Lync Server 2013 Virtualization White Paper

Error! Unknown document property name.
Page 1
Lync Server 2013 Virtualization White Paper, Version 1.0

Planning a Lync Server 2013 Deployment on
Virtual Servers

February 18, 2014
Version 1.0
Prepared by
James Hornby
Senior Consultant
james.hornby@microsoft.com

Contributors
Agus Rachman, Cedric Depaepe, Brandon Bernier, Andrew Sniderman, Seth McClure,
Campbell Gunn, Ramon Infante

Thanks to Christian Lavista and the Microsoft Technology Center, New York
Lync Server 2013
Virtualization


MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.
Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under
copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose,
without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering
subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, our
provision of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other
intellectual property.
The descriptions of other companies products in this document, if any, are provided only as a convenience to
you. Any such references should not be considered an endorsement or support by Microsoft. Microsoft cannot
guarantee their accuracy, and the products may change over time. Also, the descriptions are intended as brief
highlights to aid understanding, rather than as thorough coverage. For authoritative descriptions of these products,
please consult their respective manufacturers.
2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Any use or distribution of these materials without express
authorisation of Microsoft Corp. is strictly prohibited.
Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States
and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
ii


Page 3

Acknowledgments
Name Position
Christian Lavista Director, Microsoft Technology Center, New York
Fabian Labat MTC Service Engineer (Atos)
Tim Myers Senior Service Engineer
Joel Yoker MCS US Hyper-V Architect
Chris Dragich Senior Content Developer
Facilities Microsoft Technology Center, New York

Page 4

Table of Contents
Lync Server 2013 Virtualization ........................................................................................................................................ i
Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................................ 6
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................ 7
1.1 What is Virtualization? .............................................................................................................................................. 7
1.2 Why Virtualize? .......................................................................................................................................................... 8
1.3 Server Virtualization in Lync Server 2013 ............................................................................................................. 8
1.4 Lync Server Performance on a Virtualized Platform ........................................................................................... 9
2 Summary Considerations for Virtualization of Lync Server 2013 .................................................................. 10
2.1 Call Quality ................................................................................................................................................................ 10
2.2 Configuration ........................................................................................................................................................... 10
3 Lync Architecture Overview ................................................................................................................................... 12
3.1 Front End Servers .................................................................................................................................................... 12
3.2 Back End Servers ...................................................................................................................................................... 13
3.3 Architecture Changes in Lync Server 2013 ......................................................................................................... 14
4 Lync Server Stress and Performance Tool (LSS) ................................................................................................ 15
5 Key Health Indicators Good Pass ...................................................................................................................... 16
6 Lync Virtualization Scenario Setup ...................................................................................................................... 18
6.1 Hardware Specification and Virtual Machine Placement ................................................................................ 18
7 Lync Virtualization Observations .......................................................................................................................... 22
7.1 LSS Ramp Up ............................................................................................................................................................ 22
7.2 SQL Server Express .................................................................................................................................................. 23
8 Lync Server Virtualization Recommendations ................................................................................................... 25
8.1 Hypervisors ............................................................................................................................................................... 25
8.2 Host Requirements ................................................................................................................................................. 29
8.3 Guest Requirements ............................................................................................................................................... 31
8.4 Capabilities Support ................................................................................................................................................ 33
8.5 Lync Server Capacity Planning .............................................................................................................................. 34
8.6 High Availability/Disaster Recovery Strategy .................................................................................................... 34
9 Appendix A: Stress and Performance Tool Configuration Details ................................................................. 35
9.1 User Provisioning Tool ........................................................................................................................................... 35
9.2 Common Configuration ......................................................................................................................................... 37
9.3 Instant Messaging ................................................................................................................................................... 38
9.4 Audio Conferencing ................................................................................................................................................ 40
9.5 Application Sharing ................................................................................................................................................. 41
9.6 Data Collaboration .................................................................................................................................................. 43
9.7 Distribution List Expansion .................................................................................................................................... 44
9.8 Address Book Query ............................................................................................................................................... 44
9.9 Response Group Service ........................................................................................................................................ 46
9.10 Location Information Services .............................................................................................................................. 46
9.11 VoIP ............................................................................................................................................................................ 47

Page 5

9.12 UC PSTN Gateway ................................................................................................................................................... 47
9.13 Conferencing Attendant ........................................................................................................................................ 48
9.14 Call Park Service ....................................................................................................................................................... 48
9.15 Mediation Server and PSTN .................................................................................................................................. 49
9.16 Reach General Reach Settings ........................................................................................................................... 49
9.17 Reach Application Sharing .................................................................................................................................... 50
9.18 Reach Data Collaboration ...................................................................................................................................... 50
9.19 Reach Instant Messaging ....................................................................................................................................... 51
9.20 Reach Voice Conferencing..................................................................................................................................... 51
9.21 Mobility (UCWA) General Mobility Settings ................................................................................................... 52
9.22 Mobility Presence and P2P Instant Messaging/Audio ..................................................................................... 53


Page 6

Executive Summary
Microsoft Lync Server 2013 supports virtualization for all workloads. However, because Lync
Server is a real-time communications application, it is more sensitive to resource constraints
than other applications. In Lync Server, an issue with the availability of compute resources can
cause a negative user experience including dropped calls, dropped audio, choppy audio, or
inability to join a conference. A similar resource issue with a non-real-time application would not
be noticeable to the user.
With our testing, we found that a 10,000-user pool spread across three virtualized Front End
Servers produced a resource utilization that was within the critical key health indicator (KHI)
limits. Your results may vary based on your hardware and user model, thus we recommend you
perform capacity testing in your environment, before you deploy fully. For guidance in your
testing, you can use the accompanying Microsoft paper, Lync Server 2013 Stress Testing Guide.
In addition to performing stress testing before you deploy, we recommend you take several
steps in the design and configuration of your host server and guest server topology. Examples
of this are disabling hyperthreading, using a 1:1 ratio of virtual CPUs to physical CPUs, disabling
memory overcommitment, and several others as detailed in this paper.

Page 7

1 Introduction
Virtualizing a Lync Server deployment can be considered for all sizes of deployment, from small
single-site deployments to large multi-site enterprise implementations.
The purpose of this white paper is to provide you with technical guidance for designing and
deploying a virtualized Lync Server 2013 deployment, including the following:
Host server hardware and software best practices.
Guest server requirements recommendations.
Guest server placement on the different host servers.
Recommended practices for deploying Lync Server, specific to deployment on virtual
servers.
Guidelines for key health indicators to watch when running Lync Server on virtual servers,
specific to each server role.
Additionally, this document describes the parameters used in the Lync Server Stress Tool
configuration to match the user model used for Lync Server 2013 capacity planning. For more
information about this user model, see Lync Server 2013 User Models. For more information
about capacity planning for physical servers in Lync Server 2013, see Capacity Planning.
Details about the methodology used to perform the tests are described in a separate white
paper, Lync Server 2013 Stress Testing Guide. You can use this paper for guidance to perform
stress testing of your own deployment design before fully implementing the deployment.
This document does not cover client virtualization scenarios such as application virtualization or
Lync client deployment with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
This document does not provide prescriptive guidance about the installation and configuration
of Lync Server 2013 and supporting software components. For guidance about the installation
and configuration of Lync Server 2013, see Lync Server product documentation.

1.1 What is Virtualization?
Virtualization, in its simplest form, provides a layer of abstraction between the hardware and
operating system. Server virtualization allows multiple operating systems (or "virtual machines")
and their applicable workloads to share the resources of a single server. The main benefits of
virtualization are improved resource utilization (typically reducing the number of physical servers
needed) and the ability to relocate virtual machines to different hosts.

Page 8

1.2 Why Virtualize?
In todays competitive environment, organizations want to:
Reduce infrastructure costs while accurately forecasting operational expenditure.
Create more value by providing faster but lower-cost services.
Increase operational efficiency.
Server virtualization capabilities may help companies achieve these goals by:
Reducing the Total Cost of Ownership
Leveraging existing resources with server consolidation.
Increasing space utilization with fewer physical servers.
Decreasing hardware maintenance and training costs.
Providing an abstraction of operating system and workloads from actual physical
hardware.
Reducing time to deploy.
Minimizing service disruption and increasing service levels.
Providing capacity on demand in response to changing business needs.
Speeding up server deployment by duplicating a standard virtual server.
Increasing operational efficiency
Improving business continuity with high availability of hardware and applications.
Increasing operational flexibility with dynamic resource management and server
provisioning.
Improving the server to administrator ratio.
As always, one size does not fit all and while virtualization makes sense for some companies and
workloads, it will not make sense for others.
1.3 Server Virtualization in Lync Server 2013
Microsoft has made significant investments in virtualization support for Lync Server while
providing a fully distributed topology. To virtualize Lync Server, you can use Hyper-V Windows
Server 2012 R2, Hyper-V Windows Server 2012, or a third-party virtualization solution that
has passed Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) testing. For more details, see the
Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program. On a virtual server, you can run all Lync
Server workloads.
Instant messaging (IM)
IM conferencing
Presence

Page 9

Enterprise Voice (PSTN)
Audio conferencing
Video conferencing
Web conferencing
Application sharing
Remote access, federation (Edge Server)
Response Group Service
Persistent chat
Back-end database
Archiving/monitoring databases

1.4 Lync Server Performance on a Virtualized Platform
Virtualizing Lync can reduce the physical server count by combining high-resource servers with
low-resource servers on a high-powered host server. This can be an effective strategy to
reducing physical server footprint in the data center.
Virtualization is meant to leverage a shared infrastructure across many applications. Each of the
four fundamental compute resourcesCPU, Memory, Network, and Diskare abstracted or
shared in a virtualized environment. Lync Server, as a real-time media application, performs
differently than other applications and requires special consideration.
For example, in a web application, resource constraints may result in a web page loading a little
bit slowertypically imperceptible to a user. With Lync Server, similar resource constraints may
result in dropped audio or choppy videothis is a major impact and can result in a negative
user experience.
Lync Server is designed to consume the full capabilities of a physical server and will perform
poorly if the required compute resources are not available when needed. To help the
virtualization of Lync Server 2013 to be successful for your organization, follow the guidelines
provided in this white paper.
An additional benefit of virtualization is ensuring consistency in similar servers in your
organization by using virtualization templates. Consistency drives down operational cost and
complexity, and improves service levels.

Page 10

2 Summary Considerations for Virtualization of Lync
Server 2013
To provide a great communications experience in Lync Server 2013 and enable a successful
deployment, virtualizing Lync requires a focused design and test effort to validate the
virtualization platform can meet required capacity, quality, and operational targets.
In addition to taking into account the other recommendations listed in this paper, you should
review the following summary considerations to make and validate the decision to virtualize.
2.1 Call Quality
Call quality is a key component of Lync Server performance on both physical servers and virtual
servers. Call quality depends on ready CPU resources for media transcoding as well as a high-
performing network to support media streams. Adoption of video will significantly increase
demands on both CPU and network. The hypervisor inherently incurs a CPU penalty as
overhead, and virtual CPUs often have very different performance characteristics from physical
ones. In a non-real-time application like a web service, these impacts may be unnoticeable but
they can be very apparent in Lync. A spike of database activity can impact network performance,
contributing to latency, packet drops, or jitterall of which will degrade audio quality and the
user experience. Stress testing before you deploy to make sure your planned hardware and
virtual machines are sized appropriately can help minimize bad user experiences.
2.2 Configuration
Designing and operating an enterprise-grade Lync Server infrastructure requires involvement
from several teams. Adding virtualization provides a new dimension of complexity and reliance
on another team for support.
Virtualization also introduces a new layer of configuration and optimization techniques for each
guest that must be determined and tested for Lync Server. Many virtualization techniques that
can lead to consolidation and optimization for other applications cannot be used with Lync
Server. Shared resource techniques, including processor oversubscription, memory
overcommitment, and I/O virtualization, cannot be used because of their negative impact on
Lync scale and call quality.
Virtual machine portabilitythe capability to move a virtual machine guest server from one
physical host to anotherbreaks the inherent availability functionality in Lync Server pools.

Page 11

Moving a guest server while operating is not supported in Lync Server 2013. Lync Server 2013
has a rich set of application-specific failover techniques, including data replication within a pool
and between pools. Virtual machine-based failover techniques break these application-specific
failover capabilities.
The testing we completed revealed some specific configuration items that we recommend when
you run Lync Server on a virtualization platform:
Processor
You should disable hyperthreading on all hosts.
Do not use processor oversubscription; maintain a 1:1 ratio of virtual CPU to physical
CPU.
Make sure your host servers support nested page tables (NPT) and extended page tables
(EPT).
Disable non-uniform memory access (NUMA) spanning on the hypervisor, as this can
reduce guest performance.

Memory
Do not configure dynamic memory or memory overcommitment on host servers.

Network
Use Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) to optimize synthetic NIC performance.
Use physical NIC segregation for host versus guest communications.
Single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) is recommended. The specific configuration you
should use depends on the host chipset and network adapter/driver.

Storage
Use fixed or pass-through disks rather than dynamic disks.

Hypervisor
Virtual machine portability or failover techniques such as live migration are not
supported.


Page 12

3 Lync Architecture Overview
Each server running Lync Server runs one or more server roles. A server role is a defined set of
Lync Server functionalities provided by that server. Only those server roles required for the
functionality of the system are required.
This section briefly discusses two primary roles in Lync Server, the Front End Server and Back End
Server. It also discusses some changes to the Lync Server architecture in Lync Server 2013 that
affect how these roles relate to each other.
3.1 Front End Servers
In Lync Server 2013, the Front End Server is the core server role, and runs many basic Lync
Server functions. The Front End Server, along with the Back End Server, are the only server roles
required to be in any Lync Server 2013 Enterprise Edition deployment.
A Front End pool is a set of Front End Servers, configured identically, that work together to
provide services for a common group of users. A pool of multiple servers running the same role
provides scalability and failover capability.
The Front End Server provides the following services:
User authentication and registration.
Presence information and contact card exchange.
Address book services and distribution list expansion.
Instant messaging functionality, including multiparty instant messaging conferences.
Web conferencing, PSTN dial-in conferencing, and audio/video (A/V) conferencing.
Web components to support web-based tasks such as web scheduler and join launcher.
Application hosting for both applications included with Lync Server (for example,
conferencing attendant and response group application) and third-party applications.
Monitoring to collect usage information in the form of call detail records and call error
records. This information provides metrics about the quality of the media (audio and
video) traversing the network for both enterprise voice calls and audio/video
conferences.
Archiving to archive instant messaging communications and meeting content for
compliance reasons.
Front End pools are also the primary store for user and conference data. Information about each
user is replicated among the Front End Servers in the pool. This is performed by using the Lync
Storage Service as depicted in the following figure.

Page 13

Figure 1 Lync Server 2013 Architecture

New for Lync Server 2013, an organization can pair Front End pools in two geographically
dispersed sites for disaster recovery purposes. Each site contains a Front End pool that is paired
with a corresponding Front End pool in the other site. Both sites are active, and the Lync Server
Backup Service provides real-time data replication to keep the pools synchronized.
If the pool in one site fails, an administrator can failover the users from the failed pool to the
pool in the other site, which then provides services to all the users. For capacity planning, each
pool should be designed to handle the workloads of all users in both pools in the event of a
disaster.
3.2 Back End Servers
Back End Servers are database servers running Microsoft SQL Server that provide the database
services for the Front End pool. The Back End Servers serve as backup stores for the pools user
and conference data, and are the primary stores for other databases such as the response group
database. There can be a single Back End Server, but a highly available solution that uses SQL
Server mirroring is recommended for failover, and an SQL witness server automates this process.
Back End Servers do not run any Lync Server software.
Additionally, one Front End pool in the deployment also hosts the Central Management Server
database on its Back End Servers, which manages and deploys basic configuration data to all
servers running Lync Server 2013.

Page 14

3.3 Architecture Changes in Lync Server 2013
In Lync Server 2013 Enterprise Edition, the architecture of the Front End pools has been changed
when compared to Lync Server 2010.
In the Lync Server 2013 architecture, the back-end database is no longer the real-time data store
in the Lync pool. Most Lync data (including presence information, permissions, and user
contacts) now are stored primarily on the Front End Servers to improve the performance and
scalability of the overall architecture, and to eliminate the single point of failure of the Back End
Server compared to Lync Server 2010.
Now transactions for users regarding presence, contacts, and conferencing information are
handled on the Front End Server with the Back End Server providing the overall persistent blob
storage of this data. This means that the Front End Servers have more of the resource and
compute burden than they did in previous versions of Lync Server.
The A/V Conferencing Server role is also now part of the Front End Server role. In addition to
this main architectural change, there are no longer separate Monitoring Server or Archiving
Server roles, with these now running as services on the Front End Server.
A final change in using the industry standard H264 codec for video requires additional
computational resources on the Front End Server when running video conferencing.

Page 15

4 Lync Server Stress and Performance Tool (LSS)
Lync Server 2013 Stress and Performance Tool (LSS) is a toolset that enables organizations
planning to deploy Lync Server 2013 to perform stress testing of a target deployment
infrastructure based on their specific usage pattern. This infrastructure includes server, storage,
and network.
LSS can simulate individual workloads, such as instant messaging and presence, application
sharing, audio conferencing, and so on. This enables you to assess the capacity planning
requirements of a Lync Server 2013 deployment to handle the entire supported workloads right
from the beginning, or to gradually scale up and/or scale out the Lync Server 2013 deployment
as a new workload is introducedsuch as in the case of starting with IM and presence and
conferencing, and later adding the Enterprise Voice workload.
A stress testing exercise using LSS must be performed against the same target deployment
infrastructure intended to be used for production implementation, and must be performed in an
isolated lab environment.
Because LSS only provides the tools to provision users and simulate user loads, your stress
testing must also involve a proper design and deployment of Lync Server 2013 with its
supporting infrastructure (such as Active Directory, Certificate Services, Office Web Apps Server,
load balancer, and reverse proxy).
A stress testing exercise using Lync Server 2013 LSS is typically performed right after the
completion of the technical design and before taking the design into pilot. The design, with its
supporting infrastructure, should be deployed in the lab environment for
functional/nonfunctional testing first, and then leveraged to perform stress testing for the
purpose of capacity planning validation.
Details about the methodology used to perform stress tests using LSS is described in a separate
white paper, the Lync Server 2013 Stress Testing Guide.
For details about the parameters we used for LSS to match the Lync 2013 User Models, see
Appendix A: Stress and Performance Tool Configuration Details.

Page 16

5 Key Health Indicators Good Pass
Many key health indicators (KHIs) have been identified for Lync Server 2013. However, to ease
the effort involved in checking all the indicators for each test run conducted by using LSS, we
have defined the 10 most significant for a good pass and listed them in the following table. If
you're testing reveals no issues in meeting these 10 primary KHIs, you could further analyze the
full KHI set.
The full KHI set for Lync Server 2013 is included in the Network Planning, Monitoring, and
Troubleshooting with Lync Server documentation download.
Table 1. Key health indicators good pass
Counter Description Healthy range
\Processor Information(*)\ %
Processor Time
CPU utilization <80% (highest core)
\Memory\Available Mbytes Displays the amount of physical
memory, in bytes, available to
processes running on the computer.
>20% total system memory
\PhysicalDisk\Avg. Disk Sec/Read Represents the average time, in
milliseconds, of each disk read
latency.
<10 ms Green
<10-25 ms Yellow
>25 ms Red
\PhysicalDisk\Avg. Disk sec/Write Represents the average time, in
milliseconds, of disk read latency.
<10 ms Green
<10-25 ms Yellow
>25 ms Red
LS:Usrv - DBStore\Usrv Queue
Latency (msec)
Queue latency is the amount of time
(in milliseconds) that it takes for a
request to leave the Front End
Servers queue toward the back-end
database.
If this value by itself is high, you may
be encountering a network problem
between the Front End Server and
the SQL Server.
If this value is high and sproc latency
is high, it is most commonly a
bottleneck with the Back End Server.
<100ms sustained

Page 17

Counter Description Healthy range
LS:USrv DBStore\Usrv Sproc
Latency (msec)
A sproc latency 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 Front End Server queue
until that request returns.
If this value by itself is high, it is likely
a bottleneck with the Back End
Server.
<100ms sustained
\MSSQL$INSTANCE:Buffer
Manager\Page life expectancy
How many seconds SQL Server
expects a data page to stay in cache.
>300
\MSSQL$INSTANCE:Memory
Manager\Memory Grants
Pending(KB)
Total number of processes per
second waiting for a workspace
memory grant.
<80% of physical memory
\ASP.NET Apps
v2.0.50727(*)\Requests Rejected
<80%

\ASP.NET Apps
v.4.0.30319(*)\Requests Rejected
<80%


Page 18

6 Lync Virtualization Scenario Setup
We conducted our Lync Server 2013 testing with a purpose-built lab environment that tested
Lync Server 2013 Enterprise Edition with three Front End Servers against the defined user model.
For information about the Lync 2013 user models, see the Capacity Planning Using the User
Models and Lync 2013 User Models articles.
6.1 Hardware Specification and Virtual Machine Placement
The lab included eight HPDL560 Generation 8 chassis with four Intel E5-4650 processors and
128 GB of memory. The following table describes the hardware components and logical
configurations for the testing.
Table 1 Host Hardware Specification
Quantity Manufacture part number Description
8 686792-B21 HP DL560 Gen8 CTO Server
8 686843-L21 HP E5-4650 DL560 Gen8 FIO Kit
24 686843-B21 HP E5-4650 DL560 Gen8 Kit
64 672631-B21 HP 16GB 2Rx4 PC3-12800R-11 Kit
32 652611-B21 HP 300GB 6G SAS 15K 2.5in SC ENT HDD
8 631667-B21 HP Smart Array P222/512MiB FBWC Ctrlr
8 631674-B21 HP Smart Array P421/2GiB FBWC Controller
8 AJ764A HP 82Q 8Gb Dual Port PCI-e FC HBA
8 684208-B21 HP 1GbE 4-port 331FLR Adapter FIO Kit
8 631679-B21 HP 1GB FBWC for P-Series Smart Array
8 AJ940A HP StorageWorks D2600 Disk Enclosure
96 516828-B21 HP 600GB 6G SAS 15K 3.5in DP ENT HDD


Page 19

Figure 2 Logical Host Configuration

Table 3 Host Storage Configuration
Storage location Internal External
Disks Disks 0-3 Disks 0-3 Disks 4-7 Disks 8-11
Array Array 0 (RAID
10)
Array 1 (RAID 10) Array 2 (RAID 10) Array 3 (RAID
10)
Capacity 600 GB 1.2 TB 1.2 TB 1.2 TB
IOPS (100% Read %) 700 IOPS 700 IOPS 700 IOPS 700 IOPS
IOPS (100% Write %) 350 IOPS 350 IOPS 350 IOPS 350 IOPS

Page 20

Each virtual server had 12 cores and 32 GB of memory allocated following the recommendations
for physical servers as detailed in the Server Hardware Platforms article.
We created the following topology for our testing.

Figure 1 Lync Server Topology


Page 21

Guest virtual machines were spread across hosts in order to test performance. Collocation of
specific server roles was not tested. Instead, we used a logical separation of roles. For example,
we did not place multiple Front End Servers together on the same host. (Note that placing
servers of a like role on the same host server is supported. However, keeping virtual servers in
the same pool on different host servers improves resilience in the case of a hardware failure.)

Table 4 Virtual Machine Placement
Logical
proc
Host01 Host02 Host03 Host04 Host05 Host06 Host07 Host08
00-03 FE01 FE02 FE03 BE01 BE02 Edge01 Edge02 ST05
04-07
08-11 DC01 DC02 ST06
12-15
16-19 OWAS01 BE03
(Witness)
OWAS02 ST07
20-23
24-27 ST01 ST02 ST03 ST04 ST08
28-31 Reserved Reserved Reserved Reserved Reserved Reserved Reserved Reserved


Page 22

7 Lync Virtualization Observations
We ran multiple test runs. With the hardware we used, we found an optimal solution of a
10,000-user pool with three Front End Servers. This solution produced a high-resource utilization
that was within the critical KHI limits. Your results may vary based on your hardware and user
model, thus we recommend you do some testing in your environment before you deploy fully.
This section includes other observations we made during testing.
7.1 LSS Ramp Up
Throughout the testing process, we observed a ramp-up period of about 30 minutes when using
LSS. The ramp-up period during your testing may be longer or shorter, depending on how many
LSS configuration files you are loading. You must ignore the test results from this period and not
account for them in your test analysis. During this ramp-up time, LSS configuration files are
loaded, users are logged in, and Lync completes some background tasks.
The ramp-up time can be seen in the following figure. It shows the amount of processor (CPU)
time used over a period of time, and the spikes of CPU utilization from simulated user
workloads.

Figure 4: Performance Monitor - Percent of Processor Time Test Run 10,000 users


Page 23

7.2 SQL Server Express
Four processors remained in high utilization over time. Those processors are associated with the
RTCLOCAL SQL Server Express Edition instance. SQL Server Express Edition can use only four
logical processors (see Compute Capacity Limits by Edition of SQL Server for more information).
When these processors approach >90 percent utilization, it indicates that the Enterprise Edition
pool with three Front End Servers is already at full capacity from a SQL Server Express viewpoint.
To accommodate more users, you will need to add Front End Servers.
In figure 5 we can see the assigned cores for the RTCLOCAL SQL Instance as Instance 0.0, 0.1,
0.2, and 0.3. We can see that these four processors are highly utilized during testing.
When analysing results from the LSS, CPU utilization across all cores allocated in the guest
should be inspected and not the total average.
It is important to note that Lync Server is optimized to utilize the four cores assigned for SQL
Server Express compute. We also tried an unsupported scenario using SQL Server Enterprise
Edition. This was found to not improve the performance of a Front End Server overall; in fact,
compute was spread across CPU time, causing higher utilization across all CPU.
While under load and above 90 percent CPU utilization, we investigated additional KHI values
specifically relating to SQL Server Express.
Figure 5 shows the same loading characteristics as we expect during ramp up. But as the LSS
instances start to simulate workloads, we see a more normalised pattern where spikes signify
user load on the system.
Queue latency is the amount of time (in milliseconds) that it takes for a request to leave the
Front End Servers queue toward the back-end database and sproc latency is the amount of time
(in milliseconds) that it takes for the Microsoft SQL Server data management software
database to process the request. This performance value is collected from the time the request
leaves the Front End Server queue until that the request returns. Together these two values
show us that the CPU utilization is not affecting performance of the underlying SQL databases,
and thus potentially the environment is still capable of handling the user loads.

Page 24

Figure 5: Performance Monitor LSUsrv Queue and sproc latencies Test Run 10,000 users


Page 25

8 Lync Server Virtualization Recommendations
This section contains recommendations we found from the virtualization testing of Lync Server
2013.
8.1 Hypervisors
We tested Lync Server 2013 based on the same requirements as physical while also allowing for
hypervisor overhead for virtual environments. Lync Server 2013 can be deployed on Windows
Server 2012 Hyper-V and later technology, or any third-party hypervisor that has been validated
under the SVVP.
8.1.1 Validated Hypervisors
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V
Hyper-V Windows Server 2012
8.1.2 Other Hypervisors
Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V
Hyper-V Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows 2008 R2 hypervisors are supported, but not recommended because guests are limited
to four cores, making this unsuitable for all Lync Server roles.
Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
Windows 2008 R2-based hypervisors should have the hotfix described in Microsoft Knowledge
Base article 981836 deployed. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article
981836, Network connection is lost on a Windows Server 2003-based Hyper-V VM.
8.1.3 Unsupported Hypervisors
Although Hyper-V was available as a role in Windows Server 2008, that release is not supported.
A number of enhancements that are critical for running virtualized Lync Server media workloads
were implemented with Windows Server 2008 R2 to address network packet loss.
8.1.4 Hypervisor Overhead
Hypervisors require an amount of overhead (typically 6 percent to 10 percent) above and
beyond what the virtual guest requires. This overhead can involve both CPU and memory. In the

Page 26

case of advanced workloads which are able to fully use the hardware resources, virtualizing the
workload can result in a net increase of physical servers due to the overhead of the virtualization
layer.
Hypervisor overhead must be taken into account on top of the physical server requirements for
Lync Server virtualization and continuous monitoring is essential to maintain the correct
performance for normal Lync Server operations on a virtual environment in regards to the CPU
and memory of the virtual machines.
8.1.5 Virtual Machine Image Templates
You cannot run Sysprep to create machine image templates after Lync Server 2013 is installed.
We recommend you use custom operating system templates with applicable operating system
prerequisites installed depending on the targeted workload. For example, you could use an
operating system template for Front End Servers containing Internet Information Services (IIS)
and Windows Media Format Runtime. For more information, see the Sysprep section of the Lync
Server 2013 Resource Kit Tools Documentation.
After configuring the guest operating systems using these templates, you can then deploy Lync
Server on each virtual server.
8.1.6 Live Migration and Quick Migration
Live migration is a process where running workloads can be moved from a source server to a
destination server without impacting the availability of running business applications or critical
data. While migrating live virtual machines, there are two major concerns: outage of applications
or data and prevention of data loss.
Lync Server 2013 does not support live migration and/or quick migration capabilities of a host
hypervisor solution. Planning for high availability requires the use of native Lync Server 2013
capabilities, which exceeds that of hypervisor based solutions. There are technical challenges
with redirecting real-time media traffic without an interruption that can be detected by users.
Although you can move a virtual machine running Lync Server between hosts, it must be shut
down prior to doing so. This outage will be observed by a portion of the client base hosted on
the server and any active conferences will be ended.
8.1.7 Dynamic Memory
Microsoft does not support Dynamic Memory for virtual machines that run any of the Lync
Server 2013 roles. If Lync Server 2013 does not have full control of the memory allocated to the

Page 27

physical or virtual machines on which it is running, degraded system performance and a poor
client experience can result.
Other hypervisors have dynamic memory capabilities. Memory must not be overprovisioned at
the hypervisor layer as current hypervisors do not have the capability to provide dedicated
resource segmentation/resource isolation for all four physical components: processor, memory,
storage I/O, and network I/O. As a result a guest on a hypervisor platform may consume
resources that would then be unavailable or limit availability for other guests on the same
physical host, and degrade the user experience as a result.
8.1.8 Virtual Disks
Fixed-size virtual disks use the full amount of space specified during virtual hard disk creation.
Fixed-size .vhdx delivers near native-to-physical performance and slightly higher performance
than dynamically expanding .vhdx files.
Dynamically expanding disks only consume physical space based on their actual contents. That
is the actual physical size of the disk file may only be a few megabyte at creation, but as files are
added to the guest operating system, the size of the disk file on the physical storage grows
accordingly. The guest operating system always sees the maximum size that the administrator
chose upon creation.
Using differencing disks and dynamically expanding disks is not supported in a virtualized Lync
Server 2013 environment. The thin-provisioned nature of the dynamically expanding disk files
means that the underlying storage can become overcommitted. As each dynamically expanding
disk file grows in size toward its configured maximum, the underlying storage could run out of
space if not carefully monitored. Instead, fixed-size virtual disks can be used to allocate a static
amount of space on the underlying physical storage upfront, thereby ensuring that there will be
enough storage space.
To reduce disk contention, do not store system files on hard drives dedicated to storing virtual
machines.
Do not use checkpoints for the virtual machines in a Lync Server 2013 production environment.
When you create a checkpoint, Hyper-V creates a new secondary drive for the virtual machines.
Write operations occur on the new drive, and read operations occur on both drives, resulting in
reduced performance.
Be aware of underlying disk read/write contention between different virtual machines and their
virtual hard disks.

Page 28

8.1.9 Virtual IDE and SCSI
Virtual machines can be configured to use virtual IDE device controllers or virtual SCSI device
controllers to connect virtual storage. When a virtual machine starts, the virtual IDE controller is
used with a boot .vhdx file because the virtual SCSI disk requires a driver to be present during
startup. This driver is only present when booted into the operating system. IDE is limited to
three connected disks. (One port is retained for the DVD drive, which is required for updating
the integration components.) Virtual SCSI, on the other hand, can have 64 connected disks per
controller and 4 controllers per virtual machine, giving a total of 256 virtual SCSI disks per virtual
machine. Virtual SCSI also supports hot-add/removal of disks, whereas virtual IDE disks do not.
The virtual IDE controller must be used for starting the virtual machine; however, all other drives
should be attached to the virtual SCSI controller. This ensures optimal performance, as well as
the greatest flexibility. Each virtual machine has a single virtual SCSI controller by default, but
three more can be added while the virtual machine is offline.
Virtualized Lync Server 2013 deployments can also use Fibre Channel storage solutions.
8.1.10 Guest Storage
In addition to presenting virtual disk files to Lync Server 2013 virtual machines, administrators
can choose to connect the guest operating system of a Lync virtual machine directly to existing
storage investments. Hyper-V offers a number of different ways to expose a drive to a virtual
machine guest operating system. The appropriate method depends on a number of factors,
such as if the storage is locally attached, or on a SAN, and there are no specific preferences from
a Lync Server visualization perspective. Two methods provided in Hyper-V are in-guest Internet
SCSI (iSCSI) and Virtual Fibre Channel.
Common best practices:
The virtual machines guest operating system boot drive must be mapped as a virtual IDE
drive. SQL Server workloads use a virtual IDE drive for the operating system, and SQL
Server binaries, and virtual SCSI controllers to map SQL Server log and SQL Server data
drives.
iSCSI targets that are directly exposed to the guest server are typically implemented if
guest servers need to be moved between hosts. Here, the guest operating system drive
on the SAN and the guest-specific data drives will automatically be accessible to the
guest after the move. If guest servers are moved, it is required that guest storage is
located on a shared storage attached using either iSCSI or Virtual Fibre Channel.

Page 29

8.1.11 Resource Over-Allocation
Lync Server 2013 guests should not be provisioned on hypervisor hosts which are configured for
CPU over allocation. For example, if the physical host has 24 cores, no more than 24 cores total
should be allocated to all of the guests on the system.
Lync Server includes several real-time workloads (such as audio/video and conferencing) that
require real-time access to components such as processor, memory, network, and storage. If
these components are shared among other guests and Lync does not have access to these as
required, the result can be a negative user experience including dropped calls, dropped audio,
choppy audio, inability to join a conference, paused video, and other user-noticeable results.
These can be difficult to troubleshoot, as an analysis of the physical servers and virtual guests at
a later point in time may show all is fine, with the issues surfacing only during periods of high
utilization from other guests.
8.2 Host Requirements
This section contains requirements and recommendations regarding the host servers you use for
a virtualized Lync Server 2013 deployment.
8.2.1 Mixing Physical and Virtualized Infrastructure
Mixing physical and virtual servers in the same pool is not a supported configuration. A pool of
Lync Server roles must be deployed as a homogenous set of servers (either physical or virtual)
which provide roughly the same performance and have the same amount of resources. For
virtualized deployments, you should make sure that the virtual machines are hosted in a way
that equal resources are available to each guest in the pool. Note that a virtual Front End Server
pool and a physical SQL Server Back End Server are explicitly supported.
Additionally, Front End pools that are paired together for disaster recovery purposes need to
both be physical pools or both be virtual pools.
Lync Server 2013 does not provide load-based load balancing. Load-based load balancing is the
ability to direct users to servers that have different processor, memory, storage, or network
capacity. This means that the virtual instances are expected to have equal performance
capabilities, or else the user experience will be degraded.
8.2.2 Physical to Virtual CPU Ratio
The ratio of physical to virtual CPUs should not be oversubscribed, specifically:

Page 30

Oversubscription of CPU cores on the host running virtualized Lync Server media
workloads is not supported.
Oversubscription of CPU cores on the host is not recommended when running other
non-media virtualized Lync Server workloads (such as Director), or supporting virtualized
storage workloads (SQL Server or file server).
Virtual machine reserved allocations are not explicitly necessary. If CPU oversubscription is
implemented, consider allocating virtual machine reserves for critical workloads such as the SQL
Server Front End Server.
8.2.3 Host Redundancy
Host servers within the environment should be fully redundant and similar Lync roles (such as
Front End Servers or Back End Servers) should be spread across multiple physical platforms.
Hardware such as blade servers must have redundant network, SAN, power, and management.
You should ensure there are not any single points of failure in either the backplane/chassis that
hold the servers or in components such as the shared network switch between all of the blades.
A loss of the backplane/chassis or shared switch in a solution such as a blade environment must
not lead to an outage of all guests running in the chassis, and thus cause a failure large enough
to shut down all the services.
Essentially, virtualization can introduce additional failure domains that you must account for to
ensure that the loss of one of these components does not negatively impact the availability of
the Lync services for users.
8.2.4 Host Networking Considerations
It is very important to consider that Lync Server media workloads, such as A/V and application
sharing, require more bandwidth that other typical server workloads (such as email or a SQL
Server database). These Lync media workloads are also more vulnerable to high latency and
packet loss problems.
When designing a virtualized Lync deployment, it important to take networking contention into
account.
Networking considerations:
Each host must have at least one dedicated network adapter for the Lync Server
workload. Shared usage of an adapter between the guest server and the host, specifically
with SAN access, is not recommended.
A Lync Server Media workload (primarily Front End Servers) can reach a peak network
utilization of more than 500 Mbps (0.5 Gbps).

Page 31

If you use a specific host server to host multiple guest virtual machines running Lync
media workloads, ensure that the host network adapter is sized accordingly. To mitigate
bottlenecks, consider higher speed network adapters (such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE)),
or multiple network adapters using link aggregation (network adapter IEEE 802.3ad); for
example, a 3 x 1 GbE network adapter in a network adapter teamed setup. For details,
see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 968703, Microsoft Support Policy for NIC Teaming
with Hyper-V.
Implement MPIO (Multipath I/O) to your storage Back End Server.
8.2.5 Host Applications and Antivirus
When running Lync Server 2013 in a server virtualized scenario, we recommend that you do not
deploy applications other than antivirus at the virtual machine host root operating system
partition.
If you deploy antivirus software, ensure that the necessary scanning exceptionssuch as files,
folders, processare implemented.
8.3 Guest Requirements
This section contains requirements and recommendations regarding the guest servers you use
for a virtualized Lync Server 2013 deployment.
8.3.1 Guest Core Requirements
Guest core count limitations for Lync Server 2013 instances running as virtualized guests on
third-party hypervisors may be limited to eight cores (some vendors support eight, but
recommend a maximum of six for performance reasons). Lync Server 2013 instances running on
Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 do not have these limitations, neither do Lync Server 2013
instances running on physical hardware.
8.3.2 Guest Operating System
Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2008 R2 is required as the
guest operating system.
Windows Server 2008 SP2 is not supported as a guest operating system.
8.3.3 Legacy vs. Synthetic Virtual Network Adapter
Networking and network access are critical to the success of a Lync deployment. Windows
Server 2012 Hyper-V provides a number of capabilities, technologies, and features that an

Page 32

administrator can use to drive the highest levels of networking performance for the virtualized
Lync Server infrastructure.
When creating a virtual machine, the administrator has two choices for virtual network adapters
(or virtual NICs): legacy or synthetic. A legacy adapter emulates an Intel 21140-based PCI Fast
Ethernet Adapter, which results in a lower data transfer than the physical network adapter
(usually 1Gbps or faster).
Synthetic adapters are the preferred option for most virtual machine configurations because
they use a dedicated VMBus to communicate between the virtual NIC and the physical NIC. This
results in reduced CPU cycles, as well as much lower hypervisor/guest transitions per operation.
The driver for the synthetic adapter is included with the Integration Services that are installed
with the Windows Server 2012 guest operating system.
From a Lync Server 2013 perspective, there is no reason to use a legacy virtual NIC. At a
minimum, customers should use the default synthetic virtual NIC to drive higher levels of
performance. In addition, should the physical network card support them, the administrator
should take advantage of a number of the NIC offloads that can further increase performance.
8.3.4 Single Root I/O Virtualization
The single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) standard was introduced by the PCI-SIG, the special
interest group that owns and manages PCI specifications as open industry standards. SR-IOV
helps to virtualize demanding workloads like Lync Server 2013 that require higher network and
I/O performance. It does so by enabling virtual machines to perform I/O directly to the physical
network adapter by bypassing the root partition. In Windows Server 2012, SR-IOV can be
deployed in conjunction with key capabilities such as live migration to enable high network
performance with availability.
SR-IOV provides extensions to PCI Express (PCIe) devices like network adapters to separate
access to its resources among various PCIe hardware functions. Two of these functions are PCIe
Physical Function (PF) and PCIe Virtual Functions (VFs):
PCIe Physical Function is the primary function of the device and advertises its SR-IOV
capabilities. The PF is associated with the Hyper-V parent partition in a virtualized
environment.
PCIe Virtual Functions are associated with the PF of the device. A VF shares one or more
physical resources, such as memory and network ports, with the PF and other VFs on the
device. Each VF is associated with a Hyper-V child partition in a virtualized environment.
Using Hyper-V Manager, you can enable SR-IOV in Windows Server 2012 when you create a
virtual switch. Always use the synthetic virtual machine network adapter in the guest operating

Page 33

system. The use of the legacy network adapter is not supported for a guest operating system
running a Lync Server media workload.
Note that SR-IOV was not tested as part of this testing.
8.3.5 IPv6 and IPv4
We do not recommend that you use both IPv4 and IPv6 on the same NIC as this can cause
performance issues.
8.3.6 Disable Virtual DVD/CD Drives in Guest
If virtual DVD/CD drives are not required in the guest operating system, disable these drives to
prevent resources being allocated for their function.
8.4 Capabilities Support
The following guidance addresses the areas of concern listed above and covers the following
topics:
Hypervisor Capabilities
Unsupported Features
Role Placement
Sizing
8.4.1 Hypervisor Capabilities
For your hypervisor, you must use Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V, Windows Server
2012 Hyper-, or a hypervisor listed on the Server Virtualization Validation Program
(SVVP).
Windows 2008 R2 hypervisors are supported but not recommended, as they are limited
to guests with four cores.
Storage must be fixed or pass-through disks (cannot be dynamically expanding).
The vCPU to pCPU ratio must be 1:1 for media workload guests and may be 1:2 for non-
media workload guests.
Hyperthreading must be disabled.
Hypervisors and hardware platforms must support Virtual Machine Queuing (VMQ).
Non Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) spanning should be disabled.
8.4.2 Unsupported Features
Dynamic memory

Page 34

Live migration, quick migration, or equivalent features in other hypervisors
8.4.3 Role Placement
Failure domains or fault domains must be considered for role placement.
Pool servers (such as Front End Servers, Edge Servers, and Mediation Servers) in the
same pool should be on separate physical host servers to improve resiliency.
Virtualization must be consistent inside of a pool. If one server in a pool is virtualized, all
servers in that pool must be virtualized.
Paired pools require each pool to be the same deployment model (physical/virtual).
8.5 Lync Server Capacity Planning
Microsoft publishes a capacity planning calculator to assist in the planning for hardware
requirements for Lync Server 2013. The capacity planning calculator is designed to assist in
determining server requirements based on numbers of users and communication modalities
that are enabled for an organization. Additional overhead should be taken into account for the
purposes of planning when using a virtualised infrastructure. However, we recommend you
perform actual load simulation testing to ensure that your Lync Server 2013 deployment will be
adequately provisioned. To perform stress testing under a simulated load, the Lync Server 2013
LSS should be used and a process such as that described in the Lync Server 2013 Stress Testing
Guide.
8.5.1 Lync Server Supportability
Lync Server supportability does require the defined hardware server specifications to be fully
supportable. Using a lower specification of server should be done with caution and it is highly
recommended to use Stress and Performance tools to verify the final solution.
During a support issue, if the issue is one that would be directly affected by using hardware of a
lower specification than that recommended, then to gain further support, the supported
hardware requirements must be met. This could lead to a longer time to resolution in this
instance.
8.6 High Availability/Disaster Recovery Strategy
Lync has its own architectures for high availability and disaster recovery. Lync cannot take
advantage of the high availability and disaster recovery capabilities from the hypervisor but
must be properly designed for those capabilities as explained in the TechNet article Planning for
High Availability and Disaster Recovery.

Page 35

9 Appendix A: Stress and Performance Tool
Configuration Details
The following tables show the values used for many Lync Server parameters during the testing,
compared to the defaults for these values. We used a Custom profile intended to be as close as
possible to the user profile as defined in the Lync Server 2013 planning documentation. For
more information, see Lync Server 2013 User Models.
The following table is an example for the custom configuration for a 10,000-user run on an
Enterprise Edition pool with three Front End Servers.
9.1 User Provisioning Tool
Parameter Default value Test value 10K EE final Comment
User Creation
Front-End Pool FQDN pool1.contoso.net ee-pool01.contoso.com
User Name Prefix testuser ee-pool01-user
Password P@ssw0rd pass@word1
SIP Domain contoso.net contoso.com
Account Domain contoso.net contoso.com
Organizational Unit TestUsersOrgUnit ee-pool01 users
Phone Area Code +1425 +1425
To be adapted with your
local area code (only
works with US area codes)
Voice Enabled Enabled Enabled
Number of Users 1000 10000
This represents 70% of
the total AD users (14285
users in AD). Adapt to the
user count you need to
test
Start Index 0 0
Contacts Creation

Page 36

Average Contacts per
User
50 50
Lync user model specify
an average of 50 contacts
Fixed Enabled Disabled
Make it random to be
closer to reality
Average Contact Groups
per User
5 5
Federated / Cross Pool
Contacts Percentage
0 0
User Prefix
federateduser ee-pool01-user
User SIP Domain
fabrikam.com fabrikam.com
Distribution List Creation
Number of Distribution
Lists
100 30000
70% of (three times the
total number of Active
Directory users)
Distribution List Prefix testDL ee-pool01-DL
Minimum Members in a
Dist. List
1 2
Based on the user model,
minimum number of
members in a distribution
list is 2
Maximum Members in a
Dist. List
10 500
Based on the user model,
maximum number of
members in a distribution
list is 500
Location Information Service Config
Number of Addresses 100 100
Offices Per Address 100 100
Number of WA Points 100 100
Number of Subnets 100 100
Number of Switches 100 100
Number of Ports 100 100
Civic Address Details

Page 37

Company Name Contoso Corporation
Street Name 163rd
Street Name Suffix Ave
Post Directional NE
City Bellevue
State WA
Zip Code 99234
Country US
Table 2 Stress and Performance Configuration - User Provisioning Tool
9.2 Common Configuration
Parameter Default value Test value Comment
Client Machine Settings
Number of Available
Machines
3 14
Adapt this according to
the number of test users
needed. Count one per
1250 users plus one for
large meetings and one
for PSTN testing.
User Settings
Prefix for User Names myUser ee-pool01-user
Password for all users pass@word1
User Start Index 0 0
Number of Users 40000 10000
Adapt this to the user
count you need to test
User Domain contoso.com contoso.com
Account Domain contoso.com contoso.com
Multiple Points of
Presence (MPOP)
Percentage
10 90
1:1.9 MPOP ratio based
on user model with
Mobility

Page 38

Sign In Per Second (per
instance)
1 1
Internal Network Server Settings
Access Proxy or Pool
FQDN
myServer.contoso.com ee-pool01.contoso.com
Port 5061 5061
External Network Server Settings
Access Proxy or Pool
FQDN
myServer.contoso.com ee-edgepool01-ap.contoso.com
Port 443 443
Table 3 Stress and Performance Configuration - Common Configuration
9.3 Instant Messaging
IM Advanced Options
TwoPartyConversationPercentage 100 100
ConversationPerHour 1 0.75
Six peer-to-peer IM sessions
per day. Assuming 8-hour
work day, then 0.75 IM
conversations per hour.
InviteUsersInContactList FALSE TRUE
ConversationLengthInSec 600 600
IMMessagesSentPerMinute 0.5 1
As a session lasts for 10
minutes with 10 messages
per session.
ParticipantJoinTimeInSeconds 300 300
EnableGetPresence TRUE TRUE
EnableSubscriptionForAllContacts TRUE TRUE
GetPresenceCallsPerHour 60 60
ChangePresencePerHour 4 4

Page 39

ChangePresenceUserStatePercentage 13 100
No reference, we assumed
100 percent
GetPresenceTargetLow 4 4
GetPresenceTargetHigh 8 8
GetPresenceTargetCacheSize 50 50
GetPresenceTargetBatchSize 1000 1000
EnableChangePresence TRUE TRUE
ChangeCalendarStatePerUserPerDay 6 6
PublishCalendarDataPerUserPerDay 3 3
EnableShortSubscriptions TRUE TRUE
ShortSubscriptionsPerHourPerUser 4 6
We assume 6 short
subscriptions per user per
hour
ShortSubscriptionsTargetLow 1 4
No reference, set to match
GetPresenceTargetLow
ShortSubscriptionsTargetHigh 5 8
No reference, set to match
GetPresenceTargetHigh
ShortSubscriptionsAverageTimeInSeconds 550 599
Where each subscription lasts
10 minutes. The tool does not
accept 600 seconds, and
therefore it's set to 599
AddDeleteContactPerUserPerDay 0 1 Assumption
IMExternal Advanced Options
TwoPartyConversationPercentage 90 90
IMConferencing Advanced Options
StaticConferencePercentage 80 60
60% scheduled meetings
from conferencing user
model
LobbyConferencePercentage 0 30
From the conference lobby
user model.
LobbyTimeoutInSec 300 300

Page 40

LobbyParticipantToAdmitPercentage 80 100
AdHocConversationCreation TRUE TRUE
SmallConferenceSize 3 4
From the conferencing user
model.
MediumConferenceSize 5 6
model.
LargeConferenceSize 9 11
model.
SmallConferencePercentage 85 85
MediumConferencePercentage 10 10
LargeConferencePercentage 5 5
IMLarge Advanced Options
LargestConferenceSize 250 250
Table 4 Stress and Performance Configuration - Instant Messaging
9.4 Audio Conferencing
Parameter Default value Test value Comments
AV Advanced Options
HardMuteByOrganizer FALSE FALSE
60% of meetings are scheduled, as
specified in the conferencing user
model.
EnableMuteUnmute FALSE FALSE
MuteAllByPresenceInSec 60 60
From the conference lobby user
model.

Page 41

Parameter Default value Test value Comments
LobbyParticipantToAdmitPercentage 80 100 All lobby participants are admitted.
ConversationsPerHour 1 0.25
Assumes 2 conferences per day in
an 8 hour work day.
SmallConferenceSize 3 4 From the conferencing user model.
MultiView FALSE TRUE
AudioStreamDirection sendrecv sendrecv
VideoStreamDirection sendrecv sendrecv
PanoStreamDirection inactive inactive
NumberOfVideoChannels 5 3 Media mix for conferences.
MediumConferenceSize 5 6 From the conferencing user model.
LargeConferenceSize 9 11 From the conferencing user model.
AVLarge Advanced Options
Table 5 Stress and Performance Configuration - Audio Conferencing
9.5 Application Sharing
ASSharer Advanced Options

Page 42

DisableAppSharingDecodingForViewers TRUE TRUE
assumed in the conferencing user
model.
model.
LobbyParticipantToAdmitPercentage 80 100 All lobby participants are admitted
an 8-hour work day.
DisplayAppSharingView FALSE FALSE
ASViewer Advanced Options
DisableAppSharingView FALSE FALSE
AVLarge Advanced Options
Table 6 Stress and Performance Configuration -Application Sharing

Page 43

9.6 Data Collaboration
DataCollab Advanced Options
EnableW15WACSession TRUE TRUE
IntervalForNextUploadInMinutes 3 3
NumberOfTimesPackagesToBeUploaded 1 1
DeleteCollabContentAtEndOfConference TRUE TRUE
ShowWhiteboardInEverySec 120 120
AnnotationsPerMinute 5 5
PowerPointPercentage 100 20 Media mix for conferences
WhiteBoardPercentage 0 20 Media mix for conferences
assumed in the conferencing user
model.
model.
FlipRateInSec 60 60
an 8-hour work day.

Page 44

DataCollabLarge Advanced Options
Table 7 Stress and Performance Configuration -Data Collaboration
9.7 Distribution List Expansion
Distribution List Expansion
Prefix of the Distribution List's name. TestDL se-se01-DL
Domain name of the Distribution List. E.g.
Contoso.com is the domain name for
'ocsdl100@contoso.com'
vdomain.com contoso.com
Starting index of the range of Distribution Lists 0 0
Ending index of the range of Distribution Lists
100
30000
70% of (3 times the total
number of Active Directory
users)
(NOTE: This number will only be used if Custom
is selected from the drop down menu.) Number
of Distribution List Expansion calls Per User Per
Hour.
0.5 0.5
Table 8 Stress and Performance Configuration - Distribution List Expansion
9.8 Address Book Query
ABWQ Advanced Options
ABSQueriesPerHour 11 64
Four prefix queries plus 60 exact search
queries per user per day.
MaxResultNumber 50 50

Page 45

SearchAttributeList
givenName;
displayName;
telephoneNum
ber;
homePhone;
otherHomePho
ne; mobile;
otherMobile;ot
herTelephone;
ipPhone
givenName;
displayName;
telephoneNum
ber;
homePhone;
otherHomePho
ne; mobile;
otherMobile;ot
herTelephone;
ipPhone

ReturnAttributeList
givenName;
displayName;
mail
givenName;
displayName;
mail

RequestTimeout 100 100
QueryFromDialPadPercentage 3 4
QuerySuffixStartNumber 0 0
QuerySuffixEndNumber 80000 9999 = user test number
QueryByPrefixPercentage 90 7
4 prefix queries out of 64 total queries is
6.25. Rounded up to 7.
NotFoundResultsQueryPercentage 0 0
LegacyEndpointsPercentage 0 0
ChangeSearchPercentage 27 27
ChangeSearchBatchSize 25 20
OldEntryPercentage 25 25
PhotoSearchPercentage 27 40
25 photo queries out of 64 queries,
rounded to 40%.
OrganizationSearchPercentage 3 2
1 org tree query out of 64 queries,
rounded to 2%.
RenewWebTicketPercentage 100 100
EnableABSDownload FALSE FALSE
Table 9 Stress and Performance Configuration ABWQ Advanced Options

Page 46

9.9 Response Group Service
RGSCaller Advanced Options
LocationProfile Redmond RegionalOffice01
RGSUri sip:myRgsGroup@main.com
sip:se-se01-
RGS@contoso.com

RGSUriSuffixStartIndex 0 0
RGSUriSuffixEndIndex 600 75
0.15% out of 10K
users
NumberOfRGSCallsPerHour 3120 390
If 3120 per hour is for
80K users, then it's
390 calls per hour for
10K users
AverageCallLengthInSeconds 180 180
EnableRecording FALSE FALSE
RecordIntervalTimeInSeconds 60 60
PercentageAnonymousCallsWithIM 50 50
Table 10 Stress and Performance Configuration RGS Advanced Options
9.10 Location Information Services
LIS Advanced Options
EnableMajorEmergencies FALSE Disabled
EnablePersonalEmergencies TRUE Disabled
MinSecondsBetweenMajorEmergency 3600 Disabled
MaxSecondsBetweenMajorEmergency 10800 Disabled
MinCallDurationSeconds 120 Disabled
MaxCallDurationSeconds 300 Disabled
MinSecondsBetweenPersonalEmergencies 600 Disabled

Page 47

MaxSecondsBetweenPersonalEmergencies 1800 Disabled
MinPercentCallersInMajorEmergency 5 Disabled
MaxPercentCallesInMajorEmergency 20 Disabled
LisRequeryFrequencySeconds 900 Disabled
PercentLisQueriesFromUnknownLocation 0 Disabled
PercentLisQueriesByMacAddress 20 Disabled
EnableSnmpSimulator FALSE Disabled
SnmpSimulatorPort 9990 Disabled
SnmpAverageResponseTimeInMs 0 Disabled
SnmpBadResponsePercentage 0 Disabled
SnmpNoResponsePercentage 0 Disabled
Table 11 Stress and Performance Configuration LIS Advanced Options
9.11 VoIP
Parameter Default value Test value
VoipUCUC Advanced Options
ConversationsPerHour 1 4
Four peer-to-peer calls during the busy
hour.
PhoneAreaCode 206 425
To be adapted with your local area code
(only works with US area codes).
Table 12 Stress and Performance Configuration VoIP Advanced Options
9.12 UC PSTN Gateway

Page 48

(NOTE: This number
will only be used if
Custom is selected
from the drop down
menu.) The total
number of PSTN to
UC calls made to all
users per hour.
60 2745

The 96 minutes/user/day comes from the user model that
states the BHT is 4 PSTN calls each with a duration of 3
minutes
Table 13 Stress and Performance Configuration UC PSTN Gateway
9.13 Conferencing Attendant
CAA Advanced Options
TopOfHourConversation FALSE FALSE
model.
ConversationLengthInSec 700 600 Assumes 5 minutes of wait time.
NumberOfCAACallsPerHour 1593 200
If 1593 is for 80K users, then 200 for
10K users
EnableRecording FALSE FALSE
RecordIntervalTimeInSeconds 60 60
Table 14 Stress and Performance Configuration Conferencing Attendant
9.14 Call Park Service
CPS Advanced Options

Page 49

ConversationsPerHour 1 1
PhoneAreaCode 206 425
To be adapted with your local area code (only
works with US area codes).
CallsToParkPercentage 100 1
User model states that 0.02 % of users have
parked calls.
CallsToUnparkPercentage 100 100
CallDurationUntilParkInSeconds 5 5
AverageParkDurationInSeconds 60 60
Table 15 Stress and Performance Configuration Call Park Service
9.15 Mediation Server and PSTN
Information for PSTN & Mediation Server
Mediation Server FQDN myMediationServer.contoso.com se-st02.contoso.com
Mediation Server Port 5067 5068 Reflects setup.
PSTN Area Code (502)
(425)
To be adapted with
your local area code
(only works with US
area codes)
PSTN Simulator Port 5067 5068 Reflects setup.
Table 16 Stress and Performance Configuration Mediation Server and PSTN
9.16 Reach General Reach Settings
Reach Advanced Options
SipAuthMethod Kerberos NTLM
Use NTLM if you have external
access testing.
ReachTargetServerUrl se-se01-webext.contoso.com

Page 50

AutoDiscoveryEnabled FALSE TRUE
Table 17 Stress and Performance Configuration Reach
9.17 Reach Application Sharing
Parameter Defaultv Test value Comment
ReachAS Advanced Options
model.
Assumes 2 conferences per day in an
8-hour work day.
DisplayAppSharingView FALSE FALSE
Table 18 Stress and Performance Configuration Reach Application Sharing
9.18 Reach Data Collaboration
ReachDataCollab Advanced Options
EnableW15WACSession TRUE TRUE
IntervalForNextUploadInMinutes 3 3
NumberOfTimesPackagesToBeUploaded 1 1
DeleteCollabContentAtEndOfConference TRUE TRUE
ShowWhiteboardInEverySec 120 120
AnnotationsPerMinute 5 5
PowerPointPercentage 100 20 Media mix for conferences

Page 51

WhiteBoardPercentage 0 20 Media mix for conferences
model.
All lobby participants are
admitted.
FlipRateInSec 60 60
Assumes 2 conferences per day
in an 8-hour work day.
Table 19 Stress and Performance Configuration Reach Data Collaboration
9.19 Reach Instant Messaging
ReachIM Advanced Options
LobbyConferencePercentage 0 30 From the conference lobby user model.
Assumes 2 conferences per day in an 8-
hour work day.
Table 20 Stress and Performance Configuration Reach Instant Messaging
9.20 Reach Voice Conferencing
ReachAV Advanced Options
LobbyConferencePercentage 0 30 From the conference lobby user model.

Page 52

Table 21 Stress and Performance Configuration Reach Conference Voice
9.21 Mobility (UCWA) General Mobility Settings
Mobility Advanced Options
UcwaTargetServerUrl
se-se01-
webext.contoso.com

UcwaTargetServerPort 443
WorkDayDuration 10 8
Assume standard
working hours.
NumberOfContactViewsPerDay 9 9
NumberOfContactListViewsPerDay 5 5
NumberOfSelfPresenceChangesPerDay 1 1
OnlineToInactiveUserActivityIntervalMinutes 5 5
EnablePhotoFetching FALSE TRUE Photo Enabled
AutoDiscoveryEnabled FALSE TRUE
SearchEnabled TRUE TRUE
SearchIntervalSeconds 6000 6000
CommaSeparatedSearchString se-se01-user
PnchUserRanges 0-3999 40% of total users
SearchReturnLimit 25 25
OutgoingIMSessionsPerUserPerDay 8 8
OutgoingAVSessionsPerUserPerDay 24 24
Table 22 Stress and Performance Configuration Mobile (UCWA)

Page 53

9.22 Mobility Presence and P2P Instant Messaging/Audio
MobilityPresence Advanced Options
ConversationsPerHour 0.375 0.375
Table 23 Stress and Performance Configuration Mobility Presence and IM

Lync Server 2013 Virtualization White Paper

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Lync Server 2013 Virtualization White Paper

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Error! Unknown document property name.

You might also like