Great news the product has RTMed and should be available for download soon from your licensing site. General availability is slated for November 17th. This is a very exciting release and my education customers are all very interested in this release. See the official post here. See my feature post here. To view more information or live video feeds visit here and to sign up for the Lync launch event visit here.
Lync Server 2010 Licensing
ON PREMISE LICENSING:
Lync Server 2010 on-premises is licensed in the Server / Client Access License (CAL) model.
There are three types of licenses:
1) server licenses,
(2) client access licenses,
(3) external connector licenses.
Server Licenses
A license must be assigned for each instance of the server software that is being run.
The Lync Server 2010 is sold in two editions:
Client Access Licenses (CAL)
To access Lync Server 2010, a Client Access License, or CAL, is required. A CAL is not a software product; rather, it is a license that gives a user the right to access the services of the server.
There are three CALs for Lync:
Enterprise CALs and Plus CALs are additive-they are sold as a supplement to the Standard CAL. This means that to enable Standard CAL features for a user, the user must be licensed with just the Standard CAL. To use either the Enterprise CAL or the Plus CAL features, the user must be licensed with one (1) Standard CAL and either one (1) Enterprise CAL or one (1) Plus CAL.
To enable all features, a user must be licensed with all three CALs.
Finally, each CAL works with either the Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition of the Server.
Device and User CALs
For each Lync CAL, there are two types of CALs for purchase:
With the User CAL, you purchase a CAL for every authenticated user who accesses Lync Server 2010 features, regardless of the number of devices they use for that access. Purchasing a User CAL may make more sense if your users need to have roaming access to the corporate network using multiple devices, unknown devices, or more devices than users in your organization.
With a Device CAL, you purchase a CAL for every device that accesses Lync Server 2010 features, regardless of the number of authenticated users who use that device to access the server. Device CALs
may make more economic and administrative sense if your company has workers who share devices, for example, on different work shifts.
The decision between Device CAL and User CAL is financial, and you have the option to choose based on your needs. Additionally, in the case where neither the device nor the user is authenticated, a CAL is not required.
External Connector Licenses
If you want external users who are not your employees-such as business partners, external contractors, or other temporary staff-to be able to access your Lync Server 2010 as authenticated users, you have two licensing options:
An EC license is an alternative to CALs for each server that external users will access. An EC license assigned to a Lync Server 2010 permits access by any number of external users like Students. Each physical server that is accessed by external users requires only one EC license regardless of the number of instances running.
There are three External Connectors for Lync Server 2010:
The decision between CAL and EC is financial, and you have the option to choose based on your needs.
Client License
In order to access the functionality of Lync Server 2010 and have an authenticated experience, you need the Lync client application.
Lync has one client: Microsoft Lync 2010
You can purchase Lync 2010 as a standalone application or as part of the Office Professional Plus 2010 suite.
How to Deploy Lync Licenses On-premises
A server license is required for each physical or virtual instance of the Lync Server 2010 Front End Server Role (required with every Lync deployment). Both Standard and Enterprise editions can be installed and configured in many server roles on a server running Microsoft Windows Server®. Server roles are Lync Server 2010 instances which run a specialized set of functionality, such as audio/video conferencing, edge services, or mediation between Enterprise Voice and the PSTN.
Some roles are considered additional software and do not require a license. For these roles, you may run any number of instances directly with the Front End Server role.
Server Roles
Lync 2010 Server Standard and Enterprise editions can be installed and configured in many server roles on a server running Windows Server. Server roles are Lync Server 2010 instances which run a specialized set of functionality, such as audio/video conferencing, edge services, or mediation between Enterprise Voice and the PSTN.
The Front End Server role is required for every deployment, and each instance requires a license.
***Most Server roles are considered "additional software" and do not require a license.
For more on Lync Server 2010 Roles refer to TechNet. HERE
Server Role Descriptions:
Client Access Licenses
CALs are required for each user or device that will access instances of the Lync Server 2010 roles. Each server instance may provide different functionality to the user, and therefore not all servers in your Lync architecture/topology require a CAL.
For example, if you deployed the Lync Server 2010 Front End Role (required of any Lync deployment) and also deployed Lync Server 2010 in Web Conferencing Server Role, you would need the Lync Server 2010 Standard CAL for the rich IM and presence features, and the Lync Server 2010 Enterprise CAL for the online conference features. This example would not require the Plus CAL.
Figure 1 lists the CAL requirements for different server roles.
The feature details for server and CAL licensing are described in the Lync Server 2010 Feature Details section.
Licensing External Users
External users may require a license in order to access a Lync Server 2010. There are four types of external users that may access a Lync Server 2010:
Federated Users
A federated user is an external user that possesses valid credentials with a federated partner and is authenticated on that basis by Lync Server 2010. Federation is a feature provided with your licenses of Lync Server 2010. Users connected by federation with another partner do not require a CAL or External Connector License.
Unauthenticated Users
An unauthenticated, or anonymous, user is a person/device that does not have an identity in the Active Directory® Domain Services. Unlike a federated user, an anonymous user is not authenticated. You do not require licenses for unauthenticated users of Lync Server 2010.
External Authenticated Users
An EC license permits an unlimited number of authenticated external users to access a Lync Server 2010 in scenarios where the number of CALs is uncertain. The number of EC licenses required corresponds to the number of physical Lync Server 2010 servers, regardless of the number of instances. The specific EC required is determined by the equivalent CAL features the external users would require. The following lists available EC licenses and the equivalent CAL features:
Public Instant Messaging Users
Lync Server 2010 provides organizations with the capability to connect their existing base of Lync Server 2010-enabled users to the top public IM service providers. Licensing requirements for Public IM Connectivity depends on the service providers you want to connect with, and your Lync Server 2010 CALs.
Lync Server 2010 Feature Details
Standard Edition
A Standard Edition server is ideal for pilot and lab deployments or branch offices that do not have high availability and performance requirements. It is intended for deployments with fewer than 5,000 users either in total or at a particular location.
Enterprise Edition
An Enterprise Edition server has all of the Standard Edition server features; however it provides scalability and high availability. It is intended to allow an unlimited number of users in any location/configuration.
Comparison of Standard and Enterprise
See Figure 2 for summary features differences between Standard and Enterprise server versions.
Figure 2: Lync Server 2010 Standard and Enterprise Features
Prerequisites
Lync Server 2010 requires Windows Server® and Microsoft SQL Server® to run and may not include licenses for those products. Be sure you have the correct licenses for Windows Server and SQL Server.
Figure 3: Supported Windows Server and SQL Server Versions
Lync Server 2010 Client Access Licenses
Standard CAL
The Lync Server 2010 Standard CAL offers instant messaging and rich presence (IM/P) features. It provides users with real-time presence and enhanced IM along with PC-to-PC audio and video communications. Additionally it provides users with authenticated attendee experience for internally hosted conferences.
Enterprise CAL
The Lync Server 2010 Enterprise CAL offers the audio, video, and Web conferencing features. It provides users the ability to create, moderate, and join conferences for collaboration with both internal and external users.
Plus CAL
The Lync Server 2010 Plus CAL offers enterprise voice telephony features. It provides high-quality voice and other related features to users anywhere with an Internet connection across IP phones, PCs, and desktop applications.
New and Improved Features of the CALs
The following tables (Figures 4-6) provide a detailed feature breakdown for each Lync Server 2010 CAL.
Figure 4: Instant Messaging and Presence
Figure 5: Audio, Video, and Web Conferencing
Figure 6: Enterprise Voice Technology
Prerequisite CALs:
For each Lync Server 2010 CAL, there are other possible prerequisites for underlying Microsoft technologies-primarily dependent on the features you would like to utilize. The following Microsoft products may be required with Lync:
Licensing for Microsoft-hosted Lync Online
Lync offers the flexibility to license Lync Server 2010 for an on-premises deployment, or you may decide to work with a Microsoft-hosted service to give some or all of your Lync users access to the capabilities of the product.
This approach allows you to enjoy the benefits of enterprise-class communications in a pay-as-you-go model that enables you to scale up or down as needed, minimizing your financial risk.
How to Subscribe to Lync Online
Lync User Subscription Licenses
Rather than purchasing server licenses for each Server and user/device that uses Lync Server 2010, Lync Online is licensed via a subscription model in which each user needs a User Subscription License (USL).
Microsoft currently offers the following USLs for Lync Online:
Lync Online USL Features
The features offered in Lync online are similar to the features offered in Lync on-premises.
The following provides a high-level feature for each Lync Online USL:
Updated info for this post can now be found in teched. Please disregard this blog entry. Please refer to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398833.aspx
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Recently I was onsite with a customer and was asked about DNS Load Balancing. How does it work? Why the change from OCS 2007 R2?
DNS Load Balancing
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 requires a Hardware Load Balancer (HLB) to provide resilience for the Enterprise pool. This configuration is both expensive and difficult to configure for SIP load balancing. Lync 2010 introduces DNS load balancing as an alternative to hardware load balancing.
How it Works
The front-end servers register their fully qualified domain name (FQDN) as A records in DNS. When the Enterprise pool is created, the pool FQDN is registered to return from DNS the list of IP addresses of all the front-end servers. The client attempts to connect to one of the IP addresses that were returned. If this connection fails, the client attempts to connect to the next IP address in the list until the connection succeeds.
Server Failure and Recovery
When a server fails, the physical registrar sequence is updated to show the server as unavailable and shared amongst all surviving servers by using a server-server heartbeat. Users are redirected to the next server in their logical registrar sequence and are then connected in backup mode. The server will be recovered returning the physical registrar sequence back to its original state.
Server Commission and Decommission
When topology changes occur, the logical registrar sequence is recalculated for all users. Some users are re-homed to a different front-end server in the same pool. When the server is fully operational, the heartbeat process updates the physical registrar sequence. This results in the batched re-registration process. Decommission is very similar to server failure, with the exception of the re-home to a new primary registrar being part of the decommission process. The topology change results in the recalculation of the logical registrar sequence. This step doesn’t happen in a server failure.
You can use DNS load balancing for the SIP traffic on Front End pools and Director pools. With DNS load balancing deployed, you still need to also use hardware load balancers for these pools, but only for HTTP and Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) traffic. The hardware load balancer is used for HTTP traffic from clients over ports 443 and 80, and for DCOM traffic over port 135 from administrators performing user moves.
Although you still need hardware load balancers for these pools, their setup and administration will be primarily for HTTP traffic, which the administrators of hardware load balancers are accustomed to.
DNS Load Balancing Decision Guidelines
Situation
DNS load balancing supported?
DNS load balancing recommended?
Hardware load balancer (only) recommended?
All or most users homed in the pool run Lync Server 2010 clients.
Yes
Many users homed in the pool still running older clients.
Interoperates only with other Lync Server 2010 servers.
Interoperates with many servers running earlier versions of Office Communications Server.
Running Exchange UM with Exchange 2010 SP1 (or not running Exchange UM)
Running Exchange UM with earlier versions of Exchange
Before you can use DNS load balancing, you must:
1. From the Lync Server 2010 program group, open Topology Builder.
2. From the console tree, expand the Enterprise Edition Front End pools node.
3. Right-click the pool, click Edit Properties, and then click Web Services.
4. Below Internal web services, select the Override FQDN check box.
5. Type the pool FQDN that resolves to the physical IP addresses of the servers in the pool.
6. Below External web services, type the external pool FQDN that resolves to the virtual IP addresses of the pool, and then click OK.
7. From the console tree, select Lync Server 2010 , and then in the Actions pane, click Publish Topology.
1. For each Front End Server in your pool, create a DNS A Host record that maps the pool FQDN to the IP address of that Front End Server.
For example, if you had a pool named pool1.contoso.edu and three front-end servers, you would create the following DNS entries:
FQDN
Type
Data
Pool1.contoso.edu
Host A
192.168.1.10
192.168.1.20
192.168.1.30
Server Draining
A new feature called server draining enables you to take a server offline without any loss of service to users. When a server is drained it stops taking new connections and calls. These new connections and calls are routed through other servers in the pool. A server being drained allows its sessions on existing connections to continue until they naturally end. When all existing sessions have ended, the server is ready to be taken offline.
There is a lot of buzz about the new Windows Phone 7 launched today. It is officially available Nov. 8th at some U.S. stores and sooner in Europe. You can see some of the UI experience at our site here.
I took some screen shots off of the Windows Phone 7 RTM emulator (grab it here) so you can get a taste of the UI from a Unified Communications perspective. Thus far, using the emulator with my touch screen laptop, I get a pretty good sense of how smooth and clean the phone UI is. I really like the Live tiles and surface. One of the things my iPhone and Droid friends tell me, who are coming from a productivity phone like Windows Mobile, etc ,is their phones really don’t quite have the rich email/calendaring experience they were used to. I took some shots of what I could here and combined them with some product team shots:
I like the new main Live Tile experience. The new Mobile IE is very nice and very fast.
Nice pinch zoom feature and a nice SMS threaded option.
New Outlook Mobile with scrollable surface look and feel. All of our personal and work emails can be combined into a single inbox. You can also select and create a custom group view of emails
Photos included with all received mails following the Outlook 2010 model. Reply and open office attachments with Office Mobile 2010.
Work and personal calendars (e.g. Windows Live and Exchange) in a single view with different color schemes.
View attendees list and check free/busy of attendees, see meeting organizer, see who has accepted – Based on friends feedback, these are some of the types of productivity options that are missing on iPhone and Droid.
Mac Office 2011 general availability is slated for the end of the month. With this release comes the anticipated Mac Communicator 2011 which works with both OCS 2007 R2 and Lync Server 2010. For a glimpse of the Mac features view my other post here. A new Mac Communicator 2011 deployment guide was released and you can grab it here. It has some nice configuration and customization features documented.
I also get asked what are the minimum Mac requirements for Communicator for Mac 2011 to work. I finally found that documented here:
I was presenting to a customer the other day and the question came up as to where the content is stored and if I have access to the attachment when recording. When you record using Lync all information is available – audio, participant video, panorama video, IM, and shared content. The recorded content is managed by the Microsoft Lync Recording Manager on your desktop. When you stop recording you will received toast on your screen that the information is available in the manager. If there were attachments uploaded during the session they will be saved as part of the Lync recording.
Figure 1. Lync Recording
Figure 2. Attachment window from Lync client.
The content is all available via the Recording Manager.
Figure 3. Recording Manager for Lync.
There are 3 actions you can do with the content you recorded, play within the Recording manager, Browse to the content, or Publish the recording to a windows media play formatted file. The content is found under the Lync recording under PubData/Handout/. Here you can take the handout and post to a website.
The really cool part is the recording and publishing.
Click on Publish…
and either publish locally or to a Sharepoint 2010 Document Library. I decided to post to a library as a media web part.
I uploaded and configured the media web part and now the presentation is available for streaming from the Sharepoint site. Very Cool!!
DID YOU KNOW:
• Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Release Candidate (formerly known as Communications Server “14”) is now available for customer download.
• More than 30 companies have announced beta versions of their Lync 2010 compatible hardware, software, and service products.
• Gartner MAGIC QUADRANT FOR Corporate Telephony-- Microsoft has maintained its position in the Visionary Quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony, 2010. Microsoft now has reprint rights to the report, see the online reprint .
• Microsoft announced a new devices program that will support an expanded portfolio of partner solutions. The snom 300 is the first general purpose SIP phone tested to work with OCS 2007 R2.
FREE TRAINING
Featured LIVE Web Seminar:Migrating from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010:What You Need to Know Thursday, October 21, 2010 12:00 p.m. ET / 9:00 a.m. PT
Have you been debating a migration to Exchange 2010?
Exchange 2003 enjoyed widespread adoption because its stability, performance, and functionality compared to earlier versions and its competitors. The messaging and collaboration world has changed a lot since then, though, and Exchange Server 2010 includes a wealth of new features and capabilities that you might consider taking advantage of.
Exchange 2010 offers several new features including client-side improvements like MailTips, a radically improved web client, a completely revamped transport infrastructure which gives better information protection, as well as control to deep changes in the way that the information store works. Exchange 2010 is truly a different beast.
In this web seminar, Paul Robichaux, a senior contributing editor for Windows IT Pro and a Microsoft Exchange MVP and MCSE who specializes in helping people understand how to get the most from Exchange, will highlight the most important new Exchange 2010 features:
He will then compare the new features to what Exchange 2003 offered, and point out areas of improvement that may make your migration more compelling.
Register for this web seminar and learn why migrating to Exchange 2010 may be the answer for you.
Paul RobichauxSenior Contributing Editor,Windows IT ProMicrosoft Exchange MVP
COST TO ATTEND: Free
REGISTER AT: www.windowsitpro.com/go/seminars/binarytree/exchange2010migration
WHEN TO ATTEND: Thursday, October 21, 2010 @ 12 PM EST
BUSY DURING THE LIVE EVENT? Even if you can’t make it to the live seminar, please register and we will let you know when this seminar is available on-demand.
ACHIEVE A SUCCESSFUL UC ROLLOUT- NEW INSTRUCTOR-LED COURSE
A comprehensive strategy is an important element of a rollout and ongoing adoption of UC products.
The UC Experience and Adoption team has outlined this in easy-to-follow steps, now available as a complimentary public training: “6 steps to a successful UC Rollout: Best Practices for readiness planning and driving adoption of UC Solutions”.
Designed specifically for IT Pros and project managers, this online, instructor-led class showcases the adoption and training resources available to customers. The session offers best practices and provides interaction with readiness and adoptions SMEs.
Please go here to register for a session TODAY!
Solutions based on Microsoft® Lync
With Lync 2010, Microsoft and our partners provide a comprehensive communications solution including conferencing, instant messaging, presence, conferencing, voice and more, integrated within the applications people use most. The goal is to make it easier to find Lync-compatible products and communications services that can bring value to you.
System Integrators help customers evaluate and implement the right set of unified communication components to meet their unique needs.
We have broken these solution sets into 4 areas:
· Applications
· Infrastructure
· Communication Services
· Devices
1-APPLICATIONS Microsoft Lync partners deliver an entirely new class of solutions that integrate communications deeply within business applications and processes, as well as traditional functions such as contact centers, call recording, and accounting. Resource Links: UC Applications built on OCS (lync)- see it HERE Advanced SIP-Based Solutions Built on the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 3.0 and Lync- see it HERE Building Communications Enabled Business Processes with Microsoft Communications Server “14”- See it - HERE
1-APPLICATIONS
Microsoft Lync partners deliver an entirely new class of solutions that integrate communications deeply within business applications and processes, as well as traditional functions such as contact centers, call recording, and accounting.
Resource Links:
UC Applications built on OCS (lync)- see it HERE
Advanced SIP-Based Solutions Built on the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 3.0 and Lync- see it HERE
Building Communications Enabled Business Processes with Microsoft Communications Server “14”-
See it - HERE
Category
Company
Additional Information
Contact Center
Altigen
Aspect
Clarity Connect
Case Study
ComputerTalk
Solution Brief
Evangelyze.net
Geomant
Downloads
PrairieFyre
Video demo
Call Accounting and Billing
Convergent
Industry Solutions
Enabling Technologies
UC Solutions
ISI-Info
Datasheets
MindCTI
White Papers
Quest Software
Datasheet
Unify Square
Product page
Call Recording and Analysis
Post CTI
Reseller Info
Telrex
Security and Compliance
FaceTime
Demo
Network Management
Clearway NMS
Psytechnics
Communications Enabled Business Applications
Verticals
Contextual collaboration
Education
Healthcare
Formicary
Group Chat Case Studies
Mesiniaga
Meeting management
ProtonMedia
Virtual collaboration
Anywhere Information Access
Blue Position
SMS integration and mobile
presence
Twisted Pair
Radio integration
Business Process Communications
Public utilities, healthcare, education
Fortek
Public safety
Iconics
Manufacturing, Utilities, and more
Jasco
Alert system, framework
MetalForming
Manufacturing
2-INFRASTRUCTURE
Infrastructure partners provide core networking, branch survivability and PSTN interconnect functions for Lync, providing broad choice and standards adherence to customers building out their enterprise communication solution.
Tech Ed Training covering voice deployment, network considerations, and interoperability.
Find it- HERE
Gateways and Survivable Branch Appliances (SBAs)
Audiocodes
SBA information
Dialogic
Ferarri Electronic
Office Master information
HP
NET
SBA information (after 10/1)
Network Optimization
Brocade
Deployment White Paper (PDF)
Configuration White Paper (PDF)
Juniper
Planning Guide (PDF)
3- COMMUNICATION SERVICES
Third-party services enable enterprises to connect on-premises voice, IM, and conferencing networks to public and federated communication networks and services for a seamless experience. These partners for USA.
SIP Trunking
Verizon
Global Crossing
Interoute
ThinkTel
E-911 Routing
911 Enable
Intrado
The 4 SIP Trunking partners shown expect to be qualified and ready for Lync by launch. Additional partner solutions will be qualified after launch.
The Enhanced 911 routing solution providers provide services to enable customers to route emergency calls to the correct public safety answering point (PSAP) in accordance with regulatory requirements.
4-DEVICES
IP Phones, USB peripherals, conference room systems, and PCs designed for Microsoft Lync deliver integrated user experience, security features, and manageability. Partner devices are tested and qualified by Microsoft under the ‘Optimized for’ program to help ensure a high quality user experience.
Resources: Lync- what is new in Devices: Find it HERE
IP phones
Aastra
Contact Form
Polycom
October 6 Webinar
USB Devices
Various
Datasheet with Listing of Existing Devices
Snom technology AG, an international developer and manufacturer of advanced voice over IP (VoIP) phones for enterprise and residential markets, announced that the snom 300, has been tested by Microsoft Corp. for interoperability with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
The qualification confirms the snom 300 as the first general purpose SIP phone tested to work with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
· Interoperable general purpose SIP phone
· Expands IP phone options for R2 customers
· Tested by Microsoft and “compatible” with R2; not tested with Lync
· “Compatible” IP phones are tested to provide basic interoperability and quality of experience, but not full “Optimized for” experience, either from user perspective or administrative perspective;
· More information on Program Page- HERE
Lync home page
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/default.aspx
Phones and Devices for Lync
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ocs/bb970310.aspx
UC Open Interoperability Program
http://technet.microsoft.com/ucoip
This is great news as we add a great SIP phone partner to our Microsoft ‘Other compatible IP Phone’ compatibility list here. In education, the need for a high value and lower cost IP SIP phone is a strong need. I have several education customers who have deployed snom phones with OCS R2 with great success and now that they will be a compatible partner for Lync Server 2010 makes our IP phone device story even more complete with more options available to customers.
More on the snom OCS edition experience here.
Visit the press release here.
This release of Lync is not just a minor upgrade from OCS 2007 R2. It has some awesome new features and functionality coming. I figured I should try and provide a bulleted list of the top features you need to be aware of. (screenshots are courtesy of Lync product team and some of my own)
•Contact Cards – these are available in all Office and SharePoint applications as well
•Unified Contact Store – no longer do you have contacts all over place
•Activity Feeds – similar to Facebook status feeds shows list of status changes, title changes, OOF, etc.
•Fast Search – quickly find people in your organization
•Skill Search – you can find ‘Nanotechnology expert’ on your campus for example
•Frequent Contacts – folks you communicate with the most are listed
•Conversation View – lists all the communications you have had in a single view (meetings, voice calls, IMs, etc)
Mac Office 2011 just Released To Manufacturing (RTM) last Friday. Watch their funny RTM video here. With that release comes a new Outlook 2011 Mac client and a new Communicator client for Mac.
New Outlook 2011 for Mac client
Showing the ability to read Exchange calendar, change presence and display calendar information in the contact card on the Mac.
Some of the Mac 2011 enhancements include:
Dialpad view
Voice call view on Mac 2011 client
•Single client – Live Meeting client is GONE!! All conferencing is provided natively in the Lync 2010 client.
•Join reliability – make it easier to join meetings from mobile phones and from meeting reminders
•PSTN conferencing features – will have DTMF controls, audio announcements, meeting lobby
•Rich conferencing experience – record meetings directly into WMV format, work on content in background during presentations
•Panoramic HD video – support for HD conferencing now, panoramic HD support as well
•Desktop & Application sharing – lightweight desktop sharing for faster rendering times – no more 2 second delays, etc.
•Reach client called Lync 2010 Attendee client – this is a Silverlight client for PCs (people joining from off campus), Macs and other platforms to consume meetings
•Infrastructure consolidation
•Video interop with Polycom, Radvision and Tandberg
Customers have been asking for this and there are plans to have Mac conferencing capabilities using a Silverlight Lync 2010 Attendee client client (web) for Mac users to start. Mac users can consume Lync meetings now. Additional conferencing functionality for Mac may be in the works post RTM. I will post more as more info comes available.
Some Mac Silverlight client conferencing features include:
View PC PowerPoints
View shared PC desktop
Remotely control PC desktop
Annotate PowerPoints, virtual laser pointer
Create and Post Polls, Vote in Polls
Create Whiteboard, collaborate in whiteboard
Can be combined with Mac 2011 Communicator client to include:
Audio conferencing
Video conferencing
•Dialpad
•Voicemail access – visual voicemail is very nice since you can play voicemails right in the client
•Private line – can setup one private line per voice enabled person
•Call delegation – can setup boss/admin and use Attendant Console for Admins/Receptionists
•Call routing – setup calls to go to another line forwarding or simulring (cell, home phone, etc)
•Call quality notification – lets you know if you are on a bad connection, echoing, speaking too loudly/softly, etc.
•Call park
•Device transfer – you can switch between multiple device real time during the call – headset, ip phone, usb phone, etc.
•Survivable branch appliance – appliance used for remote locations in case of a datacenter link outage/loss the SBA will leverage a PSTN connection for backup dialtone and failback to WAN link when available again. SBAs available from NET, Ferrari, HP, Audiocodes and Dialogic.
SBA diagram showing PSTN and WAN options
HP’s SBA appliance GUI screen
•Data center resiliency – can failover dialtone to alternate datacenters if primary datacenter goes down
•Call admission control (CAC) – can define bandwidth policies, audio and video routes, route traffic to Internet or PSTN based on links, etc.
•Announcement service – announce folks joining/leaving meetings
•Media bypass – no longer need mediation servers in remote locations for media nor are they needed for IP-PBX interop (for R2 voice customers today this translates to a huge reduction in Lync servers needed)
•E-911 for North America – native E911 location awareness See my post here for more info.
•Response group improvements
•Analog device support – fax machines and analog phones can be reflected in call detail records, etc.
•Standard and Enterprise Editions
•Reduced # of server roles – elimination for need of dedicated mediation server and other roles
•Server colocation enhancements
•Central Management Store – Lync config data stored in SQL now
•Planning Tool
•Topology Builder
•Migration tools
I will update more on the blog as things progress for Lync Mobile as far as available mobile platforms, final features, etc:
Features potentially slated (subject to change of course):
Single number reach - both ways (from Lync to mobile and from Mobile to Lync) where your mobile number stays hidden
Mobile voicemail avoidance – simul ring will send call to Exchange voicemail vs. mobile voicemail for example
Photos for each of your contacts
Join meeting – can join Lync conferences right from phone
See attendees in a Lync conference – along with who is talking
Control a Lync conference from mobile – mute, promote, remove, etc
Plenty of other mobile client features upcoming
•Lync Server Control Panel – core Lync administration capabilities from web page
•PowerShell – Lync Server can be fully managed from the command line if GUI is not your cup of tea
•Role Based Access Control – granular administration delegation down the property level if needed
•Server Draining – can drain calls before shutting down server for maintenance for example
•Virtualization Support – huge win here since now all the audio/video roles can be virtualized
•Enhanced monitoring – much better reporting and monitoring details, SCOM packs, etc.
Many more choices and variety of USB and IP phone pricepoints available now for Lync.
Some of the IP Lync phone device enhancements:
•Multi language support
•Contact Card – photos on the IP phone
•Search
•Call Transfer
•Calendar Integration – appointment will pop up and you can join the meeting right from the IP phone!
•Meeting Join
•Device management
New Lync phone views
Lync phone Calendar view
One of the big distinguishing points of the Lync platform is the ease of extensibility of our UC platform.
What comes with the UCMA 3.0 SDK (text excerpt from Chris Mayo’s UCMA FAQ):
Embed click to call/chat inside of LOB applications or Web sites using WPF or Silverlight
Extend apps inside of Lync client with context.
Grab the UCMA 3.0 RC SDK here.
Watch some of the new development Lync capabilities here.
Hopefully this gives you an idea of some of the amazing features coming with the Microsoft Lync Platform. Technet now has Lync 2010 content posted here for more technical deep dives. Stay tuned as we will have more posts around these topics upcoming.