Skype for Business Server 2015: What's New, Install, and Upgrade

What Is Skype for Business?
Hi, this is Tom Arbuthnot, and welcome to this Pluralsight course, Skype for Business Server 2015: What's New, Install, and Upgrade. A little about this course. This course is centered around Skype for Business Server 2015, which is the new rebranded release of Lync Server 2013, and in this course we're going to take you through what's new in Skype for Business Server 2015, we're going to take you through some of the topologies and roles so that you can understand all your options in designing your Skype for Business infrastructure. We're going to go through two customer scenarios. The first scenario is a bank who has existing Lync Server 2013 servers, but want to do a new side-by-side Skype for Business Server install, so that's our new install scenario, and the second is a manufacturing company who have an existing Lync Server 2013 deployment and want to take advantage of the new ability to do an in-place upgrade from Lync Server to Skype for Business Server.

What's New in Skype for Business Server 2015
Hi this is Tom Arbuthnot, and this is What's New in Skype for Business Server 2015. What are we covering in this module? We're going to cover all the key new features of Skype for Business Server 2015, and we're also going to go over some new key features for Skype for Business Online. Even though this is a server-focused course, there are some new features in Skype for Business Online, which are reducing the gap between server features that were only available on-prem and features now available in the cloud, and these are important to understand as a lot of Skype for Business server deployments will actually be hybrid and leverage some of these new cloud functionalities.

Skype for Business Server Topologies and Roles
Skype for Business Server Topologies and Roles. In this module we're going to go over all the Skype for Business server roles. It's really important to understand all these roles and options to successfully deploy Skype for Business Server, but more than that we're going to look at the underlying supporting infrastructure. You can't have success in Skype for Business without the correct supporting infrastructure, so we need to understand that too. Then finally we're going to look at some typical topologies, and what are the pros and cons of each.

Planning a New Install of Skype for Business at CCDD Bank
Planning a New Install of Skype for Business at CCDD Bank. We've been over what's new in Skype for Business, and we've been over the key topologies and roles, now it's time to jump into our first customer scenario. In this module we're going to get introduced to CCDD Bank and understand their goals and requirements, we're going to look at their current topology, we're going to go through some design decisions for moving them up to Skype for Business, we're then going to go over their Skype for Business design, and finally we're going to go over a deployment plan to get from their current status to Skype for Business. They're a bank of 2000 users, they have an existing resilient Lync 2013 deployment, and they are using it for Enterprise Voice. Usually if a customer is using Enterprise Voice, the upgrade is going to be much more considered because it's their phone system, so it's of vital importance. As we know they've learned about Skype for Business and they've decided they do want to move to Skype for Business. One of their key drivers is wanting to federate with the Skype consumer network, so they see a real benefit in being able to reach out to their customers on Skype consumer from their Skype for Business infrastructure. And key, their IT policy dictates a strict gate process of design, build, test, and gradual migration. So they have strict policies in place that will impact our design decisions.

Installing Skype for Business Server 2015 Standard Edition
Installing Skype for Business Server 2015 Standard Edition. In this module we're going to cover a greenfield deployment example, we're going to step away from our CCDD Bank scenario for a minute and just talk about greenfield. When we say greenfield we mean an environment that's never had any Skype for Business or Lync deployed in it. Just in case that's something you're going to come across, I wanted to show you how that works before we jump into the CCDD scenario. Then we're going to go through patching Lync Server 2013, that's an essential step before deploying Skype for Business, then we're going to see our side-by-side Skype for Business Server deployment at CCDD Bank. Greenfield deployment. A greenfield deployment is where you're deploying Skype for Business for the first time ever in the environment, so there's never been any OCS, any Lync or any Skype for Business. The first thing we need to do is install the Skype for Business admin tools, then we'll prepare Active Directory, and finally we'll add our user to the CSAdministrator group. At that stage our environment is ready for its first Skype for Business server. So let's jump into the demo and see that in action.

Pool Pairing, Monitoring, Archiving and Enterprise Voice
Pool Pairing, Monitoring, Archiving, and Enterprise Voice. In this module we're going to continue with CCDD Bank, we're going to set pool pairing between the two new Skype for Business Standard Edition servers, we're then going to install the monitoring and archiving databases, we're going to take the option to demo basic Enterprise Voice setup, and finally in this module we're going to quickly go through some Lync Server 2013 decommissioning tips, which is where CCDD Bank would ultimately go to decom their Lync 2013 deployment.

Planning an In Place Upgrade at AAZZ Manufacturing
Planning an In-Place Upgrade at AAZZ Manufacturing. We're finished now with our CCDD Bank scenario, we've done our side-by-side deployment, and now we're moving on to an in-place upgrade. In this module we're going to go through AAZZ Manufacturing's goals and requirements, we're going to take a look at their current topology; we're going to go through design considerations for moving Skype for Business, we're then going to lay out their Skype for Business design, and finally we're going to come up with a deployment plan to get us from the current environment to that Skype for Business design. So let's meet AAZZ Manufacturing. AAZZ have 10, 000 users, so they're slightly bigger than CCDD Bank, they have an existing resilient link 2013 Enterprise Edition deployment, so we're going to be looking at a larger deployment with more servers, they're using Enterprise Voice, they want to move to Skype for Business as soon as possible, and they have limited virtual machine capacity in their environment. Those two requirements are interesting, they want to move as soon as possible and they've got limited virtual machine capacity, which means that deploying a whole Skype for Business Enterprise Edition deployment alongside the existing deployment is going to take more than the virtual machine capacity they've got, and obviously it's going to take a lot more time than doing an in-place upgrade.

In Place Upgrade from Lync Server to Skype for Business Server
In-Place Upgrade From Lync Server to Skype for Business Server. In this module we're going to jump on to AAZZ Manufacturing and we're going to do an in-place upgrade from their Lync 2013 Enterprise Edition to Skype for Business. After we've done the pools following the inside-out methodology, we're then going to do an in-place upgrade for the Edge Server. And finally, we're going to look at doing a bit of testing with PowerShell post-deployment.