Chapter 17. Lync Telephony and Voice Integration

In the days of Office Communications Server 2007 when Microsoft first dipped into the voice integration features, there was a lot of discussion about whether it could actually function as a real PBX replacement. Over the next few years there was a lot of back-and-forth debate comparing its shortcomings to more mature systems, but since Lync Server 2010 and now with Lync Server 2013, Microsoft has an incredibly strong story with the product. It’s no longer considered an add-on or supplemental service to existing PBXs—Lync Server 2013 functions well on its own and can provide complete voice services for many organizations.

This chapter is intended to provide a foundation for some of the concepts found in later chapters covering Enterprise Voice and Planning for Voice services. A high-level overview of telephony concepts is discussed to provide a starting point of reference. Afterward, the various integration methods used to provide coexistence or migration paths to Lync Server 2013 are covered, and the same is done from the perspective of an end user in each of those scenarios.

Analog device connectivity for phones and fax machines was introduced in Lync Server 2010 and remains unchanged in Lync Server 2013, but the overall call-flow concepts are reviewed. The final section of this chapter is an absolute must-read for any Lync voice administrator; it covers each of the components used within Lync voice routing, and provides examples of how they interact to allow users to place a phone call.