Chapter 22. Lync Online and Hybrid Deployments

In an effort to keep pace with the movement toward cloud-based IT services, in recent years Microsoft has been heavily focused on developing the online versions of popular Microsoft applications, including Lync. With the initial release of Lync Online, for the first time organizations had a choice between implementing Lync 2010 on-premise, and using the online version of the product, either as a standalone service or as part of the Office 365 online suite. With the 2013 release of Lync, Microsoft is continuing to develop the online version as well, and has rolled out an update to Lync Online along with the rest of the Office 365 applications, which is based on the 2013 version of the products. This new online release not only improves the features that are offered, but also gives organizations an additional Lync topology choice: the hybrid Lync deployment. This chapter provides a description of the updated version of Lync Online, along with the deployment steps for both cloud-only and hybrid installations.