Install Lync 2010 Standard Edition Server – Part 2

The second part of this article series covers preparing the first Lync 2010 standard edition server, installing & configuring the topology. Read part one of the series before following this article.

Now that we have prepared the active directory for Lync 2010, it is time to prepare the first Lync 2010 Standard Edition server. This step will install SQL 2008 Express, creates the RTC database (which hosts the Central Management Store (CMS)), creates firewall exceptions for SQL and install the Lync core files.

Click on Prepare First Standard Edition Server in main page of the deployment wizard.

Click Next on the first wizard window. As the wizard explains, the account you are logged in with need local admin rights on the server.

The wizard will go through the process of installing SQL Express, creating RTC database and configuring firewall exceptions. This step will take some time, be patient!

Click on the Finish button to complete the prepare process.

This will bring a green tick against the Prepare First Standard Edition Server option.

Next step is to install Topology Builder. Click on Install Topology Builder in the deployment wizard.

This step will install the Lync admin tools – the Topology Builder and Lync Control Panel. The Lync Shell will already be on the server by now.

Wait for the green tick box to appear against Install Topology Builder.

Click Exit to close the deployment wizard.

Now that we have Topology Builder installed, we need to create our Lync topology before we can actually install the Lync 2010 Server binaries. It is a shift in thinking from the OCS world. In Lync, we need to have a proper plan about our infrastructure first, create a topology based on that and publish it.

Launch Lync Topology Builder from the start menu and you will be asked to make a choice. Select New Topology (as in screenshot below) and click OK.

Give a file name for the topology you are creating and click Save.

Enter the primary SIP domain. This is the domain name with which your users will login to the Lync client. It is better to have a routable internet domain (say your email domain). You can also choose to have your internal AD domain, if you don’t want any Lync services externally.

Add additional SIP domains, if you have any.

Add the name of your site. This is NOT the AD site. It can be anything like your location, name of datacentre etc.

Enter your site details. These are optional.

Click Finish. Make sure that the check box to open a few front end wizard is selected

Click Next on the welcome wizard.

Give the FQDN of your Lync server as the FQDN of the front end pool. Make sure you select Standard Edition Server. My server fqdn is lync.exchangemaster.local and that will be my front end pool name.

You are required to select the features you need in Lync. IM & presence is enabled by default. You can always go back into the Topology Builder and add/remove features. I will select all three in my lab.

I will collocate A/V and Mediation server on the same box as this is a lab. In production, you may want to split the roles into different servers, depending on your requirements.

I am not enabling any of the features like archiving for now. That is for another article series

The SQL store options will be filled for us, as this is a Std edition install. You cannot change the server or SQL instance name in Std edition.

Lync uses a shared folder and you are asked to give the name of the folder and the server on which it is located. You need to create this share before we publish the topology (I will be covering that anyway!).

You have the option to edit your external web services url. Typically, this will be a url associated with your sip domain name. I have selected mine to be lync.exchangemaster.me, as my external domain is exchangemaster.me

We don’t have any gateways just yet and hence leave the options blank and click Finish.

This finishes the wizard and you can look at the different options that you have configured and change them if necessary.

Click on Edit Properties on the left hand side.

Configure the admin access url and select the front end server and click OK. The admin url is of the form .com”>https://admin.<yourdomain>.com

Let’s now create the folder share we specified earlier. Configure the NTFS file security to grant Read & Execute permissions for Everyone and full control for administrators. Configure the Share permissions so that administrators have full control.

The time has come to publish the topology using the Publish Topology option on the left hand side.

Make sure you satisfy all the requirements mentioned (you have, if you have followed the article properly ) and click Next.

The front end pool will be selected by default. Click Next.

Wait while the topology gets published to the CMS. Make sure that you have all green ticks and the status says Success. Click Finish and close the Topology Builder.

The last step is to create three A records in the internal DNS, all pointing to the front end pool (lync server in other words). The records are meet, dialin and admin.<yourdomain>.com, where <yourdomain> specifies the domain name that you have configured in the topology. I have put my external domain name as I am having split-DNS. Hence, I will create meet, dialin and admin.exchangemaster.me in the internal DNS (for the external domain zone) pointing to the IP of the Lync server. You can create the A records with your internal AD domain zone if that is what you have used.

This concludes part 2. In the next and final part, we will install a local configuration store, install the Lync 2010 binaries and set up internal PKI certificate.