Lync Server 2013 Virtualization Whitepaper Goes Public

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Virtualization of Lync Server 2013 is both supported and very common, yet understanding the proper way to virtualize the system becomes a complicated conversation. The gap between high level virtualization requirements outlined by Microsoft and the more specific details virtualization experts are requiring is quite large. The conversation normally goes like this in its simplest form:
Virtualization Expert: I want dynamic resources.
Lync Expert: You can’t have it, not supported.
Virtualization Expert: I want VMotion or Live Migration:
Lync Expert: You can’t have it, not supported.
Virtualization Expert: I need to know specific IOPS.
Lync Expert: That’s open ended, we don’t have that level of specifics…only a little bit.
Virtualization Expert: The host/guest sever requirements provided by Microsoft don’t make a lot of sense, they want to much.
Lync Expert: It is what it is, Microsoft sets the supported requirements.
The reality is that virtualization specifics are on the far left of the spectrum and Lync Server 2013 requirements are on the far right of the spectrum, meeting in the middle is almost impossible.
Toward the year end of 2014 I was contacted by Derek Seaman of Nutanix to help co-author a Lync Server 2013 Virtualization whitepaper. Nutanix are virtualization experts who focus on rapid, simple delivery of virtualization platforms into your environment…amongst other things. To read more about Nutanix and get accurate information about their expertise, you can visit their site here.
Derek and I collaborated for a few months back and forth between what it really means to virtualize Lync Server 2013. (Just to be clear, Derek is VCDX-125 on VMWare, so he kind of knows what he’s talking about).  As time went on, he began to ask the very questions my customers ask me, very detail oriented virtualization questions.  (He was using really big words).  The collaboration began to feel like a design session. Unfortunately, I was unable to provide answers he was looking for, for two reasons; 1.) I’m not a virtualization expert and 2.) I can only provide as much information about virtualizing Lync Server 2013 to him, that is given to me from Microsoft.  Derek found out that the information I was providing was falling short of what he needed answers to.  In client deployments typically what would happen is customers would just end up giving full specs based on Microsoft information or they would configure VMWare/Hyper-V the way they wanted which would probably fall out of supportability.  I would then have to recommend they open a support ticket with Microsoft to get sign off.  Neither of these are the best answer, especially for SMB size deployments.
After a few months of back and forth, the outcome of our collaboration was completed.  For the first time that I can find, a Lync Server virtualization whitepaper has been co-written, based on real world experience, by a Microsoft Certified Master on the Lync Platform and a VMWare Certified Design Expert.  I hope this paper can close that gap in the spectrum so organizations looking to virtualize and properly size their environment can finally get answer to some of those hard questions.
Read the blurb here: http://www.derekseaman.com/2015/01/sizing-microsoft-lync-server-2013-nutanix.html
Sign up for the whitepaper here: http://go.nutanix.com/bpg-microsoft-lync.html
Microsoft Virtualization whitepaper can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41936