Whitepaper Best of Both Worlds. Making the most out of your Office 365 Licensing and Increase Productivity How to add Lync Enterprise Voice

Transcription

1 Whitepaper Best of Both Worlds Making the most out of your Office 365 Licensing and Increase Productivity How to add Lync Enterprise Voice

2 Table of Contents Getting the most out of your Office 365 Deployment...3 Is Full Lync UC Really Necessary?...4 Completing the Shift Can Drive Productivity...4 Replace or Enhance the PBX with Office 365 and Lync?...5 Understanding Microsoft Licensing when Deploying Office 365 and the E4 Plan...6 Deploying Enterprise Voice with Lync...8 Office 365, Lync and Branch Office Deployments...11 Once you ve made the Decision that Full Lync UC is Right for your Business...12 JUNE 2014

3 Getting the most out of your Office 365 Deployment If you were attracted to Office 365 because it simplified your deployments and you could easily configure it in the cloud from the web user interface without having a large IT department or a team of external consultants and large equipment rooms, it can be disheartening to realize that it can t do everything you d hoped it can do. Once your company took the plunge into Office 365, your once-dated office software was replaced with a productivity powerhouse. Employees made such great use of all the unified communications features of your Office 365 E1 plan that it may have taken you aback. They were using Lync IM to quickly reach colleagues and taking advantage of the presence functionality to know when a good time was to try to connect with someone. Remote workers became more engaged and more like physical members of your team. Then your team wanted more. You upgraded your plan to E3 and added a third party conference call service and meeting features to your Lync deployment within Office 365. Now folks could dial into meetings directly over Lync. You saw how easy it was to add these features for just a few dollars more a month with a simple license upgrade and online meetings were happening in the cloud. And productivity soared. You started to reduce costs by phasing out other online meeting systems. All things considered, now having to pick up a regular desk phone and switch headsets is starting to become annoying for your staff. They just want to click-to-dial out of Outlook and start talking without a pre-planned meeting. With the E3 plan they still can t dial out off of Lync to a regular phone. You may also be running a legacy PBX that may be at or nearing end-of-life, it s costing you more money than you d care to pay and the features are starting to seem so limiting. You could migrate your license to the E4 plan but you don t have the resources to manage a complicated on-premise Lync deployment and you can t run Enterprise Voice in the cloud with full telephone network connectivity. Lync Server 2013 Plus CAL requires you to purchase and deploy an on-premise Lync Server to enhance or replace traditional PBX systems. 3

4 You may start to ask yourself: Is Full Lync UC Really Necessary? It s an important consideration. Adding full telephone support to Lync is a productivity booster. Employees can now seamlessly click to call all numbers; they don t need to worry about having a separate handset to field or make calls. They don t need to worry about whether or not the person they are calling is or is not on Lync. Lync can replace your PBX. Unified communications offers companies a way to integrate multiple technologies such as VoIP, as some firms continue to refine their UC implementation strategies and struggle with the notion of whether voice connectivity to the public telephone network through their unified communications platform is really necessary for their business. Completing the Shift Can Drive Productivity Shifting to full unified communications can be easier with a strategy in place. Establishing effective collaboration can be the key to bringing the many elements of a unified communications system together. Monitoring networks to see whether they can handle video and other software applications effectively and without disruptions should be part of determining a UC strategy. With collaboration and applications, we re really moving the bar away from infrastructure and starting to raise the conversation to a higher level, said John Pironti, President of IP Architects LLC, in a recent interview with Tech Target. i Understanding how applications work and finding ways to optimize them are emerging as key aspects of unified communications strategies. Companies are starting to realize that individual responsibilities are beginning to change in IT. i 4

5 Companies have been looking at how they can boost the functionality of apps within their unified communications systems and have not started moving on mass to a focus on the application layer to the detriment of infrastructure, which is a good thing, because hardware infrastructure is still important to connect to legacy networks, like the public switched telephone network, which remains as an important part of communications infrastructure for businesses of all sizes. Adding features, like video, over the public switched telephone network connections, including mobile, direct from the unified communication platform is an important consideration in completing the shift for further productivity. Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS at Infonetics, said in a news release: Businesses have been implementing more mobility into their UC architectures over the past year and now are looking toward video conferencing [like what is available in Lync] to help drive further productivity. ii Replace or Enhance the PBX with Office 365 and Lync? If your PBX is on its last legs or you simply don t have the resources to maintain it or integrate it into your new Office 365 system and now that you ve seen what Lync can do, replacing it with Lync Enterprise Voice is one of your best options. Running a separate PBX that is not up to current standards adds a layer of unnecessary complication to your business. Microsoft s Office 365 service does not currently provide Online Lync Enterprise Voice services (meaning calling out to the public switched telephone network) in the cloud. Changing back to an on-premise solution may seem daunting and could feel strange and overly complicated, especially if the switch to the cloud was current or the features available were misunderstood. All is not lost. Microsoft does provide an Office 365 subscription plan (E4) to allow customers to deploy Lync Enterprise Voice and enjoy an integrated Unified Communications solution and PBX replacement with the rest of their Office 365 applications using the split domain or hybrid Lync deployment model. ii 5

6 Understanding Microsoft Licensing when Deploying Office 365 and the E4 Plan Although when you first look online, making a change to your Microsoft licensing can seem daunting, especially, when you read that Microsoft has cancelled its Lync Hybrid Voice Program, which had allowed Office 365 Users to run a scaled-down version of Lync on premise. It really doesn t have to be that complex. You can still leverage your existing Office 365 subscription plan to deliver voice for Lync. From a high level technical perspective, here is how it works: Active Directory Federation Services and DirSync enable the synchronization and authentication of users between Office 365 and Lync on premise. For media, integration is performed via Edge Server roles. The Office 365 E4 plan is, as of the time of writing (May 2014) available for as little as $22 USD per user per month and is just $2 per user per month above the E3 plan. It is the most complete Office 365 plan. It includes Office, Exchange, SharePoint and a company web site, etc. For more details: The E4 plan extends the use of all the Lync Client Access Licenses (CALs) to on premise users. This allows Lync users to be able to use Lync Enterprise Voice from the on premise deployment It is important to note that a Lync Online cloud user gets access to all of the Office 365 features, but not Lync Enterprise Voice: this means an online user, cannot call out to the PSTN only Lync to Lync. An account that is configured as an on-premise user for Lync on the other hand can get access to all the on-premise features and all of the online features. A company moving to Lync on premise with Office 365 should move all of their staff to be configured as on premise users so that everyone, everywhere in their network has Lync Enterprise Voice capabilities. DirSync is free of charge and can run on the same server as the premise Active Directory. Users, wherever they are located, may then log into the Lync account that is now based on-premise and get all the same functionality as someone actually working on-premise, when it comes to Lync outbound calling to the public telephone network. To the end user, whether they are physically on premise or working remotely in the cloud, their experience would not change. They could use their Lync to dial out. 6

7 Here are a couple of configuration options: CONFIGURATION OPTION #1 Lync Server may be used in conjunction with Exchange Online. This allows missed call notifications, voice mails, and unified messaging capability for Lync to be delivered using Exchange Online through a connection to the on-premise Lync installation. This is particularly useful for Exchange Online customers who need the full Lync enterprise voice feature set. CONFIGURATION OPTION #2 Lync Server may be used in conjunction with Lync Online in a split domain configuration. This allows customers to home some users on Lync Server and others in the Office 365 cloud, with users homed on Lync Server taking advantage of the full Lync Server feature set, including all enterprise voice features. Licensing Requirements Microsoft has a whole book dedicated to licensing, but here s you will need: Windows Server 2012 License One Instance of Lync Server Microsoft E4 plan (By making this upgrade, you won t have to pay for new Client Access Licenses. The only added licensing costs to get E4 working with Enterprise Voice is a Lync Server License and the Windows Server 2012.) 7

8 Deploying Enterprise Voice with Lync Licensing is only one part of a Lync deployment. Running Lync with Enterprise Voice can be a complicated and confusing installation for any organization, running Office 365 or not. Let s look at some options: Ü Ü Change your Office 365 provider to a third party that offers hosted Lync with Enterprise Voice and PSTN capability There are many challenges with this solution, not the least of which is that the licensing doesn t extend as neatly as if you did put Lync on-premise. Therefore, this becomes complicated for business reasons to make the migration to full Lync UC. Also, you d be starting from scratch with a Microsoft partner company for which you may be a very small player and receive less than ideal service. Changing a hosting provider is almost always very complicated. Ü Ü Build your own on-premise solution You will need to source a server, source a gateway, source a session border controller, install the Windows Server and Lync in the on-premise install. Configure it yourself or pay a consultant or staff member to configure it. Make it work with your existing networks and deal with complex set-ups like this: DIAGRAM 1: ARCHITECTURE OF AN OFFICE 365 WITH LYNC ON-PREMISE 8

9 On the left side of the picture you have the on premise architecture; to the right you have the Office 365 cloud. Users of the same company can live in both environments. The Active Directory Federation Services (AFDS) acts as the glue that binds this split infrastructure together. DirSync synchronizes all the information from the on premise active directory to the Tenant Active directory. ADFS allows for a trusted (federation) identity access used between two organizations (here the company s on premise deployment and Microsoft Office 365) by creating a federated trust between the two security realms. ADFS also allows for Single sign on for users this means when they log in their computer; they get logged in all their applications and credentials once. Ü Ü Choose the Lync-in-a-box solution: Express For Lync Instead of going hosted or deploying your own complex group of Lync servers and attempting to connect it to your phone system, you look for a Lync-in-the-Box type arrangement. You could be running it in a data center that you have a connection to, but it is dedicated to your office. You get Active Directory and everything you need to get going. Some of these solutions can save you time and money and make integrations for: branch office support and PBX replacement with Office 365 for the SMB quick and easy. Some solutions are more complete than others, though. DIAGRAM 2: OFFICE 365 WITH EXPRESS FOR LYNC ON-PREMISE Cutting Deployment Times in Half By deploying a pre-built server with Microsoft Lync roles pre-installed for the small to medium enterprise, you can save resources. This device should also contain a Lync qualified and tested voice over IP gateway for public switched telephone network connectivity to your unified communications and session border controller for network security and transcoding. 9

10 If you choose the right device, you do not need to source separate components and all that needs to be done is to configure the device to work within your network. According to Tim Rettig, CEO of Intrust IT, Microsoft Gold Certified Solutions Provider and Lync Easy, A very good solution is the Sangoma Express for Lync. It puts into an appliance all the complexity of Lync on-premise, integrated to Office 365, all in one box. As well as VoIP that allows you to integrate with the PSTN and the phone system you may have T1/ANALOG/ SIP, it can federate and can have remote users. Can do exchange on-premise or in Office 365. It has the full features of Lync. With Sangoma s Express for Lync product, you get a complete platform for on-site deployment. Sangoma s Installation Partners report that 8/10 deployment times are cut at least in half by using the product. Microsoft licensing is not included, which is a good thing, as you can simply upgrade your existing licenses from your usual point of purchase. Express for Lync is backed by both your point-of-purchase and your team of Sangoma customer engineers. It contains the built-in, Lync qualified gateway and there is no need for an SBC. It gives you flexibility now and in the future. What s Inside Express for Lync? Base OS: Windows Server 2012 Qualified for Lync VoIP Gateway Qualified for Lync Enterprise SBC Lync Server 2013 Standard Edition Mediation Server Hyper-V player with VMs:»» Reverse Proxy (IIS-based)»» Edge Server»» Active Directory 10

11 Office 365, Lync and Branch Office Deployments In larger companies, if your headquarters has a full-fledged Lync deployment, you can use Office 365 plus Sangoma Express for Lync at the branch office to register through the WAN to headquarters. This configuration is referred to as a Survivable Branch Server and provides greater functionality than a survivable branch appliance, because you would have the full instance of Lync on-premise (using all of the resources from the central deployment) without the need for connectivity to headquarters to make calls, in the event that the headquarters Lync deployment goes down. If you configured Express for Lync as what is referred to as a Central Autonomous site you would have full-featured Lync, including the ability to make calls, which would saves a lot of bandwidth on the WAN. There is no one best scenario here, it depends heavily on the size of your site and company s requirements. Express for Lync with Office 365: A Look at Licensing On-Premise Licensing Express for Lync with Office 365 E4 Windows Server 2012 Includes 2 instances of Windows Server 2012 in Hyper-V MSRP $882 Lync Server 2013 $3646 Lync Mediation Server 2013 VM: Windows Server 2012 configured with IIS Role for Reverse Proxy VM: Window Server Lync Edge Server Role VM: Windows Server 2012 configured with Active Directory Role and DirSync NetBorder Express VoIP Gateway Software Vega Enterprise Session Border Controller Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) Client Access Licenses (CALs) Standard Enterprise Plus Client Software Office 365 Fees E4 plan No charge (co-located with Lync Server) No charge for first VM windows Server 2012 No charge for 2nd VM; Edge is free when colocated with Lync Server $882 3rd VM with Window Server 2012; AD is part of windows; DirSync is free of charge Included in the price of Express for Lync Included in the price of Express for Lync Free Microsoft Add-on No charge (covered by Office 365 E4 plan) No charge (covered by Office 365 E4 plan) No charge (covered by Office 365 E4 plan) No charge (covered by Office 365 E4 plan) $22 USD per user per month 11

12 Once you ve made the Decision that Full Lync UC is Right for your Business Look for an integration partner that deploys a full featured Lync-in-a-Box solution to reduce complexity, to avoid having specific Lync expertise on site, and to avoid having to source and right-size a server. The Sangoma Express for Lync server is rated up to 1,000 users and is comprised of Standard Edition Lync. Whatever option is right for your business, look for an appliance with all key components that are preloaded, including a TDM gateway to connect to the public switched telephone network and older analog devices such as door entry systems and a session border controller to keep your VoIP network secure. This will give you the greatest flexibility and scalability with the easiest implementation. About Sangoma Technologies Sangoma is a leading provider of hardware and software components that enable or enhance IP Communications Systems for both telecom and datacom applications. Enterprises, SMBs and Carriers in over 150 countries rely on Sangoma s technology as part of their mission critical infrastructures. Through its worldwide network of Distribution Partners, Sangoma delivers the industry s best engineered, highest quality products, some of which carry the industry s first lifetime warranty. The product line in data and telecom boards for media and signal processing, as well as gateway appliances and software. Founded in 1984, Sangoma Technologies Corporation is publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE: STC). Additional information on Sangoma can be found at 12