The (hopefully) definitive guide to load balancing Lync Edge Servers with a Hardware Load Balancer

  Having worked on a few large Lync deployments recently, I have realized that there is still a lot of confusion around properly architecting the network for load balancing Lync Edge Servers. Guida...
Published Jul 14, 2011
Version 1.0
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mreco_159588
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Aug 11, 2017

We have implemented more or less successfully, but see a couple of things that are not in line with this guide:

 

  • We have implemented internet routable IP addresses on the Edges. Above it says the F5 VIP will be used on first connection or when using multiparty calls. We have now tested a couple of scenarios with external clients, but we NEVER see any connection being made to the internet routable IP addresses of the edges. All AV traffic flows via the VIP. Edges routes the traffic back to the F5 and SNAT is disabled.
  • What is best practice for load balancing the Front Ends? This article focuses on the Edges. We have now setup Front End load balancing via Round Robin, but also want to load balance with F5. I guess the same goes for the Front Ends: have routes to internal clients back to the F5 and don't do SNAT. Correct?