Migrating to Lync 2010 from OCS Can Be Painless

In the advent of Lync 2010 communications server from Microsoft many organizations are faced with, should I upgrade and what does it take?  The transition process can be seamless if the proper best practices are followed when migrating from Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 and Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 infrastructures.  In environments where prior versions of the Office Communications Server family exist there will always be a phase of coexistence where users exist in both the legacy (OCS) registrar pool as well as the Lync 2010 registrar pool.  In these environments users will be unaware of which pool they are homed other than the experience of the new Lync 2010 client.  The Office Communicator 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 R2 clients may still be used for users migrated to the Lync 2010 pool and then upgraded to Lync 2010 clients at such a point that the end users have been trained appropriately.

There are a few caveats to be aware of that exists within a coexistent environment with users on both the Office Communications Server and the Lync 2010 pools.  The users who have been migrated to Lync will need the Live Meeting client installed in order to participate in conferences hosted on the Office Communications Servers.  These migrated users will also not be able to schedule any new Live Meetings or modify already scheduled meetings.  Once a user is migrated to Lync they will be required to schedule all new meetings through Lync Online meetings.  The Lync Online Meeting experience is a new single client meeting solution which is integrated into the users Lync 2010 client.  All newly scheduled meetings will be assigned a Conference ID; furthermore, the passcode security feature will not be carried over to Lync.  There are also limitations for federated partners on Office Communicator Clients that want to join Lync Online Meetings.  These conferences will be required to be set to allow everyone by the conference originator or else they will not be permitted to join.

Outside of conferencing compatibility known issues it would be important to acknowledge Communicator Web Access and the new role service Lync Web App.  The Lync Web App service is a collocated role on the Front End server rather than an independent server role in a topology.  The Lync Web App is laser focused on being a web based portal for access to Lync Online Meetings.  The ability of users to be able to sign into a Communicator Web Access interface in order to see presence and IM with other users is not a capability of Lync Web App.  Users will be able to IM and see other attendee presence for all participants in the current meeting; however, they will not be aware of users presence outside the conference nor be able to message with those users.  If an organizations desire is to carry forward this capability for their Lync users then the Communicator Web Access server will be required to remain in the environment with the next hop modified to point to the Lync Front End pool.  The start to finish migration experience to Lync 2010 can be very seamless and rich if you are empowered with the correct knowledge and follow a scripted project plan.

Read more about Microsoft Lync Server 2010.