lync 2013). Got v6? (Siemens
OpenScape even supports calls from IPv4 to IPv6.. Personally I
think that's cool. But maybe others do as well)<br>
<br>
Some generic UCC problems I've also encountered so far and would
be interested in hearing answers are:<br>
How do you replace Pagers (for example in a Hospital) if you
deploy a UCC solution<br>
How do you track the location of employees which are moving around
a lot (Warehouse, Mine, Police, etc.)<br>
How do you get Emergency calls to work properly? With that I mean
again locate the caller.<br>
How do you deal with phone numbers and renumbering?<br>
<br>
The last questions are things I haven't found a proper answer yet.
They are related to the problem, that you never know whether your
VoIP call is End to End or whether it's translated into PSTN at
some point, losing information.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Mat<br>
<br>
(I apologise if this email is out of the AusNOG scope) <br>
<br>
<br>
Am 29.10.2012 11:21, schrieb Mattia Rossi:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:508E58B5.5050906@gmail.com" type="cite">Hi
all,
<br>
<br>
I'm currently investigating the advantages/disadvantages of MS
Lync 2010 as UCC solution for a large enterprise with lots of
branches. If anyone has any experience already with the roll-out
of MS Lync 2010 or any story where its use has been envisaged but
then dropped in favour of an Avaya or Cisco or other solution, I'd
be interested to hear about it. Positive stories are welcome too
of course.
<br>
If anyone has any detailed info about real bandwith usage (not
planned bandwith, but real-life experience including possible
drawbacks) even better.
<br>
<br>
Please contact me off list, as this could become a lengthy
discussion. I would really appreciate your help.
<br>
<br>
Cheers,
<br>
<br>
Mat
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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