Overview

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 has several different server roles. These server roles can be combined in several ways to produce a myriad of architecture options. Even the collocation of services for a given role can be split for added flexibility.

The Archiving role in Lync Server 2010 primarily serves the purposes of legal compliance. That said, other companies might want to have a centrally searchable archive for other purposes because the Archive Server role is able to archive communications across both IM and meetings.

The Archiving role scales well with a single Archiving Server capable of handling up to 300,000 users. As such, it is common to collocate the Archiving role with the Monitoring role. The Archiving role supports redundancy and failover, so if it is a vital role—for example, if you have legal compliance issues that have prompted the installation of the Archiving role—strongly consider deploying the Archiving role as a pool.

The Archiving Server role can archive the following content:

• Peer-to-peer instant messages

• Multiparty instant messages

• Web conferences, including uploaded content and events (for example, join, leave, upload, and so on)

Content that cannot be archived includes

• Peer-to-peer file transfers

• Audio/video for peer-to-peer instant messages and web conferences

• Web conferencing annotations and polls

Organizations should decide prior to the implementation of the Archiving role how archiving will be configured. Decisions around site- and user-based archiving must be made. It is also critical to determine how archive data will be managed. The Archiving database was not meant to be a long term-retention solution and as such, Lync Server 2010 does not provide an e-discovery solution for archived data. This data should optimally be moved to other storage.

This chapter highlights the full lifecycle of the Archiving Server role. It starts with the installation of the Archiving Server role, followed by configuration and administration. Finally, the chapter concludes with troubleshooting and best practices.

From a perspective of supported topologies for Archiving Server, the Archiving Server can support either a single pool or multiple pools. This is to say, you can choose to create a unique archiving host for each individual Front End pool or a single Archiving Server can service all Front End pools (or Standard Edition pools). It is also possible to have multiple Archiving Servers attach to a single Archiving Database. This can prove helpful if you plan to pull archive data directly from the database.

The decision about how to configure the Archiving Server topology in terms of single versus multiple Archiving Servers is typically determined by the network that supports Lync Server 2010. If Front End Servers are a large distance from the Archive Server, there might be too much latency for the Archive Server to keep up properly, in which case a local Archive Server might be needed. Similarly, if there is not enough bandwidth to keep up with an archive across the WAN, it might be preferable to deploy a local Archive Server.