Summary

As with any major deployment, a good deal of advance planning and analysis before building a system always makes the implementation a bit smoother. Correctly identifying all the components required and how each component should function within the system directly maps to how the Lync Server 2010 topology should be configured.

When planning for coexistence or migration from an existing PBX, spend time developing a dial plan that works between the two systems. Ensure the dial plan contains all normalization rules required for users and that voice routing is configured to meet the needs of the organization. If voice resilience is required, make a decision on what type of resilience is offered and communicate what features are actually available in a failover scenario.

The advanced voice features such as Call Admission Control, Media Bypass, and Enhanced 911 offer some significant features, but do require some up-front planning and preparation before they can be enabled or expected to work correctly. This planning likely involves network teams to determine existing WAN links, bandwidth capacity, and traffic usage.

Planning for Lync Server 2010 voice services is a major exercise because voice is so critical to every organization. As long as organizations spend the appropriate time planning and developing a migration strategy, the project should be a success.