HP ArchMicrosoft LyncServer

HP Reference Architectures
HP Verified Reference
Architecture for Microsoft Lync
Server 2013 Enterprise (5,000
user) enabled by SDN
Table of contents
Executive summary ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Lync solution design ................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Solution overview .......................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Solution at a glance .................................................................................................................................................................. 6
HP devices used for Lync Server 2013 RA ............................................................................................................................... 6
HP ProLiant servers .................................................................................................................................................................. 7
Network configuration for lab ................................................................................................................................................ 8
Designing the solution: architecture planning tools used .................................................................................................. 12
Capacity and sizing ...................................................................................................................................................................... 13
HP Sizer for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 ........................................................................................................................... 14
Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator.............................................................................................................. 15
Microsoft Lync Server 2013, Planning Tool ...................................................................................................................... 16
Testing scenarios and results ................................................................................................................................................... 16
How the test was performed ............................................................................................................................................... 16
Analyzing the test results ..................................................................................................................................................... 17
System performance.............................................................................................................................................................. 18
Lync Server Role performance............................................................................................................................................. 20
Test results ............................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Overview of deployment guidance .......................................................................................................................................... 28
Configuration overview graphic ........................................................................................................................................... 28
Lync Server 2013 environment ........................................................................................................................................... 29
Lync 2013 client simulation environment ......................................................................................................................... 29
Lync network............................................................................................................................................................................ 30
SDN solution for Lync Server 2013 ..................................................................................................................................... 31
Site configuration .................................................................................................................................................................... 36
High Availability ....................................................................................................................................................................... 36
Software configuration .......................................................................................................................................................... 36
Server configurations ............................................................................................................................................................. 37
Click here to verify the latest version of this document

HP Reference Architecture | HP Verified Reference Architecture for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Enterprise (5,000 user)
Lync Stress and Performance Tool ..................................................................................................................................... 43

Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN Simulator .................................................................................................................... 44
Bill of materials ............................................................................................................................................................................ 44
Summary ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 49
Implementing a proof-of-concept .......................................................................................................................................... 49
Appendix 1 – Performance counters ...................................................................................................................................... 50
Appendix 2 – Workload configurations .................................................................................................................................. 52
For more information ................................................................................................................................................................. 58
HP Networking resources...................................................................................................................................................... 58
Microsoft Lync Server resources ......................................................................................................................................... 58
Lync Sizer resources............................................................................................................................................................... 58
Executive summary
As business technology needs change at an ever-increasing pace, it is difficult to quickly implement complex solution
designs. HP and Microsoft® are positioned to help you deploy a stable, flexible and highly available Microsoft Lync Server
2013 infrastructure to serve your communications needs. HP and Microsoft have products, solution design and
implementation knowledge that build on their strong foundation and deep experience.
The HP products contained in this reference architecture include:
• HP ProLiant DL360p and DL380p servers
• HP Networking gear for your datacenter and branch office wired and wireless Ethernet needs
The Microsoft products contained in this reference architecture include:

• Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server® 2012 R2
These products are critical to the implementation of your Lync communication platform. Effective use of new features
means that you can develop, implement, monitor and maintain all of the hardware components and applications in the
solution. As newer components are made available or as additional functionality is required, it can be seamlessly added to
the existing infrastructure.
The HP Verified Reference Architecture for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Enterprise (5,000 user) is based on a tested and
validated physical architecture with the following server and networking roles:
• Microsoft Lync 2013 Front End servers (with Mediation role collocated)
• Lync Server 2013 monitoring servers
• SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Service Pack 2 (Lync Back End servers)
• Lync Edge servers
• Office Web Apps server
• Lync 2013 persistent chat servers
• Lync 2013 director servers
• HP Software Defined Networking (SDN) / Virtual Application Network (VAN) controller with HP Networking Optimizer
• HP Networking SDN Manager
• HP Networking Modular Services Router (MSR)
• Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator
Each of the machines that hold server roles is hosted on a physical ProLiant DL rack mounted server.
HP Software Defined Networking (SDN) is deployed in this solution to optimize Lync network traffic over HP’s OpenFlow
compliant networking components. Optimization of Lync network traffic is based on the particular type of communication in
use during a conversation including Instant Messaging, Presence, Audio, Video and Application Sharing.
The Microsoft Stress and Performance Test Tool for Lync Server 2013 was used for validation of Lync client workloads in
testing ranging from 1.5 hours to 12 hours. This reference architecture (RA) is based on HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers
with internal drive cages for storage requirements and HP Networking devices, such as the HP 3800-48G-PoE+-4SFP+
Switch, the HP 10508 Core Switch, and the HP MSR50-60 Router, a Multi-service Router with E1, FXS and FXO ports.
The results of the testing performed shows that the server and network devices selected for the reference architecture
support a Microsoft Lync Server 2013 workload for 5,000 users during normal operational conditions as well as in multiple
failure scenarios. This white paper provides details on the selection and configuration of the physical ProLiant servers that
host the Lync roles, HP Networking devices and SDN to meet the solution requirements.
For more information, please visit: hp.com/go/uc.
Note
For more information on “Lync Server 2013 User Models” please visit:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398811.aspx
3
Target audience: This white paper is intended to assist IT decision makers, Lync architects and Microsoft® Windows®
engineers involved in the planning, deployment and management of a physical deployment of Lync Server 2013
infrastructure using HP ProLiant servers with HP Networking components.
Document purpose: The purpose of this document is to describe a recommended architecture/solution, highlighting
recognizable benefits to technical audiences.
This Reference Architecture describes testing performed in March 2015.
Introduction
The HP RA for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Enterprise (5,000 user) provides a tested Lync Server 2013 solution that is
designed to support 5,000 corporate users. The Lync Server 2013 product is part of the Unified Communications (UC)
platform from Microsoft that also includes Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 and SharePoint 2013. The Microsoft UC
platform is an integrated set of technologies that enables users within a company to efficiently communicate with their
peers and with those outside of their company. With the Microsoft UC platform, the 2013 versions of Lync, Exchange and
SharePoint are closely integrated and allow users with Microsoft Office products to use resources such as email and
presence, document management and storage in a seamless fashion.
The physical deployment of Lync Server 2013 in a highly available design requires proper sizing and the use of
recommended best practices when sizing the server roles and network components. The design and sizing performed for
this reference architecture has been tested as part of this project to ensure that it is capable of supporting 5,000 corporate
users with the instant messaging and presence (IM&P), enterprise voice, dial-in and web conferencing with voice, video and
application sharing Lync features during both normal operations and failure scenarios.
For most customers, designing and sizing a Lync Server 2013 implementation is a complex process emcompassing servers,
storage and networking. This project delivers a basic implementation of Lync Server 2013 and a customer can use the tools
discussed to customize the implementation to meet their needs.
This project also provides the outcome of functional and performance testing. The functional testing ensures that the
components are able to work together as envisioned and the performance testing ensures that the solution is capable of
supporting 5,000 users with the desired features. Using this reference architecture as a guide, a customer can accelerate
their design and implementation for Lync Server 2013 as part of an overall Microsoft UC strategy.
HP’s deep technical knowledge and experience help our customers build stable Lync infrastructure solutions to provide
reliable access to Lync’s collaboration features. HP’s deployment experience and testing is documented in reference
architectures to help customers to accelerate their solutions by providing an implementation blueprint.
Note
The HP RA for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Mid Market (2,500 User) is available from:
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA4-7901ENW
Lync solution design

The HP reference architecture project solutions for Lync are driven by product and application experts across multiple HP
business units to ensure that the solutions provided to customers incorporate expert knowledge from multiple sources
representing the entire end to end infrastructure.
Key solution design points

• Proper design and implementation
– Is sufficient performance provided for the Lync 2013 workload by the solution?
• Lync Stress and Performance Tool system validation
– Do all of the functional parts of the Lync 2013 solution work as expected?
– Is the CPU load of the servers within design parameters when deployed?
– Does the network infrastructure provide sufficient resources?
• Software Designed Networking
– What options are available for the implementation of SDN and how does HP optimize the SDN experience?
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• High availability failure scenario testing

– Is the availability of Lync services maintained to design specifications during the failure of each component?
– What service interruptions are expected as connections are failed over from one component to another in the HA
implementation? This speaks to the Service Level Agreement that a customer can target as well as setting expectation
for the user experience.
Solution overview
The 5,000 user reference architecture equipment selection is based on HP ProLiant DL380p and DL360p Gen8 servers, the
HP 10508 core switch, two HP 3800 distribution switches, an HP MSR50-60 Multi-service router and SDN Controller
components.
The ProLiant DL servers depicted in Figure 1 are required to support the Lync Server 2013 functionality deployed for this
highly available physical configuration. Figure 1 shows a logical configuration with the representative Lync server roles. If a
specific server role is depicted as a pool, it has multiple servers and the lab tested server count can be found in the Server
configurations section and the recommended server count for production implementation can be found in the Bill of
materials section.
Figure 1. Configuration Diagram
Arcatech emutel™ | Harmony

MSR 50-60
Active Directory Server 10508 Switch as
PSTN Gateway
OpenFlow Not required PSTN Simulator
E1
3800 Switch LACP Trunks 3800 Switch

OpenFlow Enabled OpenFlow Enabled
Microsoft Lync HP VAN SDN

Front End
Stress and Controller with
Server Back End SQL Performance HP Network
Pool Server and Mirror Tool Server Optimizer
Microsoft (internal users)
Lync SDN VLAN 20
Environment
with API
Persistent
Chat Server Director server Edge Server Microsoft Lync
Pool Array Pool SDN Manager
VLAN 30
Microsoft Lync Microsoft Lync Microsoft Lync

Office Web Stress and Stress and Stress and
App Server Performance Performance Performance
Pool Tool Server Tool Server Tool Server
(internal users) (External users) (PSTN users)
VLAN 10
The configuration used to support the reference architecture consists of server and networking hardware components as
well as software components from both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.
Firewalls and a server holding the Lync Reverse Proxy role are required in a production deployment but were not deployed
for testing in this lab configuration.
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Solution at a glance
The HP RA for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Enterprise (5,000 user) incorporates Lync features that a typical corporate user
would access on a daily basis. The reference architecture is designed to provide high availability and resiliency in the event
of failure. The integration of best practices from both HP and Microsoft in the solution design was a key factor.
Table 1. Solution at a glance
Description Value
Lync Clients 5,000
Active Users1 100%
Central Sites One
Remote Sites None
Instant Messaging and Presence Yes
Audio/Video, Dial-in and Web Conferencing Yes
Application Sharing and Data Collaboration Yes
Persistent Chat and Compliance Yes
Reverse Proxy Not Tested
Office Web Apps Yes
Monitoring Yes
Archiving Yes
PSTN Gateway Yes
Enterprise Voice-enabled Users 60%
PSTN Calls per Hour / Trunk Type 4 / E1
Phone calls using media bypass 0%
Remote User Connectivity / External Users Yes / 30%
Physical Infrastructure Yes
Lync Server 2013 version Enterprise Edition
High Availability/Redundancy 2 Yes
Maximum Active Users per FE server 5,000
Storage Server Internal HDD
1
For testing purposes a concurrency rate for Lync users of 100% is used. In a typical corporate environment Lync concurrency is expected
to be in the 20% to 30% range.
2
For testing purposes High Availability/Redundancy was deployed for the Lync Server roles only and not for the network components.
HP devices used for Lync Server 2013 RA

High-level descriptions of each of the HP products used in the 5,000 user reference architecture are described in the
following sections.
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Note
The equipment described below should be taken as a reference only; a Lync solution is in no way limited to only these
specific models. For example, the DL380p Gen8 is performing at par with the DL360p Gen8 but the DL380p Gen8 was
positioned due to the flexibility it offers with six PCI expansion slots. The testing has been performed on the Gen8 models of
the ProLiant servers and the Gen9 ProLiant servers are now available. The Gen9 servers can be implemented in place of the
Gen8 servers by matching the respective processor, memory, networking and storage configurations.
HP ProLiant servers
ProLiant DL380p
The HP ProLiant DL380p is an unmatched investment that can handle today’s demanding compute requirements while
safeguarding the investment for future growth. HP sets the standard of 2U 2-socket rack servers for the industry with the
DL380p ProLiant server line. Substantial effort went into making the DL380p servers easy to service while packing the most
up-to-date features into the small 2U form-factor. Overall, the DL380p is the perfect solution for today's growing
businesses and demanding datacenters due to its enhanced configuration flexibility, unmatched performance, and leading
energy efficient design. In the event of a hardware failure, parts for the HP ProLiant DL380p servers are stocked in service
depots around the world allowing for fast replacement to get your server back into production.
Figure 2. HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8
ProLiant DL360p
The HP ProLiant DL360p has the equivalent processing power as the ProLiant DL380p in a 1U 2-socket rack server. The
DL360p server is as easy to service as the DL380p but with fewer PCI slots and fewer hard drives than the DL380p server.
Figure 3. HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8
Both the HP ProLiant DL380p and DL360p servers support either Small Form Factor (SFF) or Large Form Factor (LFF) drives
with both Solid State Drives (SSD) and Hard Disk Drives (HDD) with various capabilities to match your specific design needs.
These drives run using the advanced technologies available on the HP Smart Array disk controllers.
Server network connectivity

ProLiant servers offer a selection of 1 and 10 GbE network interface cards which provide a variety of capabilities and the
ability to change the cards as requirements evolve. Flexible LAN on Motherboard (FlexibleLOM) cards, shown below, are
used to change the personality of the built-in networking ports in the server. The FlexibleLOM cards shown in figure 4 are
replaceable without the use of tools.
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Figure 4. FlexibleLOM cards for HP ProLiant DL servers
HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 331FLR FIO Adapter HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 554FLR-SFP+ FIO Adapter
The HP Ethernet 1GbE 4-port 331FLR (LAN on Motherboard – LOM) and HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 331T (PCI) adapters
selected for this configuration are used in both the DL380p and DL360p servers to provide multiple 1GbE ports for each
physical server.
Network configuration for lab

Multiple network components are used in the deployment of a successful Lync server communications solution. The
components range from HP networking datacenter switches, routers and management components to the distribution and
edge switches that connect to your Lync enabled client devices over both wired and wireless technologies.
Lab network configuration
The network configuration consists of a combination of HP Networking hardware components and servers that host
functions for the Lync infrastructure and is deployed into multiple network segments and one telephony segment:
• Internal network – the lab network that simulates the datacenter and client network connections.
• Edge Network – a border (or DMZ) network that is configured between internal network and the Internet. The Edge
Network is located between two firewalls.
• Internet – a public network that is connected through the use of a Wide Area Network (WAN) connection to enable users
outside of the company to connect to the Edge Network and access corporate services.
• SDN Network – a management network that is used for SDN control and switch management traffic.
• Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) – a telephony segment that is connected through the HP Multi-service Router
(MSR) and can contain a Private Branch eXchange (PBX). This telephony segment connects to external telecom providers
to allow calling external users of telephone services.
The HP 10508 core switch is the backbone of the network infrastructure and connects to the MSR50-60 and the HP 3800
switches that provide connectivity to the physical servers, routers and stress generation clients. For the scope of this
testing, firewalls and the Lync Server 2013 reverse proxy server are not part of the configuration but are needed in a
production Lync Server implementation.
HP Networking switches
The internal lab network contains an HP 10508 core switch with two 3800 distribution switches as the backbone of the
network. This configuration provides the infrastructure necessary for testing the Software Defined Networking (SDN)
features available for Lync Server 2013. The 10508 switch is configured with two 1GbE connections to each of the 3800
switches for connection redundancy. The 1GbE ports on each 3800 switch are connected to the ProLiant servers which allow
access to the physical hosts that run the Lync server roles, the network management servers for SDN and HPN Intelligent
Management Center and the tools servers which host the Lync Stress and Performance tools to simulate Lync client
connections.
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HP 10508 Switch
The HP 10508 Switch was used for core modular switching in the testing of the HP Networking 2-tier design selected for the
5,000 user reference architecture. This is a modular switch that supports virtualization modules, 10GbE core switching,
PoE+, layer 3 routing and high availability features. The HP 10508 fits well for the 5,000 user design.
The HP 10508 Switch offers high performance, scalability, and a wide range of features in a high-availability platform that
dramatically reduces complexity and provides reduced cost of ownership. As part of a unified wired and wireless network
infrastructure solution, the 10508 switch provides platform technology, system software, system management, application
integration, wired and wireless integration, network security, and the support that is common across HP modular and fixed-
port switches. Together, they deliver an agile, cost-effective, high-availability network solution. With key technologies to
provide solution longevity, the 10508 switch is built to deliver long-term investment protection without added complexity
for network core, aggregation, and high-availability access layer deployments. It provides these capabilities while bringing
to market the industry's first highly available switch with a lifetime warranty.
Figure 5. HP 10508 switch
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Benefits of the 10508 Switch

• Core, distribution, mission-critical access layer
• Advanced high-availability AllianceONE integrated applications and partner products
• Layer 2 switching, layer 3 services and routing and an intelligent edge feature set
• Enterprise-class performance and security
• Scalable 1/10/40 and 100 GbE connectivity
HP 3800 Switch Series modular switches

The HP 3800 Switch Series was used for access switching in the testing of the HP Networking 2-tier design selected for the
5,000 user reference architecture. The HP 3800 Switch Series is recommended for designs that go up to and include 5,000
users that are split across multiple 3800 switches.
The HP 3800 Switch Series is a family of nine fully managed Gigabit Ethernet switches available in 24-port and 48-port
models, with or without POE+, and with either SFP+ or 10GBASE-T uplinks. The 3800 Switch Series utilizes the latest HP
ProVision ASIC technology and advances in hardware engineering to deliver one of the most resilient and energy-efficient
switches in the industry. Meshed stacking technology is implemented in the HP 3800 Switch Series to deliver chassis-like
resiliency in a flexible, stackable form factor.
Figure 6. HP 3800 modular switch
Benefits of the HP 3800 Switch Series

• Fully managed Layer 3 stackable switch series
• Low-latency, highly resilient architecture
• RJ-45, SFP+, 10GBASE-T, PoE+, modular stacking
• Highly resilient meshed stacking technology
• OpenFlow compatible switch that supports SDN technology
• Industry-leading lifetime warranty
HP MSR Series router offerings

The HP MSR Series routers provide Wide Area Network (WAN) routing functionality within an HP FlexBranch Branch Office
solution, supporting a large variety of WAN interfaces such as serial/T1/T3/E1/E3/ATM/xDSL/POS/CPOS/3G and protocols
such as RIP/OSPF/IS-IS/BGP/MPLS/HSPA/WCDMA/IPv4/IPv6. The HP MSR Series routers have multiple models available for
different price/performance/capability combinations. This variety of MSR versions allows the selection of models supporting
small branch offices with only Ethernet connectivity up to large branch offices with needs for high performance and
modularity, including OC-3/T3/E3 WAN bandwidth, security, resiliency, and scalability.
The HP MSR Series can be used as a SIP media gateway in a Microsoft Lync Server environment, providing:
• Analog and digital SIP media gateway
• Multiple interface types to connect to PSTN
• Modular and fixed configurations
• Integrated SIP stack
Benefits of the HP MSR Series routers

• Convergence of routing, switching, security, and voice
• Modular, multi-bus architecture provides high reliability and high performance
• Full line of enterprise modular routers for small offices to medium-large data centers
• Embedded encryption, quality of service, firewall, security features
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• Redundant power supply and hot swapping available on select models

• Unified management platform
• Common modules across many platforms
• Open application architecture enabled
• No extra license cost for features
• Within the HP FlexNetwork architecture, the HP MSR Series of routers is a major component of the HP FlexBranch
reference architecture, providing:
– Integrated “all-in-one” with routing, switching, wireless LAN, 3G/4G, voice and security
– Based on open standards (such as SIP) with modular interface options (WAN/LAN/voice)
– Broad range of WAN access interfaces with data rates up to OC-3
– Unified operating system (Comware) across all HP routers
– Single pane of glass management with HP Intelligent Management Center (IMC)
– Multi-vendor, best of breed SIP-based UC connectivity
Benefits of HP MSR50-60 Series routers

• 4U with 6 FIC slots
• 2 ESM modules
• 1 VCPM Module
• Optional Power over Ethernet chassis with up to 24 PoE ports
• Optional DC power supply chassis
• Optional external Redundant Power Supply
• Same performance, resiliency, and features as HP MSR30-60 in a medium form factor
• Optional Session Border Controller (SBC) Lync Modules for branch office implementations
Figure 7. HP MSR50-60 Series router
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Designing the solution: architecture planning tools used

HP’s solutions for Lync enable the optimization of Lync traffic to ensure that customer experience is maintained at a high
level. Lync is sensitive to network design and latency and if not properly deployed, users experience poor performance as
the resource demands increase beyond a pilot group of users.
The following sections describe the key points that were considered while designing this solution. The architecture planning
process is also described in length for the customer benefit.
Key points
• Deployment of a highly available Lync Server 2013 infrastructure
• Design incorporates Microsoft, HP best practices
• Physical hardware deployment aligns with Microsoft guidance
• High Availability and failover strategies are useful in maintaining a chosen Service Level Agreement
• Describes SDN feature integration into HP’s solution for Lync Server 2013
This project documents the deployment of Lync Server 2013 in a highly available configuration for 5,000 users on HP
ProLiant DL360p and DL380p Gen8 servers. This reference architecture contains tested designs for a highly available
Microsoft Lync 2013 deployment based on the Lync Server 2013 User Models as defined by Microsoft. The Microsoft Stress
and Performance Test Tool for Lync Server 2013 validates the Lync client workloads in testing ranging from 1.5 hours to 12
hours.
Software products included in this RA:
• Microsoft Lync Server 2013 – Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft SQL Server 2012
• Microsoft Lync Stress and Performance Tool
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
• HP Network Optimizer
For this RA, a physical deployment model aligns with the Microsoft recommendation for large Lync deployments. This
reference architecture (RA) contains HP ProLiant DL360p and DL380p Gen8 servers with internal drive cages for the
required storage. The HP Networking (HPN) devices align with the HPN Reference Design guides and include devices such as
the HP 10508 Core Switch, 3800 Distribution switches, and the HP MSR50-60 Router (multi-service Router with E1/T1 FXS
and FXO ports). This RA includes a section describing the use of Software Defined Networking (SDN) components, the
features that SDN enables and the firmware/software levels necessary to implement SDN.
Hardware products included in this RA:
• ProLiant DL360p and DL380p Generation 8 servers
• HP core and branch networking gear
• HP Modular Services Router (MSR) Lync gateway
• Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN Simulator
Customer value
This reference architecture is the second in a series of HP RAs providing deployment examples for Lync Server 2013 for
Channel Partners, Technical Services (TS), customers and other skilled Lync solutions implementers. These projects provide
tested solutions that demonstrate concepts and design decisions made while sizing a Lync infrastructure to assist in the
development of Unified Communications offerings.
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Figure 8 below shows a graphical overview of the logical configuration for this HP Verified Reference Architecture for
Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Enterprise (5,000 user). The configuration is split into multiple network areas: internal network,
SDN Control network and Internet/Edge (DMZ) network.
Figure 8. Logical Configuration Diagram
Reverse Proxy Office Web Apps Lync Monitoring Lync Director
Internet Gateway PSTN
Lync Front End

Lync Edge and File Shares Persistent Chat SDN Manager
Mediation (co-located)
Customer Provided
Firewalls
Reverse Proxy
HP Network Optimizer / VAN

SQL Back End
Controller
Capacity and sizing

The sizing of a solution design is critical to ensure that your customer’s needs are fulfilled by the design choices you make.
This process requires the ability to work with your customer to understand the features that they need incorporated in their
design and how those needs are met and prioritized against real world constraints such as cost. In an ideal situation, there
are no tradeoffs to be made, cost is not a factor and we can size the solution to include all of the features we would like to
have. Reality tempers those solution designs by striking a balance between prioritization of features based on business
requirements and the cost of various solutions versus the budget allocated to the project, integration with existing systems
and existing infrastructure capacity. Each customer has a range of solutions that will meet their needs with varying degrees
of completeness. Each customer’s solution is driven from a combination of their Service Level Agreement (SLA) and
business requirements that establish the foundation of the required feature set, level of high availability and disaster
recovery up to a feature set which includes the nice to have features that fit within the project budget.
Lync Server 2013 can be deployed as Standard Edition with simple availability features or as Enterprise Edition with a full
complement of availability features. Lync Server 2013 can be deployed in a virtualized environment or in a physical
environment where each deployment methodology presents pros and cons. With the variety of deployment options for Lync
Server, sizing tools exist to assist with performing “What if” design variations. Once the basic workload and site structure
information is described in the tool, changes can be made to determine the solution outcome; for example, the number of
blade or rack mount servers required given a specific processor or memory configuration choice.
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Several tools exist to assist with the design and sizing of a Lync Server 2013 implementation. The tools include the HP Sizer
for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 that generates configuration details, and a bill of materials containing HP server and storage
components across multiple site configurations based on a series of questions. The HP tool has the ability to save a defined
workload and then change a variable such as the substitution of a four-socket ProLiant DL server for a two-socket ProLiant
DL server and determine the effect that the change has on the solution design and cost. Another tool, the Microsoft Lync
Server 2013 Capacity Calculator, provides a set of inputs for the various Lync Server 2013 workload components and
outputs the quantity of servers needed for each server role. Microsoft also provides the Lync Server 2013 Planning Tool that
assists with the definition of site topology, the server roles and hardware needed for each site. Each tool is discussed below.
HP Sizer for Microsoft Lync Server 2013

The HP Sizer for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 provides an analysis of the HP server and storage hardware needed to
implement the features that you select in the Sizer. The site names and number of users homed in each central site are
entered and Lync features are selected with the use of checkboxes. The tool then allows the configuration of the Enterprise
Voice feature and co-location configuration for roles. Branch office information is entered including the number of branch
offices and the users in each as well as configuration details for the external communication connections that each branch
office has available. The specific type of server is selected from the Role Server Options page and can range from allowing
the Sizer to recommend the servers or the selection of specific features such as rack mount (DL) servers or BladeSystem
servers (BL). At each step of the process, the Solution Preview button shows the current configuration based on the inputs
and selections that have been entered. After working through each of the pages in the Sizer and clicking on the Finish
button, the Sizer performs the full set of calculations and generates multiple views of the configuration recommendations.
A Bill of Materials (BOM) is generated that can be provided to your HP sales specialist for quotation of the server and storage
components along with detailed configuration views, graphical topology views and the ability to save the solution to a file
for later reference. The HP Sizer for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 is available at: hp.com/solutions/microsoft/lync2013/sizer
Figure 9. HP Sizer for Microsoft Lync Server 2013
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Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator

The Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator is an Excel spreadsheet developed by Microsoft that allows for the input
of the number of users and is pre-configured with a mixture of Lync Server 2013 workloads. The workloads are specified by
the percentage of the total user population that uses a specific Lync feature. The defaults in the tool can be used as a
starting point or custom values can be entered into the orange cells if you have more accurate data for your environment.
The tool then outputs a recommendation for the minimum quantity of servers for each server role. Since this solution
includes high availability features for the Lync Server roles, additional servers have been incorporated into the design to
ensure Lync services are available in a failure situation.
The Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator is available from the Microsoft download site:
microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36828
Figure 10. Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator
Note
We set the value for media bypass from the default of 65% to 0% which changes the concurrent calls to 397. This is done to
increase the load on the Lync environment to ensure that the test cases are using the highest level of Lync server resources
possible.
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Microsoft Lync Server 2013, Planning Tool

The Microsoft Lync Server 2013, Planning Tool, developed by Microsoft, provides the ability to describe a Lync site
configuration and feature selection that is specific to your company’s requirements and then matches the number of
servers and networking components needed to implement the overall topology. The tool starts the design process with an
interview to assess the Lync features and high availability options and proceeds through a site description covering central
and branch sites and the features each site has enabled. The tool then asks for the Web Conferencing, Voice features,
Exchange Unified Messaging and other Lync features to ensure an accurate implementation.
The Microsoft Lync Server 2013, Planning Tool is available from the Microsoft download site:
microsoft.com/en-eg/download/details.aspx?id=36823
Figure 11. Microsoft Lync Server 2013, Planning Tool
Each of the tools is run and the results compared to ensure that the sizing is accurate. The HP tool provides server and
storage results based on the specific capabilities provided by ProLiant servers. The Microsoft sizers provide sizing based on
a generic server platform that must be adjusted for the specific hardware that you wish to use to ensure accurate sizing.
Testing scenarios and results

The Lync Server 2013 solution incorporated the Lync server roles described in the Server configurations section. The PSTN
environment was set up using HP MSR Media Gateways and PSTN environment simulators. The SDN environment was
configured and integrated into the Lync lab configuration. The Lync users were simulated using the Microsoft Stress and
Performance Test tools. The test tools generated load on the Lync environment that consisted of all Lync workloads that
the tool supported. The performance parameters were recorded on each of the Lync servers and the monitoring server for
overall system performance. Test results were also captured from SDN components and the Arcatech emutel | Harmony
PSTN simulator.
How the test was performed

The 5,000 users were divided into two groups of 2,500 each to divide the Lync user connections across the two HP 3800
switches. The Lync Server 2013 Stress and Performance Tool (often referred to as LyncPerfTool) was used to simulate the
Lync workloads. The following scenarios were tested:
1.1: 5,000 users with 30% of users enabled for Enterprise Voice
1.2: 5,000 users with 30% of users enabled for Enterprise Voice and 199 Concurrent UC-PSTN calls
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2.1: 5,000 users with 60% of users enabled for Enterprise Voice
2.2: 5,000 users with 60% of users enabled for Enterprise Voice and 398 Concurrent UC-PSTN calls
3.1: 5,000 users with 60% of users enabled for Enterprise Voice and 398 Concurrent UC-PSTN calls (Failover with loss of 1
Lync FE Server)
Lync SQL Server)
Lync Edge Server)
For each of the above scenarios, the following table shows the user distribution for each type of workload: IM&P, Enterprise
Voice (UC-UC and UC-PSTN), Conferences (including different modalities: Audio, Application Sharing and Data Collaboration).
Note
The Data Collaboration load works for internal Lync users. In the lab configuration, neither a reverse proxy or load balancer
was configured for testing therefore the Lync Edge connected users did not upload content to the conference/meeting.
Table 2. User Distribution Per workload (5,000 Lync users)
Users enabled # Users Concurrent Concurrent

for Conf (Audio, enabled calls on UC-PSTN Concurrent UC-PSTN UC-PSTN
Users App Sharing & for Consolidated calls on calls on PSTN Gateway Calls Per
enabled Data Enterpri # UC-UC # UC-PSTN Mediation MSR simulated by MSFT Hour (UC-
Scenario for IM Collaboration) se Voice Users users server pool Gateway perf test tool PSTN)
1.2 1 3131 369 1500 600 900 199 46 153 3980
2.2 2 1631 369 3000 1200 1800 398 46 352 7960
3.1 1631 369 3000 1200 1800 398 46 352 7960
3.2 1631 369 3000 1200 1800 398 46 352 7960
3.3 1631 369 3000 1200 1800 398 46 352 7960
1
The user distribution for scenario 1.1 was the same as scenario 1.2
2
The user distribution for scenario 2.1 was same as that of 2.2
The performance parameters at the individual Lync server role and overall system level performance were captured. The
details are discussed in the test results analysis section below.
Analyzing the test results

The test results data is collected from various parts of the test environment and is compared with Key Health Indicator (KHI)
thresholds. The environment is designed to handle the Lync load during both normal and failure scenarios. The Key Health
Indicators show if the test results are staying within the KHI threshold limits for each test performed.
The following types of data are collected:
• System level – This data shows the overall health of the Lync environment and includes the following reports:
– System usage data
– Call diagnostic summary
– QoE performance
– DNS load balancing performance
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• Individual Lync Server role level – This data is collected for each Lync server role and compared with KHI thresholds. The
type of data includes:
– “Performance Data”: The system performance data is collected from each Lync server role
– “Latency Data”: This includes the “Queue latency” and “Sproc latency” for Front End server role
• Performance metrics collected from SDN Controller – This data includes:

– QoE Metrics: Shows the number of Good, Acceptable or Bad quality calls
– Concurrent Session information: Shows the number of concurrent sessions that are controlled by the SDN controller
over a period of time
– Lync SDN Manager Status: Shows the connectivity status of the SDN Managers with the SDN controller
– Session Info: per session details include caller IP/Port, callee IP/Port, time, DSCP value configured, DSCP value
expected and most importantly QoE status with Jitter and Mean Opinion Score (MOS) score that gives us quality of each
Lync session
• The UC-PSTN call data captured from Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator
System performance
System usage matrix
This data contains the following system usage parameters: Total number of users that logged into the system, total peer-
to-peer sessions and total conferences, as well as detailed information on the number of IM sessions, audio sessions, video
sessions, application sharing sessions and PSTN sessions.
Figure 12. System Usage Data
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Call diagnostics summary

This data shows how the Lync environment performed in terms of successfully processing the entire workload. The data
collected shows the number of total sessions processed by the system and failure rate per modality (IM, Audio, Application
Sharing and A/V conference) for peer-to-peer calls and conferences.
Figure 13. “Call Diagnostics Summary Report” for scenario 3.1
Media Quality Diagnostics

This data shows the overall media quality of the entire Lync environment. It shows the number and percentage of poor
quality calls for peer-to-peer and conference sessions.
Figure 14. Media Quality Diagnostics for one scenario 2.2
DNS load balancing performance

This data shows how sessions were distributed evenly across the servers in the pool by the DNS load balancer. The
following table shows that the sessions were balanced almost equally across the three Lync Front End servers in the pool.
Table 3. DNS load balancing performance matrix for scenario 2.2
Total Calls
Performance Counter FE1 FE2 FE3
LS:Mediation server-Outbound calls 21704 22835 21117
LS:Mediation server-Inbound calls 1835 1535 1188
LDM- Total messages sent 24698 17330 19792
LDM- Total messages received 24505 17015 19328
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Lync Server Role performance

CPU utilization, memory and network utilization
The following data matrix shows the CPU, memory and network utilization per Lync server role for the test scenarios both
for SDN and non-SDN types of configuration. In the non-SDN configuration type, OpenFlow was disabled, so the HP Network
Optimizer/VAN controller processed the messages received from SDN Managers but no traffic prioritization was done. The
performance values reported are good and well below the thresholds.
Table 4. Average CPU, memory, network usage per Lync Server Role (FE, SQL and Edge servers) in SDN Mode
Lync Front End Servers Lync Back End/SQL Servers Lync Edge Servers
Network Network
Memory Network Memory Network Memory Used Used
CPU % Used Used CPU % Used Used CPU % Used Average Average
used Average Average used Average Average used Average (Mbps) - (Mbps) -
Scenario Average (GB) (Mbps) Average (GB) (Mbps) Average (GB) Internal External
1.1 16 -19 8.5 – 10 3.5 – 4.5 0.3 38 0.215 1.5 2 0.115 0.149
1.2 14 - 30 8.5 – 10 7.9 – 8.7 0.5 28 0.252 1.5 2 0.121 0.147
2.1 19 - 28 6.9 – 7.5 7.5 – 7.7 0.6 38 0.226 1.33 2 0.104 0.122
2.2 42 – 56 7.5 – 8.5 14.7 – 15 0.7 32 0.237 1.4 2 0.129 0.125
3.1 54 – 63 17 – 18 19.2 – 19.4 1.32 40 0.23 1.27 2 0.085 0.087
3.2 38 – 53 13 – 20 13.1 – 13.6 0.668 43 0.177 1.3 2 0.107 0.125
3.3 46-55 15 - 17 15.5 – 16.4 0.75 43 0.237 1.4 2 0.123 0.115
Table 5. Average CPU, Memory, Network usage per Lync Server Role (Webapp, PChat and Director server) in SDN Mode
Lync Office Web App Servers Lync Persistent Chat Servers Lync Director Servers
Memory Network Memory Network Memory Network

CPU % Used Used CPU % Used Used CPU % Used Used
used Average Average used Average Average used Average Average
Scenario Average (GB) (Mbps) Average (GB) (Mbps) Average (GB) (Mbps)
1.1 0.14 7 0.00049 0.07 7 0.00029 1.4 3 0.106
1.2 0.12 4 0.00049 0.07 4 0.00013 1.4 2 0.109
2.1 0.042 8 0.00049 0.08 7 0.000113 1.2 3 0.087
2.2 0.07 4 0.00049 0.08 4 0.00033 1.2 2 0.088
3.1 0.07 6 0.0003 0.08 4 0.00069 0.98 3 0.069
3.2 0.07 7 0.00045 0.01 6 0.000367 1.2 3 0.089
3.3 0.08 7 0.000575 0.009 6 0.000378 1.2 3 0.08
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Table 6. Average CPU, Memory, Network usage per Lync Server Role (FE, SQL and Edge servers) in Non-SDN Mode
Front End Servers Lync Back End/SQL Servers Lync Edge Servers
Network Network
Memory Network Memory Network Memory Used Used
Used Used CPU % Used Used CPU % Used Average Average
CPU % used Average Average used Average Average used Average (Mbps) - (Mbps) -
Scenario Average (GB) (Mbps) Average (GB) (Mbps) Average (GB) Internal External
1.1 10.5 - 13 12.5 – 14.0 3.5 – 4.5 0.3 38 0.215 1.5 2 0.115 0.149
1.2 19.41 – 32.35 12.5 – 14.0 8.3 – 8.6 1.39 35 0.258 1.6 2 0.121 0.15
2.1 20.5 – 33.5 9.5 – 10.5 8.8 – 9.7 0.7 39 0.223 1.37 2 0.113 0.126
2.2 42 - 58 9.0 – 10.5 14.7 – 15.6 0.7 29 0.237 1.4 2 0.12 0.126
3.1 56.2 – 65.15 13 – 14 21.1 – 22 0.73 36 0.231 1.12 2 0.085 0.097
3.2 44 – 58 14 – 15 14.9 – 15.5 0.702 39 0.161 1.5 2 0.107 0.125
3.3 41 - 55 13 – 15 13.7 – 14.8 0.69 38 0.237 1.59 2 0.131 0.134
Table 7. Average CPU, Memory, Network usage per Lync Server Role (Webapp, PChat and Director server) in Non-SDN Mode
Front End Servers Lync Back End/SQL Servers Lync Edge Servers
Memory Network Memory Network Memory Network

CPU % Used Used CPU % Used Used CPU % Used Used
used Average Average used Average Average used Average Average
Scenario Average (GB) (Mbps) Average (GB) (Mbps) Average (GB) (Mbps)
1.1 0.11 7 0.014 0.07 7 0.00029 1.4 3 0.107
1.2 0.131 5 0.0002 0.07 7 0.0009 1.4 3 0.109
2.1 0.042 8 0.0005 0.074 7 0.000335 1.2 3 0.089
2.2 0.06 3 0.0005 0.14 5 0.00029 1.25 2 0.088
3.1 0.07 6 0.0006 0.013 6 0.00041 1.01 3 0.069
3.2 0.06 7 0.00043 0.06 2 0.000347 1.24 3 0.089
3.3 0.07 6 0.001 0.007 6 0.000762 1.25 3 0.09
Change in user distribution observations with respect to workload

• 30% Enterprise Voice (Default) to 30% Enterprise Voice (198 concurrent UC-PSTN calls) - (Scenarios 1.1 and 1.2):
– Front End servers: Average CPU utilization on Front End servers was increased by about 12% (19% Avg. for 1.1 vs. 30%
for 1.2). Almost the same amount of memory (<10GB) and network bandwidth was used in both scenarios. The
additional CPU utilization was attributed to the fact that there was an increase in the UC-PSTN workload.
– The resource usage on all other Lync server roles was insignificant. There was no change in the Queue and Sproc
latency.
• 30% Enterprise Voice (198 concurrent UC-PSTN calls) to 60% Enterprise Voice (396 UC-PSTN concurrent calls) -
(Scenarios 1.1 and 2.2):
– Front End Servers: CPU utilization increased by about 25% (14-30% versus 42-56%). Memory usage was almost the
same (<10GB). Network usage increased marginally (by about 8Mbps). The increase in CPU utilization can again be
attributed to the increase in the UC-PSTN workload.
– The resource usage on all other Lync server roles was insignificant. The Queue and Sproc latencies increased slightly
(Queue latency increased by about 1ms and Sproc latency by about 7%).
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• Lync Front End server Failover (Scenario 3.1):

– Front End servers: The CPU usage was up by about 10% per FE (Average utilization on remaining FEs was about
54-63%). The memory usage increased about 10GB (about 17-18GB was used). There was marginal increase in
network usage.
– The resource utilization on the SQL back end servers increased slightly but all other Lync servers were used
insignificantly. The Queue and Sproc latencies increased more than in scenario 2.2. (Queue latency increased to 8.24%
and Sproc latency was about 63% max., with both well within the thresholds). This significant increase in latency is due
to the increase in wait time for messages to get processed. This leads to the conclusion that if more workload is
thrown on the system, latency can shoot up and needs consideration especially during failover situations.
• SQL Failover (Scenario 3.2):
– Front End servers: Utilization was almost the same as scenario 2.2 (60% EV without failover) on Front End servers
except for an increase in memory usage (about 7GB). There was a slight increase in CPU utilization (about 0.5%) and
memory usage (about 10GB) on the remaining SQL server. The latencies were of course increased (Queue latency
increased to 13% and Sproc latency was about 48% max., both well within the thresholds). This increase in latencies
was obviously for more waiting time needed for messages to get processed.
• Edge Failover (Scenario 3.3):
– There was no significant change in the resources utilization on all the Lync server roles. Latencies were increased
slightly (Sproc latency was found to be about 47%). There was no significant change in resources utilization maybe
because Web conf load was not tested.
The following screenshot shows the CPU utilization from one of the Lync Front End servers during the Front End failover
scenario. The CPU utilization is well below the recommended value (up to 75%). The momentary spikes are expected under
full workload condition but average CPU utilization is somewhere around 65%. As expected, the CPU utilization is slightly
higher (but within the limits) in the FE failover scenario than the normal scenarios where all FEs are up and running. This is
due to the extra load that the remaining two active Front End servers have to carry due to failure of one of the Lync Front
End servers.
Figure 15. CPU Utilization (captured from FE server)
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Latency
The following table shows the Queue and Sproc latency for the user services database captured on the Lync Front End
server. The Average Queue and Sproc Latency is shown to be well below the allowed threshold value of 100ms.
• Queue Latency: It is the amount of time (in milliseconds) that it takes for a request to leave the Lync Front End Server’s
queue towards the Back End database.
• Sproc Latency: It is the amount of time (in milliseconds) that it takes for the SQL server database to process the request.
This performance value is collected from the time the request leaves the Lync Front End Server queue until that request
returns.
Table 8. Queue and Sproc Latency (captured from FE servers) in SDN Mode
Front End Servers
Scenario Queue Latency Average (ms) Sproc Latency Average (ms)
1.1 0.045 – 1.73 15.51 – 23.83
1.2 0.06 – 1.73 20.42 – 27.32
2.1 0.054 – 1.12 18.65 – 24.7
2.2 0.064 – 1.18 22.8 – 34.8
3.1 1.29 – 8.24 48.02 – 63.08
3.2 3.2 – 13.5 31.7 – 48.0
3.3 0.10 – 1.8 29.8 – 47.1
Table 9. Queue and Sproc Latency (captured from FE servers) in Non-SDN Mode
Front End Servers
Scenario Queue Latency Average (ms) Sproc Latency Average (ms)
1.1 0.05 – 0.16 16.05 – 23.32
1.2 0.05 – 0.17 20.87 – 27.65
2.1 0.029 – 1.5 22.7 – 29.8
2.2 0.064 – 1.4 23.52 – 32.39
3.1 0.2 – 1.6 27.25 – 55.33
3.2 0.33 – 2.9 28.67 – 44.42
3.3 0.6 – 2.8 27.7 – 44.0
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The following figures show screenshots from a Front End server for Queue and Sproc latency for one of the scenarios
mentioned above, the average latency is well below the threshold (<100ms).
Figure 16. Queue Latency
Figure 17. Sproc Latency
Performance data from SDN controller

The current version of the SDN controller shows the performance data in graphics format only. The following data is
collected:
• QoE Matrix shows that all the sessions in the system were of Good Quality and no poor quality sessions were reported.
• The “SDN Manager Status” shows that all three SDN managers were configured and reachable from the SDN controller.
• The “Session Info” table shows the session data that was sent by SDN managers to SDN controller. This data is about
source and destination IP/port information, the media type used for the session, the protocol used and the quality of the
session. The “Quality data” shows that all sessions are Good quality (QoE status is PASS) with no jitter or packet loss
found and MOS score of about 4.3 (any session with MOS score above 4 is treated as a good quality session).
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The following figure shows the “Session Info” captured from the SDN Controller Dashboard. It shows that the desired DSCP
value set by the SDN Controller is 46, which means traffic prioritization was intended. The “Configured” value of DSCP will be
shown as 46 for the sessions that were successfully prioritized. A “Configured” value of DSCP=10 shows the sessions with
“Best Efforts”, meaning the session was not prioritized by the HP Network Optimizer/ VAN Controller.
Figure 18. SDN Controller Dashboard – Session Info for prioritized Sessions
Note
We used a license for SDN that allowed the management of 100 concurrent sessions. The number of active sessions
constantly exceeded the HP Network Optimizer limit but the sessions over the license limit were still processed without
applying DSCP marking by HP SDN Controller. In a production environment, it is important to purchase and install an HP
Network Optimizer with a higher license limit to prioritize all the Lync sessions.
Figure 19. SDN Controller Dashboard – Session Info for Non-prioritized Sessions
The session QoE status shows “pass” with good quality. The Lync sessions were reported with good MOS, jitter and without
packet loss.
25
The following graphical records were captured from HP Network Optimizer/VAN Controller during the tests. The QoE Matrix
shows that all the calls were of good quality and no bad quality calls were reported from Lync.
Figure 20. QoE Matrix for Lync Sessions
The Active sessions data shows how many active sessions were running at a variety of points in time on the SDN Controller.
Figure 21. Active Sessions or Concurrent Users
The following graph shows the number of SDN Managers configured (3) and reachable (3) from HP Network Optimizer/VAN
Controller. We tested two configurations:
• Configuration one: HA configuration with two SDN managers (one as a primary and one as secondary)
• Configuration two: Each LDL configured pointing to both SDN Managers
In non-HA configuration three LSMs were configured on three VMs and each LDL was configured to point to only one LSM.
The results were the same as the HA configuration above.
Figure 22. Lync SDN Manager Status
26
UC-PSTN calls data from Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator

This data shows that the Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator successfully processed all of the UC-PSTN calls that
were configured for it to generate or receive with Lync. No failures were reported.
Figure 23. Test result screenshot from Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator
The result from the Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator shows that there are multiple calls that are received from
Lync and also sent from the simulator to Lync server. All the calls are pass and there are no errors or failures reported.
Test results
The following are the important observations from the test results that are reported.
Key observations
• For both normal and failure scenarios, the hardware resource usage (CPU utilization, memory usage, network usage, etc.)
was well below the thresholds for all Lync servers roles.
• The latencies that are critical to Lync performance (Queue and Sproc latencies) were well below the thresholds.
• All Lync sessions reported good quality (Good MOS) without any jitter or packet loss.
• The Media Quality Diagnostics Matrix showed that all the peer-to-peer and conference calls were reported to have good
quality with no bad quality calls reported.
• The main resource utilization is on the Lync Front End Servers. The resources consumed on all other Lync server roles
were insignificant. Lync Front End server planning is critical for adequate configuration during failure scenarios.
– Maximum CPU usage (less than 63% during Lync Front End Failover scenario), maximum memory used (less than
20GB), maximum network bandwidth used (20 Mbps)
– Latencies (Queue and Sproc Latency) were less than 63ms which is well below the threshold of 100ms
• If multiple Lync databases are to be collocated on the Back End servers, it is recommended to install additional memory
on the backend SQL server (more than 64GB would be recommended for a 5,000 user configuration).
• The workloads that consume the most CPU cycles are Enterprise Voice UC-PSTN peer-peer calls and conferences as well
as application sharing. The other workloads consume few CPU resources. Capacity planning for the Lync server roles
needs to be done based on user distribution per workload. If more users are using PSTN and application sharing
workloads then the CPU utilization shoots up significantly and may require the deployment of an additional Lync Front
End server.
27
• The following observations are critical from a planning perspective:

– In the 30% Enterprise Voice scenario, we decreased the number of IM peer-to-peer users significantly (from 3,131 to
600) and found that there is no significant decrease in CPU usage (barely a 2% decrease). This was because the IM
workload does not consume more CPU per user.
– When the UC-PSTN workload users and application sharing users were increased there was significant increase in CPU
and other resource consumption.
– The “CoversationLengthInSec” for UC-PSTN calls, and other workloads as well, is a critical parameter to consider for
planning. It was observed that if this value was set to standard 180 second for UC-PSTN calls (with other values set to
default), the average CPU utilization on the Lync Front End servers was around 12% but when the conversation length
was set to 900 seconds then to 1,800 seconds, the CPU utilization on the Lync Front End servers shot up to 90%. If the
average length of conversation is as high as 900 seconds in your environment, then additional Lync Front End servers
will be needed for the same number of users.
High availability observations

• Performance in all of the failover scenarios was good. This included the Lync Front End server failover, SQL Back End
server failover, Lync Edge server failover, etc.
• Among all failover scenarios, the Lync Front End failover caused more resource usage and latency on the remaining Front
End servers than the other failure scenarios. The CPU utilization on the remaining active Lync Front End servers was
observed to have gone up to 65% and Sproc latency was found to have increased to 63% but did remain well below the
thresholds.
• The load was evenly distributed across all the servers in the pool of Lync servers with DNS load balancing.
SDN observations
• The performance data shows that the Lync configuration performance was good and almost the same both with and
without SDN.
• The HP Network Optimizer/ VAN Controller can process the number of active sessions that the license limit allows.
Therefore acquire the permanent license capacity that will be adequate to process the number of expected active
sessions. For the over-the-license-limit sessions, the API events still get processed but the DSCP markings won’t be
applied by the HP Network Optimizer/ VAN controller.
• When the DSCP marking was applied by the SDN Controller (Desired and Configured DSCP=46), all the sessions reported
an excellent quality with overall good MOS scores, without any jitter and no packet loss.
• Traffic prioritization by the SDN controller can also be tested by introducing artificial network impairments through
network impairment generator tools to report bad quality sessions to the SDN controller and see that the SDN controller
applies the DSCP markings to those sessions to convert them to good sessions. This was not tested in any of our
scenarios.
Overview of deployment guidance

Configuration overview graphic
The graphic below shows an overview of the logical configuration for this HP Verified Reference Architecture for Microsoft
Lync Server 2013 Enterprise (5,000 user). The configuration is split into multiple network areas: internal network, SDN
Control network and Internet/Edge (DMZ) network.
The servers depicted in the diagram are needed to support the Lync Server 2013 functionality deployed for this highly
available physical configuration and are deployed on ProLiant DL Gen8 servers. Figure 9 shows a logical configuration with
the representative Lync server roles. If a specific server role is depicted as a pool, it has multiple servers and the true server
count can be found in the Server configurations and Bill of materials sections.
28
Figure 24. Configuration Diagram
Arcatech emutel™ | Harmony

MSR 50-60
Active Directory Server 10508 Switch as
PSTN Gateway
OpenFlow Not required PSTN Simulator
E1
3800 Switch LACP Trunks 3800 Switch

Microsoft Lync HP VAN SDN

Front End
Stress and Controller with
Server Back End SQL Performance HP Network
Pool Server and Mirror Tool Server Optimizer
Microsoft (internal users)
Lync SDN VLAN 20
Environment
with API
Persistent
Chat Server Director server Edge Server Microsoft Lync
Pool Array Pool SDN Manager
VLAN 30
Microsoft Lync Microsoft Lync Microsoft Lync

Office Web Stress and Stress and Stress and
App Server Performance Performance Performance
Pool Tool Server Tool Server Tool Server
(internal users) (External users) (PSTN users)
VLAN 10
The configuration used to support the reference architecture consists of server and networking hardware components and
software components from both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. The components and their roles are detailed below. For
the specific server counts and details for each role refer to the Server configurations section.
Firewalls and a server holding the Lync Reverse Proxy role are needed in a production deployment but are not deployed for
testing in this lab configuration.
Lync Server 2013 environment

The Lync environment is set up using the physical servers with different Lync roles deployed on them (as shown in Figure 24
with Lync server roles labels).
Lync clients connect to Lync Front end servers to make any voice, video or conference calls. The Lync clients (both Local and
Remote) are simulated by Lync Server 2013 Stress and Performance Tool (LSS) on HP blade workstations.
The Lync Front End server has the LYNC SDN API integrated. The Lync Front End server communicates with HP SDN
controller using LYNC SDN API. The Lync Monitoring Server role that is collocated on the Front End server, stores the Quality
of Experience (QoE) data for call quality for each Lync session. The call quality Matrix data is sent by Lync Front End server to
SDN controller through the LYNC SDN API.
Lync 2013 client simulation environment

The Lync 2013 client simulators are divided into three groups: local, remote and PSTN client simulators. The local users are
simulated by two Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Stress and Performance Tool servers with one server configured on each
3800 network switch to allow testing of SDN processing of Lync Server sessions. The two Lync Server 2013 Stress and
Performance Tool servers each simulate 2,500 local users. The remote users that connect to Lync through the Edge server
are simulated by the Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Stress and Performance Tool deployed on a third server.
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Test tool configuration

The following types of Lync users were used:
• Internal Lync users that connect with the Lync Front End Server Pool
• External or Remote Lync users that connect with the Lync Edge Server Pool
An additional Microsoft Stress and Performance test tool server was configured as PSTN Gateway simulator to process UC-
PSTN calls and Figure 25 shows the two routes created for UC_PSTN calls.
Figure 25. Configuration of UC-PSTN routes
Figure 25 shows how UC-PSTN routes are configured. On the Lync Front End server, Under Voice Routing  Route, the four
routes (global, Arca1, Arca2 and Arca3) map onto the Media Gateway MSR50-60. The GWsimulator Route maps to the PSTN
Gateway simulated by the Microsoft Stress and Performance Test tool.
Lync network
The Lync network is formed by two HP 3800 switches and an HP 10508 switch. Three VLANs are created: VLAN 10, 20 and
30. The entire Lync environment (servers and clients) and SDN managers are on VLAN10. The SDN controller is on a
separate VLAN (VLAN20). The Edge server and Remote Lync user client are connected to VLAN30. One of the HP 3800
switches has VLAN 10, 20 and 30, whereas another HP 3800 switch has VLAN 10 and 20. The HP 10508 switch has VLAN
10, 20 and 30 created on it.
The Lync environment (all the Lync servers and local Lync clients) are physically connected to one of the HP 3800 Switches.
Each HP 3800 switch connects to 2,500 Lync clients. The SDN controller is also connected to the same switch physically.
The Edge server and Remote Users client are connected to another HP 3800 switch (that has VLANs 10, 20 and 30 on it).
The Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator is connected to the HP 10508 switch through an HP MSR50-60 Media
Gateway.
The following figure shows the network set up for this RA configuration.
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Figure 26. Network Configuration for the Lync RA for 5,000 users
Management Port
IP Address: 192.168.1.201/24
VLANs Configured on Switch DG: IP Routes Configured on Switch
VLAN1: 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.0/24 DG:
VLAN 10: 10.10.10.0 10.10.10.0/24 DG: Management Port Management Port
VLAN 20: 20.20.20.0 20.20.20.0/24 DG: IP Address: 192.168.1.202/24 IP Address: 192.168.1.200/24
VLAN 30: 30.30.30.0
10508 Switch 30.30.30.0/24 DG: DG: DG:
LACP Trunk LACP Trunk

VLAN 10 and VLAN20 Port 18 Port 19 Port 13 Port 12 VLAN 10, VLAN20 & VLAN30 MSR 50-60 Gateway
ARCA PSTN Simulator
10.10.10.71
3800 Switch-A 3800 Switch-B

Management Port Management Port
IP Address: 192.168.1.210/24 Top Port 27 Port 26 Port 47 Port 10 Bottom IP Address: 192.168.1.211/24
Infrastructure Servers Lync Stress & Performance Tools Network Optimizer/ VAN Controller Lync Stress & Performance Tools
VLANs Configured on Switch

10.10.10.01 20.20.20.125 VLAN1: 192.168.1.0
10.10.10.62
VLAN 10: 10.10.10.0
10.10.10.02 10.10.10.61 VLAN 20: 20.20.20.0
VLANs Configured on Switch IP Routes Configured on Switch VLAN 30: 30.30.30.0
VLAN1: 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.0/24 DG:
VLAN 10: 10.10.10.0 10.10.10.0/24 DG:
VLAN 20: 20.20.20.0 20.20.20.0/24 DG: IP Routes Configured on Switch
192.168.1.0/24 DG: (Internal Users)
10.10.10.0/24 DG:
(Active Directory (Internal Users) 20.20.20.0/24 DG:
& DNS Servers) 30.30.30.0/24 DG:
Lync Front End pool
10.10.10.11 SDN Managers

Lync Director pool Test Workstations
10.10.10.12
10.10.10.13
10.10.10.118 Not Configured
10.10.10.96
(Mediation, Archiving & 10.10.10.31
Monitoring co-located on FE) 10.10.10.126 30.30.30.85
10.10.10.32
Lync Back End SQL pool Lync Edge Server pool
30.30.30.11
(access)
30.30.30.12
10.10.10.21
10.10.10.81 (web)
30.30.30.13
(av)
Office Web Apps Server pool Lync Persistent Chat Pool Lync Stress & Performance Tools
10.10.10.22
30.30.30.21
Lync PSTN Gateway Simulator
(access) 30.30.30.31
10.10.10.51 10.10.10.82 30.30.30.22
10.10.10.41
(web)
(Archiving & Monitoring DB,
Persistent Chat & Compliance 10.10.10.52 10.10.10.91 30.30.30.23
10.10.10.42
(av)
DB co-located on BE) (External Users)
The two 1 GbE uplink connections between each 3800 switch and the 10508 were configured as a link-aggregation group
(LACP). On one of the 3800 switches, VLAN10 and VLAN 20 were tagged onto the trunk connecting to the 10508. On the
other 3800 switch, VLAN10, VLAN20 and VLAN30 were tagged onto the trunk connecting to the 10508.
• Internal network (VLAN10): This network, with IP addresses in the range of 10.10.10.0/24, constituted all the Lync
servers (including internal interface of the Edge server), Lync client simulators (two client machines simulating 2,500
users each), SDN Managers, and Active Directory servers.
• PSTN network (VLAN10 and PSTN): The PSTN set up consisted of the Media Gateway (deployed on HP MSR50-60) and
PSTN simulators. There were two routes created for UC-PSTN calls. One route was formed by MSR50-60 (Media Gateway)
and Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator simulating the PSTN environment. Another UC-PSTN route was formed
by Microsoft Lync Stress and Performance test tool that simulated the UC-PSTN Gateway and PSTN environment.
• SDN Manager and network switch network (VLAN20): This network, with IP addresses in the range of 20.20.20.0/24,
contains the Microsoft Lync SDN manager and the two 3800 switches.
• Edge (DMZ) and Internet network (VLAN30): This network, with IP addresses in the range of 30.30.30.0/24, connects
from the external interfaces of the Edge servers and is comprised of three parts: Access interface, A/V interface and Web
interface that connect to a separate Lync Stress and Performance Tool server located on the 30.30.30.0/24 network to
simulate the outside world where public IM and federated users are located.
Due to lab hardware availability, the MSR50-60 could route only 46 concurrent UC-PSTN calls. This was caused by the lack
of availability of voice co-processor cards for installation into the MSR. The remainder of the UC-PSTN load from Lync was
routed on the PSTN GW simulated by the Microsoft Lync Stress and Performance Tool server.
The PCM trunks configured between the MSR50-60 and the Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN simulator were E1 type.
SDN solution for Lync Server 2013

Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Software Defined Networking (SDN) functionality was added late in the project and used
equipment that was available to deploy quickly. This resulted in the implementation of the SDN components in a non-
optimal configuration. This configuration included the SDN high availability components but was not designed for optimal
high availability. An example of this is the deployment of both Microsoft SDN manager virtual machines on the same
physical Hyper-V host. The result was that failure of the virtual machine could be simulated but not the failure of the
physical host.
31
The HP Network Optimizer SDN Application automates policy deployment dynamically at the edge of the network on a per-
session basis for voice, video, and application sharing to deliver a better user experience. The non-SDN devices in the core
network and WAN can then trust the QoS markings securely provisioned via SDN.
Lync Server 2013 SDN functional overview

The process that takes place when SDN is implemented and enabled for the prioritization of Lync session traffic is as
follows:
When the call starts
When a desktop sharing, voice, or video session is initiated using a Microsoft Lync client in the campus or branch office, the
Lync Server in the data center provides session start details via the UC SDN API. These include source and destination IP
address, protocol type, application ports, media type, codec and bandwidth requirements at the start and end of every call.
• Lync Front end  Lync SDN Manager (RESTful API)
• Lync SDN Manager  HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller
• HP VAN SDN Controller uses Proactive SDN mode to provision an OpenFlow entry with QoS action DSCP remark 
OpenFlow-hybrid mode Switch closest to both endpoints
• HP switch modifies/remarks the DSCP value in packets for the first matching entry in the hardware flow table
– DSCP markings for non-matching flows will be reset to 0
– DSCP values are based on the Optimizer Global QoS policy settings for given media type
– Remarked packet can now be trusted across the core network and WAN
When the call ends

Lync Server in the data center provides session end and call quality details via the UC SDN API at the end of every session.
• Lync Front end  Lync SDN Manager (RESTful API)
• Lync SDN Manager  HP Network Optimizer/Virtual Application Network (VAN) SDN Controller
• HP VAN SDN Controller deletes the matching OpenFlow QoS entry  OpenFlow-hybrid mode Switch closest to both
endpoints
The switch will delete stale OpenFlow entries for flows that do not match any packets within the idle timeout (60 seconds
for Optimizer).
An in-depth technical white paper describing the HP Network Optimizer SDN Application for Microsoft Lync is available from:
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA5-6601ENW
The SDN components

The following components make up the SDN solution for Lync Server 2013 and allow for the prioritization of the Lync
session traffic.
• Microsoft Lync SDN API
• Microsoft SDN Manager server
• HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller
The Lync SDN API has two components:

• Lync Dialog Listener (LDL) that is installed on the Lync Front End servers
• Lync SDN Manager (LSM) that is installed on the Microsoft SDN Manager servers
The Microsoft Lync SDN API was installed on each Lync Server 2013 running the Front End server role.
The Microsoft SDN Manager functionality was tested with two different designs:
Lync SDN HA mode: two SDN Manager servers were configured on two VMs. One SDN Manager acted as primary and the
other SDN Manager acted as secondary. Each LDL was configured to connect to both the primary and secondary LSM
servers. In case the primary LSM fails, the secondary LSM takes over.
32
Figure 27. Lync SDN Call Flow – HA
QOE Data Lync FE 1

SDN Manager SDN Manager
(Primary) (Secondary)
Lync Client
LDL
Signaling
NETWORK
Lync FE 2 LSM LSM
Media LDL
Lync FE 3
HP SDN Controller
QOE Data with HP Network
LDL Optimizer
Lync clien t
Signaling
Lync SDN non-HA mode: three SDN Manager servers were configured on three VMs. One LDL would point to only one LSM
which means one FE was linked to only one LSM.
Figure 28. Lync SDN Call Flow – non-HA
MSR 50 -60
10508 Switch PSTN Gateway Arcatech emutel | Harmony
OpenFlow Optional PSTN Simulator
XML
XML
3800Switch 3800 Switch
XML XML XML
XML XML XML
XML XML
Front End Server Pool
Microsoft Lync Stress and

Microsoft Lync Stress and Microsoft Lync Stress and Microsoft Lync Stress and
Performance tool Servers as PSTN
Performance tool Servers Performance tool Servers Performance tool Servers
Gateway
Both the HA and non-HA modes were tested.

The HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller communicates with the network hardware and controls the network traffic
through session prioritization by communicating with network devices using OpenFlow protocol. The HP Network
Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller was deployed on a ProLiant physical server and hosted the HP Network Optimizer
application.
33
Note
Since the addition of SDN happened late in the project cycle, a trial license for the HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller
was used. This resulted in a single instance of HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller being installed with a trial version
of the HP Network Optimizer application and configured to process Lync communication sessions. With the trial version, the
HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller could actively control a maximum of 100 concurrent sessions that it received
from SDN Manager. This limited the number of Lync sessions on which traffic prioritization was applied. The Lync session
information beyond 100 sessions (the limit of the trial license) were sent by the SDN Manager and processed by the HP
Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller but no DSCP information was configured on the HPN 3800 OpenFlow switches for
traffic prioritization of Lync sessions.
SDN control and packet processing

The network configuration to support SDN uses OpenFlow compliant switches with an appropriate level of firmware to
support, accept and act upon SDN control commands that allow Quality of Service (QoS) information to be tagged to specific
communication streams between a set of IP addresses and network port numbers.
SDN is separated into two areas: control and optimized packet processing. Control is deployed in a centralized manner while
optimized packet processing is distributed across all switches. These areas are also referred to as the control plane and the
forwarding plane.
The following components support the ability to enable SDN traffic prioritization for Lync traffic:
• HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller software is the central point for control and automation of your SDN-enabled
network. The HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller can be scaled out by using controller teaming and high
availability is available through the use of teaming to provide for failover in the event that one controller fails.
• The SDN Manager communicates with the Microsoft Lync SDN RESTful API that is installed on each Lync Front End server.
The Microsoft Lync API provides the SDN Manager with information on the type of communication traffic that is being sent
during a conversation by transmitting the IP address and network port being used on each Lync client. The type of traffic
could be voice, video or any other Lync communication. The SDN Manager then communicates the session type
information to the HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller.
• The HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller application is deployed on the HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller.
This application controls the SDN information and the HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller performs traffic
prioritization by modifying the flow table on the 3800 switches using OpenFlow.
The Lync Dialog Listener (LDL) is the component of the Lync SDN API that is installed on each Lync Front End server. The LDL
listens to the encrypted Lync session information such as session details and media quality details and sends it to LSM.
The SDN lab configuration consisted of the following components: Microsoft Lync SDN API 2.1, HP VAN SDN Controller
(v2.3.6) with HP Network Optimizer application (v1.1.6).
The Microsoft Lync SDN API 2.1 consisted of two components: Lync Dialog Listener (LDL) and Lync SDN Managers (LSM). A
Lync Dialog Listener (LDL) captures signaling and quality observations about media traffic between Lync endpoints. A Lync
SDN Manager (LSM) collects the data from one or more LDLs and distributes it to HP VAN SDN Controller.
34
“Microsoft Lync Dialog Listener 2.1” was deployed on the three Lync Front End servers that were on VLAN10. Two SDN
managers (Microsoft Lync SDN Manager 2.1) were deployed on separate virtual machines (two VMs on the same physical
server). Each LDL could communicate with both primary and secondary LSM. This is the HA configuration for LDL-LSM. If
Primary LSM fails, secondary LSM takes over. The following screenshot shows how the LDLs are configured to point to
primary and secondary LSM.
Figure 29. Microsoft SDN API: LDL Configuration
The HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller was deployed on a separate server connected to VLAN20 (physically
connected to 3800-B switch). VLAN 20 was created exclusively for SDN control traffic to separate it from Lync user traffic.
The HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller can prioritize the Lync Media traffic from Lync clients using OpenFlow
protocol. The types of Lync media traffic involving two or more Lync endpoints include audio and video calls, and
application-sharing. Per the SDN standards, the switches that connect to Lync clients are supposed to be OpenFlow enabled,
whereas the other network switches in the path that the Lync session traverses do not necessarily need to support
OpenFlow but must be able to honor QoS. In this configuration, the two 3800 switches were configured with OpenFlow
because they were connected to Lync clients but the HP 10508 switch was not enabled for OpenFlow (it simply honored the
QoS information passed to it by the 3800 switches).
Figure 27 also depicts the call flow for SDN control for the sessions between or amongst Lync clients. LDL is deployed as a
Windows service on the Lync Front End server. LDL is configured to send Lync call and quality data to LSM. LSM is a Windows
service deployed on a separate server (virtual or physical). In this lab configuration LSM was deployed on virtual servers. The
LSM is responsible for processing the dialog events received from the LDL component. It maintains state of the individual
real-time streams – including whether the stream has started, ended, updated, and more – and sends the resulting XML
data to the configured network management system (HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller in this configuration).
LSM parses the message and selects the data that is related to quality of Lync audio, video or application sharing session
and posts it in XML format to the HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller. The HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller
uses a web service to receive the XML data from LSM, therefore the SDN controller’s Web service address must be
configured on the LSM.
On receiving the Lync call and quality data session information, the HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller can prioritize
the Lync media traffic by modifying the DSCP value (pertaining to a specific session) in the flow tables of the HP 3800
switches. The HP SDN controller uses the OpenFlow protocol to communicate with the HP 3800 switches. The HP SDN
Controller sets the desired value of DSCP to 46 for the Lync session that it wants to prioritize and checks that the configured
value of DSCP in the HP 3800 switches is 46 for that session. If the quality reported by LSM for any specific Lync session is
good, the HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller does not prioritize that session and does not modify the DSCP value
from the default of DSCP=10 which is prioritized as Best Effort. When a bad quality session is reported by the Lync
environment, the SDN controller modifies the DSCP value in the flow table in both 3800 switches that are connected to the
Lync users. The HP 10508 being the core switch and not directly connected to the Lync end users, need not necessarily be
OpenFlow compliant (it needs to honor the QoE configuration only).
The LSMs can be configured in HA or non-HA mode. In HA mode two LSM are needed, one Primary and another Secondary.
The Failover from Primary to Secondary is automatic. The primary and secondary LSM do not share the states. In non-HA
mode, each LSM is in a standalone mode.
35
Site configuration
The site configuration for this Lync Server solution for 5,000 users consists of several site-related components: a single
physical site, an Active Directory (AD) site and a Lync Central site. Lync sites are separate from Active Directory and physical
sites and are defined within the Lync topology. The Lync Central site contains Multiple Lync Server 2013 Enterprise Edition
servers supporting different roles.
No branch office sites were configured or used for this testing but a customer could implement branch offices in their design
by using a Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA) or Survivable Branch Server (SBS).
High Availability
For the testing performed in this reference architecture, high availability was deployed for the Lync server roles, the
Software Defined Networking (SDN) manager role and a portion of the infrastructure roles such as the AD Domain
Controllers/DNS servers.
The network switches were not deployed in a highly available fashion and the solution was deployed with a single core
switch (HP 10508) and two stand-alone distribution switches (HP 3800) that support OpenFlow.
Software configuration
The areas of focus for this project are the validation of the Lync Server 2013 roles running on Windows Server 2012 R2 as
the host operating system on HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers in a physical, highly available deployment and the
deployment of HP Software Defined Networking (SDN) components on HP Networking switches and the SDN control
infrastructure deployed on ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers.
The following table lists the versions of the operating system, firmware and application software used for the configuration.
Table 10. Software used for this configuration
OS and Database Software
Components of RA Version
Windows Server OS (for all Windows servers) Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition
SQL version Microsoft SQL Server 2012 -11.0.2100.60 (x64)
Firmware used for Network Switches and Routers
HP 10508 Switch 5.20.105
HP 3800 Switches KA.15.16.005
HP MSR50-60 Router and Media Gateway 5.20.106 Release 2511, Standard
Application Software
Microsoft Lync Server 2013 5.0.8308
Microsoft Lync API – Lync Dialog Listener 2.1 - Build (6.0.9081.1)
Microsoft Lync API – SDN Manager 2.1 - Build (6.0.9081.1)
HP Network Optimizer/VAN SDN Controller 2.3.5.6505
HP SDN Network Optimizer 1.1.6
36
Note
Microsoft update was run before testing started to ensure that all Windows and Microsoft applications were up to date with
the latest patches.
Server configurations
ProLiant (DL) Gen8 rack-mount servers were selected to align with the focus on simplicity and cost efficiency for this project
while delivering the best capability and power. ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers are used to provide additional PCI slots and a
higher number of internal hard drives, compared to the DL360p Gen8 servers.
Active Directory server – Quantity: 2

The Active Directory server provides infrastructure services including: Domain Controller (DC), Global Catalog (GC), Domain
Name Services (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). The Active Directory and name services are critical to
deploying and operating Lync Server 2013.
Table 11. Active Directory Domain Controller server configuration
Server Model DL360p Gen8
Operating System Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter – 64-bit
Processor/Cores Two Processors – 6 Core Intel® Xeon® E5-2640 (2.50 GHz) – Server 1
Two Processors – 4 Core Intel Xeon E5-2609 (2.40 GHz) – Server 2
Memory 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) – Server 1

16 GB (1 x 16 GB) – Server 2
Local Storage SAS Array A: 2 – 146 GB SAS 15K RPM – (RAID 1) with 146 GB Usable Capacity
Storage Volumes C:\ - Operating System Boot volume (146 GB)
Network Controllers HP Ethernet 1GbE 4P 331FLR FIO Adapter and HP Ethernet 1GbE 4-port 331T Adapter
Storage Controller Smart Array P420i with 1GB FBWC
Hyper-Threading (HT) Enabled
Server Role Infrastructure roles: Domain Controller (DC), Global Catalog (GC), Domain Name Services (DNS) and
Dynamic Host Configuration Pfdrotocol (DHCP)
37
Lync Server 2013 Front End servers – Quantity: 3

The Lync Server 2013 Enterprise Edition server provides the Lync services required for organizations deploying highly
available Lync solutions. The Lync Server Enterprise edition server provides the possibility to separate the roles onto
multiple servers to meet a specific Service Level Agreement. The Lync 2013 Front End server is the most important server
role because it runs most of the Lync functions. In this configuration, the Front End Server role was collocated with Lync
Mediation server role, the Archiving server role and Monitoring server role. The Front End server pool consisted of three
Front End servers that provided a High Availability (HA) configuration. Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition was the OS
on each server. The storage used was internal to each server. The network interfaces were 1GbE.
Table 12. Lync Front End Server Enterprise configuration
Processor/Cores Two Processors – 8 Core Intel Xeon E5-2690 (2.90 GHz)
Memory 192 GB (12 x 16 GB) – Server 1 and 2

64 GB (4 x 16 GB) – Server 3
SAS Array B: 4 – 900 GB SAS 15K RPM – (RAID 10) with 1800 GB Usable Capacity

D:\ - Lync/SQL Express Real Time Communications (RTC) DB and Log volume (1800 GB)
Server Role Lync Front End Server (Enterprise Edition with Mediation, Archiving and Monitoring roles collocated)
Lync Server 2013 Back End SQL servers – Quantity: 2

The SQL database servers hold the active and mirror copies of the databases for the Lync Monitoring roles. Deployment of a
separate SQL server for the Lync Monitoring role is a Microsoft best practice.
Table 13. Lync Back End SQL server configuration
Processor/Cores Two Processors – 12 Core Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (2.70 GHz)
Memory 128 GB (8 x 16 GB)
SAS Array B: 4 – 900 GB SAS 15K RPM – (RAID 10) with 1800 GB Usable Capacity

D:\ - SQL Server DB and Log volume (1800 GB)
Server Role Lync Back End SQL Server 2012 SP2 (Enterprise Edition)
38
Lync Server 2013 Persistent Chat servers – Quantity: 2

multiple servers to meet a specific Service Level Agreement.
Table 14. Lync Persistent Chat Server configuration
Operating System Windows server 2012 R2 Datacenter – 64 bit
Server Role Lync Persistent Chat Server Pool
Lync Server 2013 Edge servers – Quantity: 2

The Lync Server 2013 Edge server provides support for external users to connect to Lync conferences. External users
consist of company users connecting from the Internet, users at other companies and users with mobile clients which all
connect to the Edge server. The Edge server also provides the ability for a Lync organization to connect to public Instant
Messaging (IM) services.
Table 15. Lync Edge Server Enterprise configuration
Server Role Lync Edge Server Pool
39
Lync Server 2013 Director servers – Quantity: 2

multiple servers to meet a specific Service Level Agreement.
Table 16. Lync Director Server configuration
Server Role Lync Director Server Pool
Lync Server 2013 Office Web Apps servers – Quantity: 2

The Office Web Apps (OWA) Server provides access to Microsoft PowerPoint files from within a Lync web conference. The
Office Web Apps Server is a new server role that was introduced with the Office 2013 products and is used across the
organization to provide access to additional Microsoft Office file types.
Table 17. Lync Office Web Apps Server configuration
Operating System Windows Server 2012 Standard – 64-bit
Memory 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) – Server 1

16 GB (1 x 16 GB) – Server 2
Server Role Lync Office Web Apps Server Pool
40
HP Virtualized Application Network/SDN Controller server – Quantity: 1

The HP Virtualized Application Network (VAN) SDN Controller server provides the integration point between application
servers like Lync that have the RESTful SDN API installed and the SDN Manager server in the configuration. The VAN SDN
controller also works with the IMC to provide graphic views of the network devices, the ability to manage configurations
including backup and restore of the configurations and works across multiple network device vendors.
Table 18. HP Virtualized Application Network Controller server configuration
Server Model WS460c Gen8
Operating System Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS
Local Storage HDD : 300 GB (1 x 300 GB)
Network Controllers HP Flex-10 10Gb 2-port 530 FlexLOM
Storage Controller HP Smart Array P220i/P230i Controller with 512MB FBWC
Server Role HP Virtualized Application Network Controller server
Note
WS460c Gen8 Blade Workstations were used in the SDN portion of the test setup for availability reasons. In an actual
production environment HP recommends the use of ProLiant DL360p Gen8 or Gen9 for better performance. The bill of
materials includes DL380p and DL360p Gen8 instead of WS460c Gen8.
Lync Software Defined Networking Manager Host server – Quantity: 1

The Lync Software Defined Networking Manager (LSM) servers were installed and configured on virtual machines on the
same physical Host server. For HA configuration, two SDN managers were used, while for non-HA three SDN Managers were
used. All the LSM VMs had the same configuration. The configuration is described below:
Table 19. Lync Software Defined Networking Manager (LSM) Host server configuration
Operating System Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition – 64 bit
Local Storage Single Drive: 900 GB (1 x 900 GB)
Network Controllers HP Flex-10 10Gb 2-port 530 FlexLOM
Storage Controller HP Smart Array P220i/P230i Controller with 512MB FBWC
Server Role Microsoft Lync SDN Manager (LSM) – Host server
41
Note
WS460c Gen8 Blade Workstations were used in the SDN portion of the test setup for availability reasons. In an actual
production environment HP recommends the use of ProLiant DL360p Gen8 or Gen9 for better performance. The bill of
materials includes DL380p and DL360p Gen8 instead of WS460c Gen8.
Lync Software Defined Networking (SDN) Manager Virtual servers – Quantity: 2

The Lync Software Defined Networking (SDN) Manager servers were installed and configured on virtual machines on the
same physical Host server. For HA configuration, two SDN Managers were used, while for non-HA three SDN Managers were
used. All the LSM VMs had the same configuration. The configuration is described below.
Table 20. Lync Software Defined Networking Manager Virtual Machine configuration
Operating System Windows 7 Enterprise Edition – (x64)
Processor/Cores One Processor – 6 Cores Intel Xeon E5-2630 (2.30 GHz)
Memory 2 GB
Local Storage 100 GB VHDX (allocated to each VM from Hyper-V host)
Network Controllers Ethernet 1 GbE
Storage Controller Hyper-V
Virtualization Enabled
Server Role Microsoft Lync SDN Manager (LSM) Server Virtual Machines – (LSM Primary and Secondary server
roles)
Lync Stress and Performance Tool servers – Quantity: 3

The Lync Stress and Performance Tool was configured on three servers. Microsoft recommends simulating a maximum of
4,500 Lync users per server.
The Lync Stress and Performance Tool server that generates the client traffic (for various workload types supported by Lync
2013) for the infrastructure consisted of three physical servers with the following specifications.
Table 21. Lync Stress and Performance Tool server configuration
Processor/Cores Two Processors – 6 Core Intel Xeon E5-2640 (2.50 GHz) – Internal User Client 1 and Client 2
Two Processors – 4 Core Intel Xeon E5-2643 (3.30 GHz) – Remote User Client
Memory 32 GB (2 x 16GB) – Servers 1 and 2

64 GB (4 x 16GB) – Server 3
Logical Volumes C:\ - Operating System Boot volume (146 GB)
Network Internal
42
The Lync Stress and Performance (LSP) tool servers are located in multiple network locations: one LSP server is on the
10.10.10.x network and is physically cabled to the first 3800 network switch. The second LSP server is on the 10.10.10.x
network and is physically cabled to the second 3800 network switch. The third LSP server is on the 30.30.30.x network and
is physically cabled to the 3800 network switch on VLAN 30 and simulates the external Lync users who connect through the
Lync Edge server.
Media Gateways
Two routes were created for UC-PSTN calls. One route traversed the HP MSR50-60 Media Gateway to the Arcatech emutel |
Harmony PSTN simulator. The E1 type of PSTN trunks were used to connect the Media Gateway and Arcatech emutel |
Harmony PSTN simulator.
Please refer to the Bill Of Materials (BOM) for modules required for MSR50-60 to configure it as Media Gateway.
Since the MSR50-60 in this configuration had 2X HP MSR 24-channel Voice processing Modules equipped, the max calls
simulated were 46. The remaining UC-PSTN calls were routed onto the PSTN Media Gateway simulated by the Microsoft
Stress and Performance Test tool with the following configuration.
Table 22. Lync Stress and Performance Tool server (for PSTN calls) configuration
Operating System Windows 7 – 64-bit
Memory 32 GB (4 x 8GB)
Logical Volumes C:\ - Operating System Boot volume (300 GB)
Server Role Microsoft Lync Stress and Performance Tool (PSTN Media Gateway)
Note:
A WS460c Gen8 Blade Workstation was used in for the Lync Stress and Performance Tool server (PSTN calls) due to
availability in the lab.. In an actual production environment this functionality would be replaced by users performing the Lync
tasks.
Lync Stress and Performance Tool

Performance testing with the Microsoft Lync Stress and Performance Tool provides a representation of the traffic generated
from a client’s perspective. Testing simulates the interaction that Lync clients have with a Lync Server 2013 server.
Lync client traffic is generated using three Lync Stress and Performance Tool servers simulating 5,000 Lync users.
These tests simulate the traffic experienced in a customer’s production environment. The workload generated during each
test run is used to determine if the solution is capable of supporting 5,000 users across each of the system components.
Each test run consists of a twelve-hour duration.
The Lync Server 2013 Stress and Performance Tool (referred to as LyncPerfTool) can simulate user load of the following
types:
• Instant Messaging and Presence (IM&P)
• Audio conferencing
• Application sharing
• Voice over IP (VoIP), including public switched telephone network (PSTN) simulation (Enterprise Voice)
• Web Access Client conferencing
• Microsoft Lync 2013 Attendant
• Response Groups
• Distribution list expansion
43
• Address book download and address book query

• Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) calls and location profile (dial plan)
• MultiView
• Viewing multiple streams from a conference
Note
The sizing tools used for Lync specify the total number of users and the percentage of the total number of users that are
enabled for each workload. The Lync Stress and Performance Tool works in a different way. The Lync workload is assigned
to a quantity of users. This can result in a total user count in the Lync Stress and Performance Tool being higher than the
total number of users shown in the capacity sizing. The number of users configured for each workload is defined in tables in
Appendix 2. The lines in the table with a label of Scenario match a Lync workload such as AV. The number of users
configured for that workload can be determined by subtracting the LowIndex number from the HighIndex number.
Arcatech emutel | Harmony PSTN Simulator

The Arcatech emutel | Harmony operates as a Central Office switch, simulating its operation. It can provide a combination of
Primary Rate ISDN, Basic Rate ISDN and Analog telephone connections which may be used just like regular lines or
employed to carry out equipment testing. The Arcatech emutel | Harmony is a modular 3 slot system comprising a system
controller and up to 2 selectable plug-in expansion cards so you can build the network simulator to fit your needs.
The Arcatech emutel | Harmony can be managed/configured locally or remotely with an option of an internal modem for dial
up management. Attach to the LAN and configuration and analysis can be done from a remote PC in the network. This
allows you to have the Arcatech emutel | Harmony in one building, but configure and monitor it from another location.
Optional protocol analysis is also available on the Arcatech emutel | Harmony.
Almost every feature of the Arcatech emutel | Harmony can be customized, for example, the entire directory numbering
structure can be changed. Special telephone numbers activate network conditions such as User Busy or Call Rejected. Line
power on BRI interfaces can be switched on or off. The Arcatech emutel | Harmony is also extremely easy to use with
indicator LEDs showing at a glance what each port is doing and a Windows application program that displays protocol
analyzer information.
The Arcatech emutel | Harmony is fully featured PRI, BRI and PSTN Simulator. The Arcatech emutel | Harmony uses the
industry standard ISDN and PSTN chip sets for reliability and accuracy.
The Arcatech emutel | Harmony is a second generation simulator. Telecom development engineers have used them all over
the world for almost 20 years.
The Arcatech emutel | Harmony is modular, allowing you to build up the system that meets your interface requirements.
This along with the range of international protocols supported allows equipment to be tested for worldwide markets.
Port options
The Arcatech emutel | Harmony has a controller card with two interface ports and then 2 main card slots into which you can
plug any combination of line cards.
Controller card interface options:
• 2 Port PRI (E1/T1) Module
• 2 Port BRI U Module
Main line cards:
• 8 Port PRI (E1/T1) Card
• 8 Port BRI U Card
• 8 Port BRI S Card
• 16 Port FXS Card
Bill of materials
The BOM shown below lists the major server and network hardware components recommended for the implementation of
the reference architecture in a production environment based on the testing performed using ProLiant Gen8 servers.
ProLiant Gen9 servers of equivalent configuration could also be used to deploy this configuration. The tested server
configurations differ from the recommendations made below due to the additional resources required for the lab test
environment.
44
This is not an exhaustive listing of all the necessary components needed to build the complete solution. For complete
configuration details, please contact your HP reseller or HP sales representative.
Note
Part Numbers are at the time of publication and subjected to change. The bill of materials does not include complete
support options or rack and power requirements. If you have questions regarding ordering, please consult with your HP
reseller or HP sales representative for more details.
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/business-services/it-services/it-services.html
Table 23. Reference architecture components
Server Components
Quantity Part number Description
Lync Server 2013 Front End Server
3 665553-B21 HP DL380p Gen8 8-LFF CTO Server
6 656364-B21 HP 1200W CS Plat PL HtPlg Pwr Supply Kit
3 662226-L21 HP DL380p Gen8 E5-2690 FIO Kit
3 662226-B21 HP DL380p Gen8 E5-2690 Kit
24 647895-B21 HP 4GB 1Rx4 PC3-12800R-11 Kit
3 663476-B21 HP 2U Friction Gen8 Rail FIO Kit
3 631679-B21 HP 1GB FBWC for P-Series Smart Array
3 684208-B21 HP Ethernet 1GbE 4P 331 FLR FIO Adptr
24 737261-B21 300GB 12G SAS 15K 3.5in SCC ENT HDD
3 E5Y43AAE HP OneView incl 3yr 24x7 Supp Bundle 1 Svr E-LTU
Lync Server 2013 Back End SQL Server
1 715224-L21 HP DL380p Gen8 E5-2697v2 FIO Kit
1 715224-B21 HP DL380p Gen8 E5-2697v2 Kit
2 708641-B21 HP 16GB 2Rx4 PC3-14900R-13 Kit
45
Lync Server 2013 Back End SQL Server (Mirror)
1 715224-L21 HP DL380p Gen8 E5-2697v2 FIO Kit
1 715224-B21 HP DL380p Gen8 E5-2697v2 Kit
2 708641-B21 HP 16GB 2Rx4 PC3-14900R-13 Kit
Lync Server 2013 Persistent Chat Server
2 662252-B21 HP DL380p Gen8 E5-2609 Kit
4 647897-B21 HP 8GB 2Rx4 PC3L-10600R-9 Kit
Lync Server 2013 Edge Server
2 745734-L21 HP DL360p Gen8 E5-2609 SDHS FIO Kit
2 745734-B21 HP DL360p Gen8 E5-2609 SDHS Kit
4 647897-B21 HP 8GB 2Rx4 PC3L-10600R-9 Kit
46
Lync Server 2013 Director Server
2 745734-L21 HP DL360p Gen8 E5-2609 SDHS FIO Kit
2 745734-B21 HP DL360p Gen8 E5-2609 SDHS Kit
4 647897-B21 HP 8GB 2Rx4 PC3L-10600R-9 Kit
Lync Server 2013 Office Web Apps Server
2 662246-B21 HP DL380p Gen8 E5-2640 Kit
8 647895-B21 HP 4GB 1Rx4 PC3-12800R-11 Kit
HP Virtualized Application Network Controller
1 654081-B21 HP DL360p Gen8 8-SFF CTO Server
2 739252-B21 HP 460W CS Plat Ht Plg Pwr Supply Kit
1 712741-L21 HP DL360p Gen8 E5-2609v2SDHS FIO Kit
2 731761-B21 HP 8GB 1Rx4 PC3-14900R-13 Kit
1 663200-B21 HP 1U FIO Friction Rail Kit
47
4 785067-B21 HP 300GB 12G SAS 10K 2.5in SC ENT HDD
1 684208-B21 HP Ethernet 1GbE 4P 331FLR FIO Adptr
1 E5Y43AAE HP OV for DL 3yr 24x7 FIO 1 Svr E-LTU
4 J9985AAE HP Network Optimizer SDN Application 100 Concurrent Clients

E-LTU – based on 398 concurrent calls as tested
Microsoft SDN Manager
1 654081-B21 HP DL360p Gen8 8-SFF CTO Server
2 739252-B21 HP 460W CS Plat Ht Plg Pwr Supply Kit
1 712741-L21 HP DL360p Gen8 E5-2609v2SDHS FIO Kit
2 731761-B21 HP 8GB 1Rx4 PC3-14900R-13 Kit
1 663200-B21 HP 1U FIO Friction Rail Kit
4 785067-B21 HP 300GB 12G SAS 10K 2.5in SC ENT HDD
1 684208-B21 HP Ethernet 1GbE 4P 331FLR FIO Adptr
1 E5Y43AAE HP OV for DL 3yr 24x7 FIO 1 Svr E-LTU
Networking components
Modular Services Router
4 JF231A MSR50-60 Router
4 JD651A HP MSR50 Multi-Service Module
4 JD653A HP MSR50 Main Processing Unit
25 JD598A HP MSR 32-channel Voice Processor Module
4 JD610A HP MSR Voice Co-processor Module
8 JD607A HP MSR 1-port E1 Voice FIC Module
12 JD575A HP MSR 1-port E1 Voice SIC Module
4 JD593A HP MSR 4-port FXO FIC Module
4 JD594A HP MSR 4-port FXS FIC Module
Distribution Switches – 3800
2 J9574A HP 3800-48G-PoE+-4SFP+ Switch
2 J9577A HP 3800 4-port Stacking Module
2 J9578A HP 3800 0.5m Stacking Cable
48
Core Switch – 10508
1 JC612A HP 10508 Switch Chassis
6 JC610A HP 10500 2500W AC Power Supply
1 JC665A HP X421 Chassis Universal Rck Mntg Kit
4 JC753A HP 10508/10508-V 1.04Tbps Typ B Fabric Module
2 JC614A HP 10500 Main Processing Unit
1 JC755A HP 10500 32-port 10GbE SFP+ SF Module
12 JD092B HP X130 10G SFP+ LC SR Transceiver
1 JC618A HP 10500 48-port Gig-T SE Module
Summary
The test results show that the designed Lync Server 2013 solution was able to handle the 5,000 user load under full
workload conditions with good overall system and individual Lync server level performance. The Quality of Experience was
good both with and without SDN; therefore, this Lync Server 2013 Verified reference architecture design can be considered
as a reference for planning your Lync 2013 deployment for 5,000 users. Adjustment in the design will need to be considered
based on your specific workload requirements.
All possible scenarios cannot be tested in the lab. Therefore, the tested design should not be considered as a solution that
will fit every customer’s requirement but it provides a foundational starting point for a suitable design that can perform well
for 5,000 users and is not undersized during normal or failure situations. Based on the performance values from each Lync
server role, it looks possible for this configuration to scale up to more than 5,000 users (perhaps up to 9,000 users
depending on the workload). However, we have not tested this maximum user load, and have left it up to the customer to
determine.
Implementing a proof-of-concept
As a matter of best practice for all deployments, HP recommends implementing a proof-of-concept using a test
environment that matches as closely as possible the planned production environment. In this way, appropriate performance
and scalability characterizations can be obtained. For help with a proof-of-concept, contact an HP Services representative
(http://www8.hp.com/us/en/business-services/it-services/it-services.html) or your HP partner.
49
Appendix 1 – Performance counters

The tables below list the Lync counters for the 5,000 user reference architecture.
Table 24. Performance counters monitored by Lync server role
FE health counters
\LS:Usrv - DBStore\Usrv - Queue Latency (msec)
\LS:Usrv - DBStore\Usrv - Sproc Latency (msec)
\LS:Usrv - DBStore\Usrv - Throttled requests/sec
\LS:Usrv - REGDBStore\Usrv - Queue Latency (msec)
\LS:Usrv - REGDBStore\Usrv - Sproc Latency (msec)
\LS:Usrv - REGDBStore\Usrv - Throttled requests/sec
\LS:Usrv - SharedDBStore\Usrv - Queue Latency (msec)
\LS:Usrv - SharedDBStore\Usrv - Sproc Latency (msec)
\LS:Usrv - SharedDBStore\Usrv - Throttled requests/sec
\LS:SIP - Authentication\SIP - Authentication System Errors/sec
\LS:SIP - Load Management\SIP - Average Holding Time For Incoming Messages
\LS:SIP - Load Management\SIP - Incoming Messages Timed out
\LS:SIP - Peers(*)\SIP - Average outgoing Queue Delay
\LS:SIP - Peers(*)\SIP - Flow-controlled Connections
\LS:SIP - Peers(*)\SIP - Sends Timed-Out/sec
\LS:SIP - Protocol\SIP - Average Incoming Message Processing Time
\LS:SIP - Protocol\SIP - Incoming Requests Dropped/sec
\LS:SIP - Protocol\SIP - Incoming Responses Dropped/sec
\LS:SIP - Responses\SIP - Local 503 Responses/sec
\LS:RoutingApps - Inter Cluster Routing\RoutingApps - Number of primary registrar timeouts
\LS:RoutingApps - Inter Cluster Routing\RoutingApps - Number of backup registrar timeouts
\LS:LYSS - Storage Service API\LYSS - Current percentage of space used by Storage Service DB.
\LS:LYSS - Storage Service API\LYSS - Current number of Storage Service stale queue items
\LS:Usrv - Cluster Manager\Usrv - Number of data loss events with state change
\LS:Usrv - Cluster Manager\Usrv - Number of data loss events without state change
\LS:Usrv - Cluster Manager\Usrv - Number of failures of replication operations sent to other Replicas per second
\LS:Usrv - Cluster Manager\Usrv - Wheather server is connected to fabric pool manager
\LS:XMPPFederation - SIP Instant Messaging\XMPPFederation - Failure IMDNs sent/sec
\LS:RoutingApps - Emergency Call Routing\RoutingApps - Number of incoming failure responses
50
Web component counters
\ASP.NET Apps v2.0.50727(*)\Requests Rejected
\ASP.NET Apps v4.0.30319(*)\Requests Rejected
\LS:JoinLauncher - Join Launcher Service Failures\JOINLAUNCHER - Join Failures
\LS:WEB - Address Book File Download\WEB - Failed File Requests/Second
\LS:WEB - Address Book Web Query\WEB - Failed search requests/sec
\LS:WEB - Auth Provider related calls\WEB - Failed validate cert calls to the cert auth provider
\LS:WEB - Distribution List Expansion\WEB - Timed out Active Directory Requests/sec
\LS:WEB - Location Information Service\WEB - Failed Get Locations Requests/Second
\LS:WEB - UCWA\UCWA - HTTP 5xx Responses/Second
Conferencing counters
\LS:CAA - Operations\CAA - Incomplete calls per sec
\LS:USrv - Conference Mcu Allocator\USrv - Allocation Latency (msec)
\LS:USrv - Conference Mcu Allocator\USrv - Create Conference Latency (msec)
Mediation counters
\LS:MediationServer - Global Counters\- Total failed calls caused by unexpected interaction from the Proxy
\LS:MediationServer - Global Per Gateway Counters(*)\- Total failed calls caused by unexpected interaction from a gateway
\LS:MediationServer - Health Indices\- Load Call Failure Index
\LS:MediationServer - Media Relay\- Candidates Missing
\LS:MediationServer - Media Relay\- Media Connectivity Check Failure
SQL health counters
\MSSQL$INSTANCE:Buffer Manager\Page life expectancy
\MSSQL$INSTANCE:Memory Manager\Memory Grants Pending
51
Edge health counters
\LS:A/V Auth - Requests\- Bad Requests Received/sec
\LS:A/V Edge - UDP Counters(*)\A/V Edge - Authentication Failures/sec
\LS:A/V Edge - UDP Counters(*)\A/V Edge - Allocate Requests Exceeding Port Limit
\LS:A/V Edge - UDP Counters(*)\A/V Edge - Packets Dropped/sec
\LS:A/V Edge - TCP Counters(*)\A/V Edge - Authentication Failures/sec
\LS:A/V Edge - TCP Counters(*)\A/V Edge - Allocate Requests Exceeding Port Limit
\LS:A/V Edge - TCP Counters(*)\A/V Edge - Packets Dropped/sec
\LS:DATAPROXY - Server Connections(*)\DATAPROXY - System is throttling
\LS:SIP - Peers(*)\SIP - Above Limit Connections Dropped (Access Proxies only)
\LS:SIP - Peers(*)\SIP - Sends Timed-Out/sec
\LS:SIP - Peers(*)\SIP - Flow-controlled Connections
\LS:SIP - Protocol\SIP - Incoming Requests Dropped/sec
\LS:SIP - Protocol\SIP - Average Incoming Message Processing Time
Appendix 2 – Workload configurations

Table 25. Workload configuration for 5,000 users – 30% Enterprise Voice enabled
Feature Value
MPopPercentage 10
SignInsPerSecond 2
IM High
IMLarge TRUE
AV High
AVLarge TRUE
VoIP Custom
CAA NA
AppSharing High
AppSharingLarge TRUE
DLExpansion High
AddressBookQuery NA
PSTN Custom
CPS NA
CAATelephone NA
DisableUserRangeGeneration FALSE
Scenario DLX
TestLoad High
LowIndex 1001
High Index 1050
52
Feature Value
Scenario AV-External
TestLoad High
LowIndex 1164
High Index 1238
Scenario AVLarge
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 1051
High Index 1051
Scenario AV
TestLoad High
LowIndex 1127
HighIndex 1163
Scenario AV-Adhoc
TestLoad High
LowIndex 1052
HighIndex 1126
Scenario VoipUCUC
TestLoad Custom
LowIndex 1239
HighIndex 1838
Scenario VoipPSTNUC
TestLoad Custom
LowIndex 1839
HighIndex 2738
Scenario ASLarge
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 2739
HighIndex 2739
Scenario ASSharer
TestLoad Medium
LowIndex 2758
HighIndex 2762
Scenario ASViewer
TestLoad High
LowIndex 2763
HighIndex 2831
Scenario AS-External
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 2749
HighIndex 2757
Scenario AS-Adhoc
TestLoad Enabled
53
Feature Value
LowIndex 2740
HighIndex 2748
Scenario IM Large
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 2870
HighIndex 2870
Scenario IM
TestLoad Custom
LowIndex 3831
HighIndex 6000
Scenario IM-Conf
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 2871
HighIndex 2988
Scenario IM External
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 2989
HighIndex 3831
Scenario DataCollaboration - Large
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 2832
HighIndex 2832
Scenario DataCollaboration - Adhoc
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 2833
HighIndex 2847
Scenario DataCollaboration - Conf
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 2848
HighIndex 2854
Scenario DataCollaboration - External
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 2855
HighIndex 2869
MS XX.xxxxx.XXX
MSPort 5060
PSTNAreaCode 502
PSTNSimulatorPort 5067
54
Table 26. Workload configuration for Test Plan 2 – 5,000 user with 60% Enterprise Voice enabled
Feature Value
MPopPercentage 10
SignInsPerSecond 2
IM High
IMLarge TRUE
AV High
AVLarge TRUE
VoIP Custom
CAA NA
AppSharing High
AppSharingLarge TRUE
DLExpansion High
AddressBookQuery NA
PSTN Custom
CPS NA
CAATelephone NA
DisableUserRangeGeneration FALSE
Scenario DLX
TestLoad High
LowIndex 1001
High Index 1050
Scenario AV-External
TestLoad High
LowIndex 1164
High Index 1238
Scenario AVLarge
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 1051
High Index 1051
Scenario AV
TestLoad High
LowIndex 1127
HighIndex 1163
Scenario AV-Adhoc
TestLoad High
LowIndex 1052
HighIndex 1126
Scenario VoipUCUC
TestLoad Custom
LowIndex 1239
HighIndex 2438
Scenario VoipPSTNUC
55
Feature Value
TestLoad Custom
LowIndex 2439
HighIndex 4238
Scenario ASLarge
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 4239
HighIndex 4239
Scenario ASSharer
TestLoad Medium
LowIndex 4258
HighIndex 4262
Scenario ASViewer
TestLoad High
LowIndex 4263
HighIndex 4331
Scenario AS-External
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 4249
HighIndex 4257
Scenario AS-Adhoc
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 4240
HighIndex 4248
Scenario IM Large
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 4370
HighIndex 4370
Scenario IM
TestLoad Custom
LowIndex 5331
HighIndex 6000
Scenario IM-Conf
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 4371
HighIndex 4488
Scenario IM External
TestLoad Enabled
LowIndex 4489
HighIndex 5330
Scenario DataCollaboration - Large
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 4332
56
Feature Value
HighIndex 4332
Scenario DataCollaboration - Adhoc
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 4333
HighIndex 4347
Scenario DataCollaboration - Conf
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 4348
HighIndex 4354
Scenario DataCollaboration - External
TestLoad Low
LowIndex 4355
HighIndex 4369
MS XX.xxxxx.XXX
MSPort 5060
PSTNAreaCode 502
PSTNSimulatorPort 5067
57
For more information

HP and Microsoft, hp.com/go/microsoft
HP Reference Architectures, hp.com/go/ra
HP Intelligent Provisioning, hp.com/go/intelligentprovisioning
HP Service Pack for ProLiant, hp.com/go/spp
HP ProLiant servers, hp.com/go/proliant
HP ProLiant Networking, hp.com/go/ProLiantNICs
HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO), hp.com/servers/ilo
HP Networking resources
HP Networking, hp.com/go/networking
HP Software Defined Networking, hp.com/go/SDN
Microsoft Lync Server resources

Microsoft Lync Server 2013, https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398616(v=ocs.15).aspx
Lync Server 2013 Stress and Performance Tool Documentation, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj945609.aspx
Lync Server 2013 Stress and Performance Tool Download, microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36819
Capacity Planning for Lync Server 2013, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg399017.aspx
Lync Sizer resources

HP Sizer for Microsoft Lync Server 2013, hp.com/solutions/microsoft/lync2013/sizer
Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator, microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36828
Microsoft Lync Server 2013, Planning Tool, microsoft.com/en-eg/download/details.aspx?id=36823
To help us improve our documents, please provide feedback at hp.com/solutions/feedback
Sign up for updates

hp.com/go/getupdated
© Copyright 2015 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Microsoft, Windows, and Windows Server are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Intel and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S.
and other countries.
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Lync Stress and Performance Tool ..................................................................................................................................... 43

The Microsoft products contained in this reference architecture include:

Lync solution design

Key solution design points

• High availability failure scenario testing

Figure 1. Configuration Diagram

Arcatech emutel™ | Harmony

3800 Switch LACP Trunks 3800 Switch

Microsoft Lync HP VAN SDN

Microsoft Lync Microsoft Lync Microsoft Lync

Table 1. Solution at a glance

Lync Clients 5,000

Active Users1 100%

Central Sites One

Remote Sites None

Instant Messaging and Presence Yes

Audio/Video, Dial-in and Web Conferencing Yes

Application Sharing and Data Collaboration Yes

Persistent Chat and Compliance Yes

Reverse Proxy Not Tested

Office Web Apps Yes

PSTN Gateway Yes

Enterprise Voice-enabled Users 60%

PSTN Calls per Hour / Trunk Type 4 / E1

Phone calls using media bypass 0%

Remote User Connectivity / External Users Yes / 30%

Physical Infrastructure Yes

Lync Server 2013 version Enterprise Edition

High Availability/Redundancy 2 Yes

Maximum Active Users per FE server 5,000

Storage Server Internal HDD

HP devices used for Lync Server 2013 RA

Figure 2. HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8

Figure 3. HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8

Server network connectivity

Figure 4. FlexibleLOM cards for HP ProLiant DL servers

Network configuration for lab

Figure 5. HP 10508 switch

Benefits of the 10508 Switch

HP 3800 Switch Series modular switches

Figure 6. HP 3800 modular switch

Benefits of the HP 3800 Switch Series

HP MSR Series router offerings

Benefits of the HP MSR Series routers

• Redundant power supply and hot swapping available on select models

Benefits of HP MSR50-60 Series routers

Figure 7. HP MSR50-60 Series router

Designing the solution: architecture planning tools used

Figure 8. Logical Configuration Diagram

Reverse Proxy Office Web Apps Lync Monitoring Lync Director

Internet Gateway PSTN

Lync Front End

HP Network Optimizer / VAN

Capacity and sizing

HP Sizer for Microsoft Lync Server 2013

Figure 9. HP Sizer for Microsoft Lync Server 2013

Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator

Figure 10. Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator