Lync 2013 from PoC to Production

The Starting Scenario

A typical proof of concept for Lync 2013, including a good part of the product's features. Fedaration and autodiscovery for mobile devices where not available in the starting deployment.

The project had some aspects that I had to keep in mind:

1. Lync will have to coexist with a Cisco CUCM legacy environment for a long time
2. Certificates have to cost as low as possible
3. Lync is deployed in a resource forest, with trust relations with users' domains / forests
4. Multiple SIP domain are involved. 
5. All of the Lync 2013 features, including Lync / Skype federation has to be available for the aforementioned domains

Some Hints on the Solutions I have Applied

1. A Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) was deployed has reverse proxy for the PoC. I have keept it, adding hair-pinning for mobiles coming from the internal Wi-Fi network - http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2012/11...
2. I have used the tips I have listed here in a post on my blog ( http://blog.lync2013.org/378/ )  to lower the costs of the required certificates
3. I preferred a solution that enabled me too keep the existing paired Standard Edition Front Ends and adding a pool of Lync Directors to gain a little bit of resiliency (as I outlined here http://blog.lync2013.org/why-i-added-a-lync-direct... )
4. Edge servers will use DNS load balancing, while Lync's web services will use a load balancer