Deploying Lync 2013

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Hi All,

Im only 8 months into my first IT role where im running the internal helpdesk for a small/medium sized company, ive have had alot of exposure to alot more than i expected from my first role and my boss is always throwing new interesting things at me. I had started doing alot of studying on Exchange and decided this would be my next certification path however ive now been asked to try and deploy a Lync server into our environment so Exchange has been put on hold and im throwing any spare time i have at work into Lync as i think it will be good experience for me to deploy something like this.

Obviously with such little Enterprise experience im not going to be doing it all myself and i will obviously have to call upon other people when it comes to the edge server and firewall rules etc.

However ive been doing alot of reading up onit this week and have started watching a CBT Nugget video series on Lync 2010. Ive upgraded our Development network VMware box to esxi 5.1 to allow the install of Windows 2012 and have that all installed.

However through all the reading and video watching i have done im lacking the knowledge of how you can intergrate/connect up your existing PBX phone system into Lync. Ive done alot of googling and can see that you have the choice of connecting via the following 3 options:

1. SIP Trunks
2. Direct SIP connection to a PSTN gateway
3. Direct SIP connection to a PBX

I just cant seem to get my head round how this all works and cant really find a good article that really breaks it down for you. Is there anyone around this neck of the woods that has had experience of deploying Lync using there exisiting standard phone system (Not VOIP)

Any explanations or links would be much appreciated.

 

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Lync should be tacked in phases if you're new to UC, as the telephony section is a world of its own.
If you've yet to install the core Lync products, you might want to start concentrating on this first or you'll just drown in the deluge of information.
OCS 2007 R2 was once voted our most complicated product to deploy, and Lync 2010/2013 isn't much easier.

In regards to your question, read up on SIP Trunks separately, get a good understanding of PSTN's and PBX's, and then you'll realize that the difference in connectivity comes from the simple fact that Lync in a default installation, may not be able to communicate with a 'legacy' or standard telephony installation over normal RJ45 cable networks using TCP IP as a protocol. This is where the requirement to install Gateways (to allow a connection to a PSTN), to hire your local telephony company to provide you a SIP trunk, or to re-utilize your old PBX by breathing new life into it as the device which can speak directly to Lync, comes into play.

 

Yea ive been doing some more reading up of PSTN gateways. I didnt bother reading up to much about SIP Trunks as i got the understanding that they were something you had to pay a provider for and thats something our company wouldnt pay out for.

The main thing is that we have the license to use Lync so my boss wanted to implement it because of the IM features etc. However i started watching the videos and saw the capabilites of Enterprise voice and started looking into that and if we could intergrate it into our exisiting phone system. Like youve suggested im going to forget about the intergration of our exisiting PBX system (i dont think it would work anyway with how old our phone system is) and concentrate on the other benefits of deploying lync.

 

Take it in baby steps. You'll be able to give your boss the IM and presence features, as well as audio and video capabilities with conferencing, all without having to connect to your existing telephony setup.

However, once your Lync setup works well and you're comfortable maintaining it, then the next step of brushing up on the language of the telephone systems, comes into play. Enabling Lync for ET can really help reduce your telephony costs, and that will make your boss very happy. But first, get a proper understanding of what he wants you to do, what you can do, and what the products and environments allows you to do. Otherwise you'll sink in a sea of information and capabilities and things get quickly out of hand.

However, being able to speak language of ET (heh) is very useful. The Telephony blokes speak a very different language which you can leverage once your knowledge grows. Just don't (as I repeat) drown in this thing. It's a big product with many capabilities. Learn it well at your own pace so you come out a winner in the eyes of your company

 

Quick related tip:

Unless you are using Office 2013 on your workstations, installing the Lync 2013 will sometimes register DLLs that will replace those of the Office suite currently in place. Symptoms can vary from missing menus in Internet Explorer, to Lync crashes.

I've had to repair Office 2010 on dozens of machines when the Lync 2013 client was deployed on them. There may be a workaround or a fix that I'm not aware of yet, such as simply re-registering specific DLLs or replacing OCX files, but repairing Office 2010 worked for us.