Lync Lab in ESXi

Recently I set up an on-premises Lync server lab with ESXi. Something learned from the experiment are.

• Before installation, carefully read Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Protocol Workloads Poster. Apart from the network diagram, also try to fully understand the DNS Configuration and Certificate Requirements.
• SIP domain can be different from AD domain. In my example, AD domain = nanoart.local, but SIP domain = nanoart.co.uk.

• The server certificate for Lync Edge server external NIC must have CRL Distribution Points . If using my OpenSSL shell script in previous blog, enable the line,

crlDistributionPoints = URI:https://$CN/crlempty.crl

You need a physical machine as ESXi host, install 5 VMs. 1: Domain Controller, 2: Lync 2013 Standard Server Edition, 3: Lync 2013 Edge server, 4: TMG 2010, 5: DNS server.

Apart from it, you also need a desktop test machine, one wireless AP and a mobile phone.

Here is my lab's network diagram.

This is the external DNS configuration.

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