Topic Last Modified: 2011-01-31

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 supports virtualization topologies that support all major workloads, including instant messaging (IM) and presence, conferencing, and Enterprise Voice. Virtualization is supported only on the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system for all host and guest operating systems. The supported topologies are as follows:

• Standard Edition server topology, supporting up to 2,000 users per Standard Edition server, for proof-of-concept, pilot projects, and branch sites.
  
  
• Enterprise Edition data center topology, supporting up to 5,000 users per Front End Server.
  
  

Lync Server 2010 supports virtualization of the following:

• Front End Servers. If you virtualize a Front End Server, you can also virtualize some or all of the other server roles of that site.
  
  
• Standard Edition servers. When deploying a virtualized Standard Edition server, the only server roles that can be deployed with it are the Director, Monitoring Server, Archiving Server, and Edge Server. Directors cannot be virtualized in a Standard Edition server deployment.
  
  
• Edge Servers for Front End pools and Standard Edition servers.
  
  

Support includes both of the following:

• Microsoft Hyper-V technology
  
  
• VMWare
  
  

For details about virtualization support and requirements, including the number of virtual machines to be deployed, see Running in a Virtualized Environment in the Planning documentation.