The Routing Choice

Although analog device support exists in Lync Server 2013, it’s all done via the media gateways and there is a fair bit of configuration involved, especially when fax machines are included. An alternative method is to simply configure the analog device routing directly on the gateways and bypass the Lync configuration. In this scenario the gateways hold the routing logic of where to send calls destined for analog phones or fax machines, which can help simplify the deployment. It might even reduce the overhead costs involved since many gateway vendors charge extra for IP-to-IP connectivity between two gateways required for fax machines. The biggest disadvantage to this method is the loss of call detail record (CDR) data. Lync creates CDR reports for all calls to or from analog devices which can be tracked through the Monitoring Server reports, but this data is lost when the routing is being configured directly on gateways. Organizations can make these decisions on a case-by-case basis to determine whether CDR data for analog devices is a requirement.