Yes, there is a new version of the Mailbox Server Role Requirements calculator (v12.3) that supports the Active/Active DAG model.

Enhancements in this version:

• Incorporated Megacycle adjustment formula changes as documented in Guidance Change- Calculating the Megacycles for Different Processor Configurations Formula.
• The calculator no longer requires you to enter in the adjusted megacycles per core for the server architecture you are deploying.  Instead, you simply need to obtain the SPECint2006 Rate Value for your server platform.
• Added Megacycle Multiplication Factor – this works exactly like the IOPS Multiplication Feature does and was added as a result of RIM providing E2010 guidance on megacycle impact due to Blackberry devices.
• Active/Active user distribution scenarios.  Yes, really!  An Active/Active user distribution architecture has the user population dispersed across both datacenters (usually evenly) with each datacenter being the primary datacenter for its specific user population.  In the event of a failure, the user population can be activated in the secondary datacenter (either via cross-datacenter single database *over or via full datacenter activation).
• Added a new worksheet/section that documents the Activation Scenarios for DAG deployments. 
• Added error reporting validation logic if HA solution results in greater than 16 servers in a DAG to not show any results, since the design is invalid.
• Dumpster size calculations have been optimized as calendar versioning storage has been reduced from 5.8% impact to 3% impact in SP1.

A blog post explaining the calculator (updated for this new version) is here and or you can download the calculator directly.

Do you want to build your own Lync lab and you need guideline, I’ll post a series of four parts for a walkthrough for my lab setup and configuration over the next period… So let’s start by part 1:

The Lab environment:

• Windows 2008 R2 as the OS for Lync
• Windows 2008 R2 Active Directory (mbdomain.ad)
• 1 Lync server SE (The Standard Edition server supports IM, presence, A/V conferencing and Web conferencing)
• 1 Lync consolidated Edge server (Will be used later)
• TMG as the edge firewall and reverse proxy (Will be used later)
• Windows 2008 R2 CA standalone
• Windows 7 for the Lync client
• Remote Admin is enabled on the Lync server

So I started with preparing the base OS, so I used a Windows Server 2008 R2 VHD from my image library and run the sysprep on it (don’t ever forget to select the Generalize option to create a new SID), attached it to my Hyper-V server and joined it to the domain (only the LyncSE server since Edge will be in workgroup). Now we need to install the following components on the Lync server as a setup prerequisites:

• IIS with the below components:

• Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with SP1

You can use the below cmdlet for ease of deploying these components

Import-module Servermanager

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,web-server,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Redirect,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Client-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Scripting-Tools –Restart

• From the installation media, navigate to \Setup\amd64\SQLNCLI.EXE and install the SQL Server native client program
• MS Silverlight plug-in
• Lync planning tool (can be downloaded from the web)
• On the Lync server, I created a file share named Lyncshare. Configured the administrator account to have full rights. Configured everyone else to have read only privileges.

Now let’s see the installation process itself:

1. The Autorun will open the below IE page where I selected the install Lync Server 2010 option

2. First thing the setup prompted me to install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 redistributable, for sure I did

3. I accepted the default path below

4. First thing I selected the “prepare Active Directory” option

5. Run the ‘Prepare Schema’ option

6. Click on Next

7. After few min the schema extension finished successfully

8. Clicking on ‘view log’ showed the log with green status

9. Next step is ‘prepare current forest’ option

10. For the UG creation, I selected the local domain since I’m in a single domain anyway

11. Another green status

12. Now we need to prepare the current domain to set the ACEs for the UGs

13. Another green status

14. With this last step the Lync necessary groups are created in the mbdomain.ad

15. To allow access to the Lync admin control panel, manually I add the administrator account to the ‘CSAdministrator’ and the ‘RTCUniversalServerAdmins’ UG

16. After that from the setup menu I selected to deploy the topology builder

17. Next step is to prepare my SE server to host the Central Management Service with the SQL express, you can do so from the deployment wizard by clicking on ‘Prepare first standard edition server’ option

18. Another green status

Now we are ready for the deployment itself, in part 2 I’ll take you through these steps (don’t worry part 2 is almost ready for blogging)…

In this part we need to deploy a local configuration store with the published configuration in the central management store on our Lync server, we will do that by using the deployment wizard again and selecting the ‘Install or update Lync Server System’

1. Choose ‘Install Local Configuration Store’

2. Leave the option to auto retrieve from the central store

3. And finish

4. Now for setting up the Lync components based on our topology

5. Next

6. And Finish

Now we need to configure the server certificates, from the deployment wizard choose step 3

7. On the Certificate Wizard page, click Request then Next

8. Select the option to send the request immediately to the online CA (you can also prepare the request but to send it later if you don’t have an online CA however you will need to do extra few steps to assign the certificate to the Lync pool). In my case I configured my CA to auto issue certificates so I’ll go for the online option.

9. Select the CA

10. Accept the default for the CA Account or provide an alternate credentials if needed

11. On the Specify Alternate Certificate Template page click Next

12. Provide a friendly name and mark the key as exportable

13. On the Organization Information page, optionally provide organization information, and then click Next

14. On the Geographical Information page, optionally provide geographical information, and then click Next

15. Review the SAN list and click Next

16. On the SIP Domain setting page, select mbdomain.ad as the SIP Domain and then click Next

17. There is no need for additional SAN for now so Next

18. Review the result and Next

19. On the ‘Executing Commands’ page, click Next

20. On the ‘Online Certificate Request Status’ page, click Finish

21. On the certificate Request page select the option to assign the certificate for Lync usage and click Finish

22. On the ‘Certificate Assignment’ page, click Next

23. On the ‘Certificate Assignment Summary’ page, click Next

24. On the ‘Executing Commands’ page, click Finish

25. So now my certificate is ready and assigned as below

26. Next is to start the service

27. Click Next

28. And finally the Lync services is up and running

Going to the services snap and having a quick look… All services are started.

In the next part we will see how the Lync Control panel looks like, enable our first Lync users and deploy the Lync client…

So now with all services started we are ready in this final part to create and enable our first Lync users but let me show you first the Lync Control Panel.

1. From the start menu open the ‘Lync Server Control Panel’

2. You will be prompted for the admin credentials as shown below,

3. Add the URL to the trusted zone and don’t forget to remove any proxy settings from your IE or bypass the admin URL

And here is the first look to the Lync CP; honestly I like the new UI!

So let’s enable our users…

1. From the Lync CP we will select Users and then click on ‘Enable Users’

2. Click Add

3. Select the users that you want to enable

4. Select the Lync pool and Under ‘Generate user’s SIP URI’ choose Use the user principal name (UPN), leave the rest on the default settings and then click on Enable.

And here are the enabled users,

Now we are ready to install our Lync client… The installation is very straight forward and there is nothing to be confused in, as you see below, it is just one page with Install

And after the installation here is the Lync client

And finally user1 is signed in to the lab

So as you see the Lync deployment is different than OCS however the way it’s designed and integrated with tools such as the planning tool and the topology builder is giving the product a strong, scalable and flexible Enterprise UC application…

Take care… There is currently a new mass mailing worm that sends out thousands of messages from infected machines.

This message has a link to a file on the internet. The file in the link displays a .pdf but the Hyperlink is to a “_pdf.scr” file.

If you run the scr your machine will start sending out thousands of messages. This mail flow will cause some email servers to become unresponsive.

Currently in Exchange 2007 and 2010 you can mitigate the spread of this virus by adding a transport rule that drops the message. On exchange 2003 your options are to block this message with subject line rules by blocking subjects that contain "Here you have". Make sure that these messages are dropped and not quarantined. Also turn off notifications for this rule to make sure you don’t flood your server with notifications.

For already received mail, use ExMerge to remove the messages from mailboxes and delete mail sitting in the queue.

More information on this threat and how to use PowerShell to overcome it can be found here http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/worm-win32-vb-wf.aspx