1. Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Preview
Architecture and High Availability
Justin Morris
Lync MVP
Consultant, Modality Systems
@justimorris
http://www.justin-morris.net
justin.morris@modalitysystems.com
2. Agenda
• Introduction – Then and Now
• Topology Changes
• Introducing the Office Web Apps Server
• Pool Back End Resiliency
• Persistent Chat Resiliency
• Site Resiliency
• Lync Goes Hybrid
• Questions
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3. Introduction – Then and Now
• Lync Server 2010 introduced the concept of
topology and CMS.
• Lync Server 2013 refines this, rationalises and
evolves it further.
• Thinking further ahead – how can Lync:
– Make management easier
– Consolidate infrastructure
– Utilise other Microsoft products better
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4. Topology Changes
• More Front End capacity
• Less reliance on backend SQL
• A/V Conferencing Server no longer
• New Server Collocations
– Archiving and Monitoring
• Own SQL still required if deployed on SE
• Persistent Chat Becomes a 1st Class Citizen
– Can be collocated on FE
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5. Introducing Office Web Apps
Server
• Sharing PowerPoint Presentations
The Problem Today in Lync Server 2010:
– PowerPoint Viewer for Lync 2010
– DHTML and Silverlight for LWA
• PowerPoint Viewer only available on Windows
• Silverlight not supported on many mobile
devices.
• Neither support recently added PowerPoint
features.
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6. Introducing Office Web Apps
Server
• The Solution in Lync Server 2013:
– Use standard DHTML and JavaScript to broadcast
PowerPoint presentations.
– Supports slide transitions, embedded video.
– Better mobile device support.
• For this, we need Office Web Apps Server.
– Not just for Lync, can be used by SharePoint also.
– Serves up PowerPoint presentations in the new agile
format.
– Publish via Reverse Proxy, can be load balanced in a
pool.
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7. New Pool Back End Resiliency
• SQL Mirroring now supported!
– Lync Server 2013 becomes mirroring aware.
– In-site deployment supported only.
– Deploy an optional witness for automatic failover.
– Can be added after initial deployment.
• SQL clustering no longer supported –
recommended path is migrate to SQL
mirroring.
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8. Back End Server Failover - Before
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9. Back End Server Failover - After
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10. User Experience During Back End
Server Failure
• If a witness is configured:
– Failover happens automatically and the user
shouldn’t see much change to service.
• If no witness is configured.
– Administrator must manually invoke failover.
– Sessions will continue until client realises the back
end is unavailable, at which point they will go into
resiliency mode.
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11. Persistent Chat Resiliency
• Stretched pool across sites.
• SQL mirror pair in one site, backup DB in the
other using log shipping.
• Two topology options:
– Two data centres with high bandwidth, low
latency links
– Two data centres with low bandwidth, high
latency links
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12. Persistent Chat Stretched Topology -
High bandwidth, low latency
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13. Persistent Chat Stretched Topology -
Low bandwidth, high latency
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14. Pool/Site Resiliency
• Front End Pool Pairing
– User data is shared across both pools.
– No restriction on distance between two pools.
– Backup Service installed on each FE replicates user
data.
• Metropolitan Site Resiliency Solution no
longer supported - recommended path is
migrate to Front End pool pairing.
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15. Pairing Front End Pools
• EE paired with EE, SE paired with SE.
• Physical with physical, virtual with virtual.
• Best practice: size each pools to take the load
of both.
• Maintains existing voice Backup Registrar
functionality (same as 2010), but can now be
many to one relationship.
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16. Front End Pool Failover - Before
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17. Front End Pool Failover - After
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18. User Experience During Pool
Failover
• Users are logged out, all calls terminate.
• Users cannot log back in until failover timer
expires or failover is invoked by admin.
• Users are not re-homed to the backup pool,
rather are “temporarily serviced” by the
backup pool.
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19. Lync goes Hybrid
• Share the same SIP domain across both Lync on-
premises and Lync Online.
• Two types of deployment:
– Hybrid Lync Server
– Hybrid Voice
• Online users can use your on-premises PSTN breakout
• Components:
– Lync Edge Server
– AD federation (ADFS)
– DirSync
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20. Key Takeaways
• HA has stepped up a gear.
• Persistent Chat is no longer a challenge to
deploy.
• Better server collocation reduces your
machine footprint.
• New role requirement – Office Web Apps
(WAC) Server
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21. Questions?
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Notas do Editor
In Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Preview PowerPoint presentations were viewed in one of two ways. For users running Microsoft Lync 2010, PowerPoint presentations were displayed using the PowerPoint 97-2003 format and were viewed using an embedded copy of the PowerPoint viewer. For users running Lync Web App, PowerPoint presentations were converted to dynamic HTML files then viewed using a combination of those customized DHTML files and Microsoft Silverlight. Although generally effective, this approach did have some limitations: The embedded PowerPoint Viewer (which provided the optimal viewing experience) is only available on the Windows platform. Many mobile devices (including some of the more popular mobile phones) do not support Silverlight. Neither the PowerPoint Viewer nor the DHTML/Silverlight approach support all the features (such slide transitions and embedded video) that are found in the more recent editions of Microsoft PowerPoint.
Higher-resolution displays and better support for PowerPoint capabilities, such as animations, slide transitions, and embedded video. Additional mobile devices to access these presentations. That's because Lync Server 2013 Preview uses standard DHTML and JavaScript to broadcast PowerPoint presentations instead of customized DHTML and Silverlight. Users with the appropriate privileges to scroll through a PowerPoint presentation independent of the presentation itself. For example, while Ken Myer is presenting his slide show, Pilar Ackerman can look at any slide she wants to, and without affecting Ken's presentation.
The disaster recovery solution for Persistent Chat Server is built on a stretched Persistent Chat Server pool. This is similar to metropolitan site resiliency in Lync Server 2010; however, there is no requirement for a stretched virtual local area network (VLAN). By stretching Persistent Chat Server pool, you essentially configure one pool in the topology logically, but you physically place the servers in the pool in two different datacenters. Configure SQL Server mirroring for the database in the same way, and deploy the database and the mirror in the same datacenter. You need to configure a backup database in the secondary datacenter (with an optional mirror to provide high availability during disaster recovery). This is the backup database used for failover during disaster recovery.
Neither Topology Builder nor topology validation will prohibit pairing two pools in a way that does not follow these recommendations. For example, Topology Builder allows you to pair an Enterprise Edition pool with a Standard Edition pool. However, these types of pairings are not recommended.