Lync?

[localzuk]

So, I'm still planning out our future merging with other schools and the phone system is now on my radar, however it is a slightly longer term item (no hurry!).

 

My thought on this is to introduce Lync across the sites, along with migrating us away from the local authority mail system to our own.

 

I have a few questions though:

 

1. If we use Office 365, how does Lync play into this if we want to connect out to good old PSTN?

2. Does Lync have features such as auto attendants, ring groups, follow-me settings etc...?

3. We have an IP phone system onsite already here - running via Asterisk/FreePBX. We therefore already have SIP phones (Grandstream GXP-2000, GXP-2120, GXP-2130). Would these work with Lync or would we have to replace them with something Lync specific?

4. How reliable is Lync as a PBX? Asterisk has been rock solid for us - been running 7 years without issue.

 

Has anyone else switched to Lync as their PBX in a school?

[nathan]

So, I'm still planning out our future merging with other schools and the phone system is now on my radar, however it is a slightly longer term item (no hurry!).

 

My thought on this is to introduce Lync across the sites, along with migrating us away from the local authority mail system to our own.

 

I have a few questions though:

 

1. If we use Office 365, how does Lync play into this if we want to connect out to good old PSTN?

2. Does Lync have features such as auto attendants, ring groups, follow-me settings etc...?

3. We have an IP phone system onsite already here - running via Asterisk/FreePBX. We therefore already have SIP phones (Grandstream GXP-2000, GXP-2120, GXP-2130). Would these work with Lync or would we have to replace them with something Lync specific?

4. How reliable is Lync as a PBX? Asterisk has been rock solid for us - been running 7 years without issue.

 

Has anyone else switched to Lync as their PBX in a school?

 

By the looks of it, i don't think Lync from O365 is supported yet. (How to connect Lync to PSTN | IM, meetings and conferencing | Microsoft Office 365 Community)

 

Personally i would roll out a single Asterisk based PBX for all your schools. I'm currently looking into doing the same thing, just planning on how to do the extensions etc.

[localzuk]

The problem with a single PBX on one site is that it relies entirely on our internet connection working - increasing the possibility of no phones for the other schools quite considerably.

 

If the service was hosted in O365, it means that each school is then reliant only on their own net connection.

 

Another option, for the Asterisk side, would be to have an Asterisk install in each school as a VM, and then trunk between them...

[Domino]

If there's phone lines at each site you can have a Survivable Branch Server at each site.

 

So Site A has a full lync install, phone lines and a voice gateway (asterisk probably best as you've used it before)

Site B has an SBS and voicegateway.

 

When comms between sites are up, all functionality is hosted from the main install (conferencing, response groups, etc) - when they're down, call handling (minus conferencing and response group) is handled by the SBS. So there's reduced functionality, but calls in and out are still handled.

[localzuk]

That sounds good to me! I'm preferring to avoid Linux (general call from above is to stick with things which are easier to find support for in this end of the country), so Asterisk is something I'd like to replace ideally!

[localzuk]

@Domino - if we were to use SIP trunks from someone like Gamma instead of ISDN or Analog lines, would we need a specific voice gateway device? Could Lync connect direct to the SIP trunks?

[Domino]

It could if it were a lync certified line - If I remember correctly most SIP lines are UDP but lync requires TCP. I've yet to find anyone doing it for a reasonable price in any of our locations, so an asterisk box basically doing conversion only is in place in our offices acting as a voice gateway. The bonus is with a digium card in a physical server running asterisk, you can provision ISDN lines in the same way.

 

Alternatively people like audiocodes make lync certified gateways too.

[jdell]

Hi All,

 

I though our experiences on this would be beneficial, we are a college with now 11,000 people who are using Lync, through a mix of PC to PC and Enterprise voice. The major selling point for any school for Lync would be it can kill off the need to a PBX and a conferring system and a IM systems etc. all in one go. There is next to nothing in the UC space that Lync cannot do if implemented properly.

The first thing to say on this is if you want to run all the feature you need processing power on site to do this, we run 13 servers to make the Lync system not including Exchange. You can run allot of the features off the “free” O365 but its not going to give you all the features or not for the time being.

So to answer your questions.

1. If we use Office 365, how does Lync play into this if we want to connect out to good old PSTN?

Dump the PSTN and get SIP trunks put in it will save you thousands of pounds a year and providers like Gamma are giving them away at the price they charge we reduced our monthly call cost by over 50%.

2. Does Lync have features such as auto attendants, ring groups, follow-me settings etc...?

All this can be done with Lync but you need an onsite Exchange server running 2010 SP3 or 2013 to provide the auto attendant and voice recognition. This cant be done on the 0365 tennant.

3. We have an IP phone system onsite already here - running via Asterisk/FreePBX. We therefore already have SIP phones (Grandstream GXP-2000, GXP-2120, GXP-2130). Would these work with Lync or would we have to replace them with something Lync specific?

You need Lync certified devices. If they are not designed with Lync on them they just won’t work, you can get voice gateways which can do routing between the PBX and Lync but its only really good for the transition period.

4. How reliable is Lync as a PBX? Asterisk has been rock solid for us - been running 7 years without issue.

We used Cisco call manager for years, but Lync has been solid and provides a much more diverse experience and will knock the socks off any PBX.

If you want to talk any more about deploying Lync, drop me a PM and we can set up a Lync meeting and I can show you what we are running and how you really get the best form the MS beast.

[DaveMurphy]

We've been looking at this recently, we're looking to use the O365 on-premis with a hybrid setup to O365, lines are routed in via ISDN to the PBX, it will then be trunked into our Lync server for the VoIP aspect.

 

I've had several members of staff playing with Lync IM since christmas which has proven useful, they really like it and I really like that it reduces a phone call or a walk to the other side of site, though Lync is end of life and is on the roadmap to be replaced with Skype for Business later this year so I'm now more interested in what functionalities SforB will bring to the table.

[Domino]

r so I'm now more interested in what functionalities SforB will bring to the table.

 

the buttons are a different colour

[localzuk]

Hmm... Seems to want an awful lot of processing power! Typical Microsoft software then really.

 

Asterisk + FreePBX runs on a Via C7 2GHz with 1GB RAM, providing us with all the things like ring groups, voicemail etc...

 

I wonder why Lync is so resource heavy!?

[jdell]

I think the reason Lync is so resource heavy is mainly because its a MS product! The functions like Video conferencing etc do add load so the main point when deploying is to scale for the maximum possible load of the system. It is worth putting the effort into get that right as when it works it just works.

[JRowley]

We've been looking at this recently, we're looking to use the O365 on-premis with a hybrid setup to O365, lines are routed in via ISDN to the PBX, it will then be trunked into our Lync server for the VoIP aspect.

 

I've had several members of staff playing with Lync IM since christmas which has proven useful, they really like it and I really like that it reduces a phone call or a walk to the other side of site, though Lync is end of life and is on the roadmap to be replaced with Skype for Business later this year so I'm now more interested in what functionalities SforB will bring to the table.

 

Lync isn't exactly EoF, it is being rebranded to Skype for Business, all the features of Lync will be carried over and you can even keep the Lync interface if you want. It'll just be a patch that changes the client, as far as I'm aware the backend is identical.

Edited March 5, 2015 by JRowley

[john]

Hmm... Seems to want an awful lot of processing power! Typical Microsoft software then really.

 

Asterisk + FreePBX runs on a Via C7 2GHz with 1GB RAM, providing us with all the things like ring groups, voicemail etc...

 

I wonder why Lync is so resource heavy!?

Like all things MS you have the MS recommended way and reality, and it does depend on what your doing with it etc.... If you installed System Centre like they did you'd have a full rack of 8 CPU boxes just for it but it will run on an old crappy desktop so you know take with usual MS pinch of salt.