Lync Online Versus Lync On-Premise

Lync Online offers many, but not all, of the features that are included with an on-premise deployment. This means that although a cloud-based UC platform will provide a cost savings for many organizations, an on-premise deployment might still be a more appropriate solution for some organizations, depending on which UC features are critical to deploy. As part of the overall Lync planning process, it is therefore important to consider the feature differences between the two platforms. The following list summarizes the features that are available with an on-premise Lync deployment but are not included in any of the Lync Online service plans:

• Lync-to-Lync high-definition video

• Lync Skill Search in SharePoint

• Persistent Chat

• Privacy mode

• Federation with AOL and XMPP networks

• Interoperability with on-premise video conferencing systems

• Outgoing direct inward dialing (DID) manipulation

• E-911 (standard 911 service provided with purchase of hosted voice from third-party Microsoft partner)

• Dial plans and policies

• Resilient branch office appliance

• Call Admission Control (CAC)

• Support for analog devices (such as fax)

• Network QoS (using DSCP)

• Response groups

• Call park

• Private line

• Interoperability with third-party PBX or trunks

• Malicious call trace

• Unassigned number

• Media path optimization

• CDR and billing reporting

• Integration with call-center solutions

• Lync 2010 Attendant client

• CDR and QoE reporting

If none of these features is considered a requirement, a cloud-only Lync Online deployment is a valid option. However, many of the features that are not included with a cloud-only topology, particularly the voice features, are available with a hybrid topology. With that in mind, if voice features are important, a hybrid topology should be considered, and the following sections provide some background to help guide this decision.

From a cost perspective, it is important to note that each Lync Online subscription includes the Client Access Licenses (CALs) that are required to use the features included with that subscription. Therefore, any budgeting exercise that compares the cost of a cloud topology with that of an on-premise topology should take into account the cost of both licensing and hardware that would be required for an on-premise deployment. The planning topics outlined in this chapter should also be compared with the information in Chapters 29 through 32 to determine the true cost of an on-premise deployment versus that of a Lync Online deployment. This comparison will allow an organization take into account not only the feature sets included with each topology option, but also the hardware, software, licensing requirements, and effort involved in building and maintaining each type of deployment.