SOLUTION BRIEF
Scale and Reliability for Microsoft
Applications with FortiADC
Solutions to Load Balance Microsoft Exchange and
Skype for Business (Lync) with FortiADC Application
Delivery Controllers
Microsoft is a leader in business communications platforms including email, calendaring,
intranet, chat and voice. Its industry-leading solutions have been deployed in most
organizations as either a on-premise solution in a data center or supported through managed
service providers. Exchange and Skype for Business (formerly Lync) are the top platforms in
use today with tens of millions of active users around the globe.
Each of these primary Microsoft products relies on servers. As with almost any hosted
application, the servers they run on have their limitations ranging from simply the capacity of
the number of users to redundancy issues should they go offline.
Years ago Microsoft provided simple tools to allow Exchange and Lync to expand across
multiple servers. As user installations became larger and more complex, Microsoft changed
its strategy to instead promote third-party load balancing and application delivery solutions to
provide scale, reliability and redundancy to its platforms.
Fortinet’s FortiADC Application Delivery Controllers have been qualified by Microsoft for use
with Exchange and Lync (Skype for Business).
For information on Microsoft’s Load Balancing Recommendations and Qualification
Programs, please visit Microsoft TechNet website using the links below:
MS TechNet Load Balancing Microsoft Exchange
CHALLENGE
nnScale
Exchange, Skype for
Business (Lync)
nnAdd
redundancy for increased
availability
nnMinimize
deployment complexity
and costs
SOLUTION
nnFortiADC
to load balance
Microsoft Applications
nnQualified
for MS Exchange and
Lync
nnHigh-performance
throughput up
to 50 Gbps
nnHigh-capacity
ASIC SSL
offloading
nnIncluded
GSLB, WAF,
Compression, Link Load
Balancing, QoS at no extra cost
BENEFITS
nnProven
solution set for MS
Applications
nnReduced
MS TechNet Load Balancing Microsoft Lync/Skype for Business
TCO for enterprisegrade capacities
nnImproved
quality of user
experience
www.fortinet.com
1
SOLUTION BRIEF: SCALE AND RELIABILITY FOR MICROSOFT APPLICATIONS WITH FORTIADC
Load Balancing Microsoft Exchange with FortiADC
Exchange is one of Microsoft’s oldest business communications platforms with more installations than any other offering. The current
versions supported are Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2016.
There are differences in these versions, especially between 2010 and 2013 where Microsoft dramatically simplified secure communications
between Exchange servers. Enabling load balancing for Exchange 2010 required ADCs to handle secure traffic encryption/decryption
between servers where in 2013 and 2016 that is done by the Exchange server itself. This has resulted in less strain on the load balancer in
turn allowing it to become much more efficient in its handling of traffic.
All current versions of Exchange use the embedded Client Access Server (CAS) to ensure users are routed to the correct Exchange server.
Placing a load balancer in front of the CAS array ensures that resources are used efficiently to provide the best user experience for both
internal and external client access.
FortiADC is a complete high-performance solution for load balancing Microsoft Exchange with support for all the services that Exchange
provides to users including Outlook Web Access (OWA), Outlook Anywhere (OA), ActiveSync, POP3/IMAP4, Remote Procedure Call Client
Access (RPC CA) and SMTP.
Figure 1: FortiADC deployed to manage multiple Microsoft Exchange Client Access and Edge Transport Servers
Fortinet offers detailed technical deployment guides to set up FortiADC and Exchange 2010 and 2013 that have been thoroughly tested
and qualified by Microsoft.
Load Balancing Microsoft Skype for Business (Lync) with FortiADC
Microsoft Skype for Business (previously Lync Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server) is an enterprise real-time
communications server, providing the infrastructure for enterprise instant messaging, presence, file transfer, peer-to-peer and multiparty
voice and video calling, ad hoc and structured conferences (audio, video and web) and, through a 3rd party gateway or SIP trunk, PSTN
connectivity.
Microsoft Skype for Business is a critical application for business continuity and must always be available, work quickly and be secured for
remote or local users to communicate between them. At the core, Skype For Business runs on servers like any other application, however
it offers many services that are unique especially when connecting voice calls through VoIP or PSTN lines. Skype for Business uses a front
end “Central Management” server that controls many other back end servers behind it and edge-servers that manage external clients.
When a front end server or edge server needs to expand to provide additional capacity or needs redundancy, a hardware load balancer
such as FortiADC is required.
2
SOLUTION BRIEF: SCALE AND RELIABILITY FOR MICROSOFT APPLICATIONS WITH FORTIADC
In a front end deployment, FortiADC is deployed to load balance traffic from internal clients to the pool of front end servers to manage items
such as user authentication, presence, contact cards, address books, IM and web conferencing. In an edge deployment, FortiADC is used
to load balance inbound traffic from external clients for access to the servers, web conferencing and a/v conferencing.
Figure 2: FortiADC deployed to manage multiple Microsoft Lync Front End and Edge Pool Servers
For both front end and edge server load balancing, FortiADC uses its advanced health checking, layer 7 load balancing, and persistence
features to ensure users are directed and stay connected to the best performing Skype for Business servers.
FortiADC is a Microsoft qualified vendor for hardware load balancing for Microsoft Skype for Business (Lync) to extend front end and edge
server capacities. A FortiADC deployment enables load balancing for server availability, quality of experience (QoE) improvement for fast
response-times, and the best ROI when used with Skype for Business.
Benefits of Load Balancing Microsoft Applications with FortiADC
nnHighly
redundant solution for Microsoft Applications
nnDelivers
99.999% application uptime with intelligent server load balancing
nnSSL/TLS
Offload to improve secure traffic performance
nnAdvanced
nnIncrease
overall performance of Exchange and Skype for Business
nnAdditional
nnImprove
traffic management (TCP, UDP, and more)
security with WAF, IP Reputation and Stateful Firewall
user QoE (quality of experience)
nnUnparalleled
deployment flexibility
Using FortiADC with Microsoft’s core business applications leverages the benefits of FortiADC’s high-performance server load balancing,
policy-based routing, QoS and SSL offloading to extend Exchange and Skype for business to meet the needs of large-scale environments.
FortiADC also delivers near-100% uptime by enabling redundant server configurations for these applications.
With Microsoft you know you’re getting the best in business communications for your organization. With FortiADC, you get the best in
extending those platforms for scale and reliability at all-inclusive prices that provide the features you need at low TCO.
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SOLUTION BRIEF: SCALE AND RELIABILITY FOR MICROSOFT APPLICATIONS WITH FORTIADC
To read more about Fortinet’s FortiADC solutions for load balancing Microsoft applications, please download our Microsoft Qualified
deployment guides for Exchange and Lync:
Load Balancing Exchange 2010
Load Balancing Exchange 2013
Load Balancing Lync 2013
For more information on FortiADC, please visit our detailed product page on Fortinet.com:
FortiADC Application Delivery Controllers
FortiADC Application Delivery Controllers
FortiADC hardware and virtual Application Delivery Controllers provide unmatched
Server Load Balancing performance whether to scale an application across a few
servers in a single data center or serve multiple applications to millions of users around
the globe. With included SSL Offloading, HTTP Compression, Global Server Load
Balancing, Firewall and Link Load Balancing, they offer the performance, features and
security needed at a single all-inclusive price.
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Oct 28, 2015