Overview of Lync Online and Office 365

Lync Online is a service offering that can be purchased either separately or as part of Office 365 Enterprise, Microsoft’s cloud collaboration and productivity suite, which also includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Professional Plus, and Office Web Apps. Lync Online offers features that are very similar to Lync Server 2013, including IM and presence, sharing and collaboration, peer-to-peer voice and video calls, and online meetings. With the purchase of third-party services from an approved Microsoft partner, hosted voice and dial-in conferencing are also included as part of the feature set.

With the updated release of Office 365, Microsoft is seeking to close the gap by offering additional features, as well as support for hybrid deployments involving both on-premise and cloud services for the same SIP domain. Microsoft offers a standard set of features for all cloud services, including Lync Online. Following is a summary of the standard Microsoft cloud service features:

• Secure Access—All traffic is secured using 128-bit SSL or TLS encryption.

• Intrusion Monitoring—Microsoft continuously monitors all online systems for unusual or suspicious activity, and notifies customers of issues as needed.

• Security Audits—Microsoft regularly assesses the infrastructure of online systems to ensure that antivirus signatures are updated and security updates are installed.

• High Availability—There is a 99.9% scheduled uptime for online systems, with SLA guarantees in place.

• Service Continuity—Redundant systems are located in geographically dispersed data centers to handle unscheduled service outages.

• Directory Synchronization—Synchronization of directory information between the local Active Directory and Office 365 is made available using the free Directory Synchronization tool.

• Single Sign-on—Single sign-on is achieved by deploying an instance of Active Directory Federated Services on-premise, and using it to federate with the cloud tenant.