Lync Enterprise Voice More Resilient, Better Managed

Lync Enterprise Voice is a set of features that enables Lync Server to act as a private branch exchange (PBX) telephone system. Lync 2013 introduces advanced trunk routing and server enhancements, which provide greater failover and resiliency, and places Lync on a level closer to traditional PBX solutions. Lync 2013 also improves coexistence with existing PBX systems and reduces the complexity and cost of multisystem integrations, which may benefit companies migrating to Lync. However, the requirement for Lync Server upgrades and ongoing operational efforts required to support a multisystem environment may still deter some organizations.

Advanced Routing and Server Enhancements

Creating resiliency in a PBX environment involves providing sophisticated backup routing and failover capabilities that ensure voice traffic continues even when components of a PBX fail. To provide similar resiliency, Lync 2013 includes the following enhancements:

Mediation Server resiliency. A Mediation Server handles all traffic between the internal Lync infrastructure and the external gateways (which provide connections to the telephone service providers). Lync 2013 provides resiliency and failover through a many-to-many relationship among the Mediation Servers and the gateways, enabling fully redundant trunk routing. Previously, a Mediation Server could have trunks (connections) to multiple gateways, but each gateway was only able to connect to its associated Mediation Server. Now, each gateway can have multiple connections to multiple Mediation Servers, enabling a high level of resiliency and failover protection, should a Mediation Server fail.