Lync Server Virtualization Support Guidelines

In Lync Server 2013 all roles are supported in a virtualized environment. The roles and features supported for Lync Server 2013 virtualization are listed here:

• Standard Edition Server—Supported for all roles (including Presence, IM, Enterprise Voice, A/V, collocated Monitoring and Archiving, XMPP, and conferencing).

• Enterprise Edition Front End Server—Supported for all roles (including Presence, IM, Enterprise Voice, A/V, collocated Monitoring and Archiving, XMPP, and conferencing).

• Enterprise Edition Backend Server—Supported for SQL Server and file share server. As with Physical Servers, SQL Mirroring is supported.

• Edge Server—Supported for all roles (remote access, federation, public IM connectivity, Presence, IM, Enterprise Voice, XMPP, and A/V).

• Director—Supported for all roles (authentication, routing, and web services).

• Persistent Chat—Supported for Persistent Chat.

• Survivable Branch Server—Supported for Registration and Enterprise Voice.

The only roles that cannot be virtualized for use in Lync Server 2013 are the IP-PSTN gateways and Survivable Branch Appliances. Considering that most of these appliances require a physical telephony connection (ISDN BRI/PRI, for example) that would be impossible in a virtual environment, this should not be an issue for most organizations. The self-deployed equivalent of a Survivable Branch Appliance, the Survivable Branch Server, is supported in a virtualized environment.

It should be understood that although virtualization of all the Lync Server 2013 roles is supported, there are some very specific support limitations and recommendations:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, or VMware vSphere 5—These are the only supported hypervisors at this time. This includes the Hyper-V 2008 R2 and Hyper-V 2012 standalone free server products and both the ESX and the ESXi products from VMware. This means that older versions such as Microsoft Virtual Sever 2005, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, and VMware ESX 4.0 are not supported for use with Lync Server 2013.

• No Live Migration—Live Migration or vMotion of Lync virtual servers is not a supported feature. Because media traffic heavily depends on low latency and CPU processing, moving a Lync VM between hosts can lead to a poor experience for users by either degrading or completely disconnecting a media stream. This means a single Lync Server cannot be considered “high-availability” by virtue of being hosted on a virtualization platform that supports high-availability at the virtualization layer.

• Mixed Virtual and Physical Servers Within the Same Pool Are Not Supported—There are some additional guidelines when mixing physical and virtual servers for Lync, but the most basic one is that a pool cannot contain a mix of physical and virtual servers. All servers in a single Front End, Edge, Director, or Mediation pool must be either physical or virtual to be supported. Performance of each virtual machine in a pool should be equivalent (users will be balanced over each server equally regardless of each machine’s performance characteristics).

• Match Virtual Front End Pools with Supporting Virtual Pools—To virtualize roles such as the Director or the Edge Server, the associated Enterprise or Standard Edition Front End Server should also be virtualized. This means that if an organization deploys the Front End Servers on physical machines, the Director or Edge Server cannot be virtualized. This negates a common scenario in which it might make sense to use physical hardware for a Front End pool, yet virtualize a less intensive role such as a Director. The opposite case is perfectly valid. Organizations can virtualize the Front End pool but use physical hardware for a Director or an Edge Server.