Lync Hybrid Deployment Considerations

With the next update to Lync Online and Office 365, Microsoft will for the first time support a Lync hybrid topology option. A Lync hybrid deployment involves an on-premise deployment of Lync Server, which is federated with a Lync Online organization, enabling the same SIP domain to be applied to both on-premise and online users. The end result is that Lync users within an organization can be moved between the on-premise deployment and the cloud, and can use the Lync on-premise infrastructure, including PSTN connectivity, regardless of the location of their account.

Note

With the first release of Office 365 and Lync Online, it was possible for an organization to deploy Lync Server 2010 for some users on-premise, and simultaneously provision the Lync Online cloud-based service for other users, with Lync federation configured between the two deployments. However, this configuration required separate SIP domains to be used for the on-premise Lync organization versus the cloud-based Lync organization. Due to this restriction, very few organizations deployed Lync Online in tandem with Lync on-premise with the first version of the cloud service. With the new version of Office 365/Lync Online, this is likely to change, as the Lync hybrid deployment will allow more organizations to test-drive the cloud-based Lync services before making a full commitment to Lync Online.

The value proposition for Lync hybrid depends on the overall UC goals for an organization. For example, some organizations have a goal of moving all enterprise services to the cloud, but are forced to do so in a gradual fashion due to business or technical constraints. The Lync hybrid deployment would allow such an organization to perform a phased transition of UC services to the cloud, and continue to provide a full UC feature set and a seamless experience for users throughout the transition period. For other organizations, moving to a cloud UC service has good potential, but a period of time is needed to test-drive the Lync Online offering and compare it to the Lync on-premise deployment. The Lync hybrid deployment provides the opportunity to test out Lync Online functionality without making a full commitment. Finally, still other organizations might desire to provide different levels of UC service for various types of users, and this might include having certain user profiles hosted in the cloud, with other user profiles hosted on-premise. For example, this enables an organization to continue to leverage existing investments in an on-premise PBX and other dedicated telephony systems for the users who require these services, yet provide a more basic set of functionality for cloud users who do not require it. The Lync hybrid deployment easily allows for such a configuration and makes it easy to move user accounts back and forth as needed.

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