TOTD: Lync Server 2013, Skype4B and AlwaysON Availability Groups

Does Lync Server 2013 support AlwaysON AG?

Officially, Lync Server 2010/2013 doesn’t support AlwaysOn AG as BackEnd. *whispered* But it works.

Your options: use Failover Clustering/Mirroring (not supported in LS 2010)

Note: Mirroring is now officially deprecated

Is Microsoft going to add AlwaysOn as supported BackEnd for Lync Server?

At the Lync Conference, Las Vegas, February 2014 , Microsoft announced that support for AlwaysOn Availability Groups would be forthcoming in a future update (Q3, 2014). As I know, Microsoft changed these plans and moved AG support to Skype For Business. It’s very hard to say will ever be released update for Lync Server 2013. I predict , it won’t. MS has changed focus and will focus on Skype4B.

Are there any requirements/limitations in Skype4B + AlwaysON?

Skype for business supports SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2/ 2012 SP1 and 2014 . If you want to implement AlwaysON you have to use 2012 SP1 or 2014 Enterprise Editions and keep in mind that Skype4B:

• supports having replicas only in the same subnet
• supports only the synchronous-commit mode
• supports the Automatic Failover mode
• don’t support for read access on the secondary replicas
• don’t support for having an off-site replicas in Azure