Setting up Exchange for storage of Archiving data requires that your Exchange deployment is running Exchange 2013. Additionally, user mailboxes must be homed on the Exchange 2013 server and their mailboxes must be put on In-Place Hold. For details about configuring Exchange 2013, see the Exchange product documentation.

Archiving in Lync Server 2013 requires the SQL Server database software to store the archived data, unless you integrate your deployment with Exchange.

For SQL Server archiving databases, you must install SQL Server on the computer that will host the Archiving database. You can use the same SQL instance that you use for the back-end database of a Front End pool. For best performance, you should deploy the Archiving database on a computer that is separate from the Central Management store. For details about collocating Lync Server 2013 components, see Supported server collocation in the Supportability documentation.

Each database server must be running a supported version of SQL Server. For details about the supported versions, see Technical Requirements for Archiving in the Planning documentation.

You must set up the SQL Server platforms prior to deploying and enabling Archiving. If the account to be used to publish the topology has the appropriate administrator rights and permissions, you can create the Archiving database (LcsLog) when you publish your topology. You can also create the database later, including as part of the installation procedure. For details about SQL Server, see the SQL Server TechCenter at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkID=129045.

Note:
Ensure that the SQL Server Agent Service Startup Type is Automatic and the SQL Server Agent Service is running for the SQL Instance which is holding the Archiving database, so that the Default Archiving SQL Server Maintenance Job can run on its scheduled basis under the control of the SQL Server Agent Service.