Skype For Business - My Notes Part 1

I was on another Skype for Business session and I have some notes I though I should share.

Two of the most interesting things I heard, one of them being new to me and a potential impact on hosted Lync providers, like Kelway.

• Cloud First, Mobile First.

It's happening... Moving forward with Skype4B you will have to have an online presence to take advantage of some planned features. No sharing of what those planned features are but an heads up that Hybrid scenarios will become more and more common if not the standard way of doing it.

• Lync/Skype4B and Resource Forests

This one is interesting as it affects a product that Kelway has, Kelway ServiceWorks Lync.

Hosted Lync can be done by using resource forests and while it adds up on complexity it also allows you to completely separate the hosted environment with the customer, which means that the customer can't break it and we can offer better SLAs.

Skype4B... if you want to take full advantage its features, you need to do deploy it on the User Forest. They didn't said they would not support resource forest but on one slide they had "No Resource Forests" typed three times so it's probably important :-)

Other notes I picked up:

• Busy on Busy still not planned for this release
• Improvement in the performance of RGS but no changes in features
• RCC will still be available in Skype4B if you use the Lync 2013 Skin
• Virtualization requirements are the same but they have made improvements in memory management for dynamic memory allocation
• Minimal functional Forest and AD have not been changed, 2003 native
• Support for URL for photos is planned
• This is already possible in Lync 2013 but may be enhanced?
• Skype4B will not support Server 10 at RTM, planned for future
• SQL AlwaysOn will only be supported by Skype4B and will not be introduced in Lync 2013
• Skype4B minimum SQL is 2008 R2 Sp2
• VIS needs a Skype4B NextHop but users do not need to be homed on that pool to make use of it
• Server OS choice is  important. Windows 2008 R2, although supported, will only have Windows Fabric v2, 2012 and 2012 R2 will have v3. While they both offer the same features for now, this will most likely change. Recommended OS for Skype4B is 2012 R2