Office Communications Server 2007 R2 – Unified Communications

Supported Topologies

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 offers three general topologies:

• Office Communications Server Enterprise Edition in a consolidated configuration.
  This topology is recommended for most organizations of any size. It provides performance, high availability, and scalability. For details, see Enterprise Edition Consolidated Topology.
  
• Office Communications Server Standard Edition.
  This topology is for small or midsize deployments, such as branch and pilot deployments, that do not have high availability and performance requirements. For details, see Standard Edition Topology.
  
• Office Communications Server Enterprise Edition in an expanded configuration.
  The Enterprise Edition in an expanded configuration continues to be supported in Office Communications Server 2007 R2. However, the recommended configuration in Office Communications Server 2007 R2 is the consolidated configuration. The primary advantage offered by the expanded configuration in Office Communications Server 2007 was its ability to scale in very large deployments. In Office Communications Server 2007 R2, the limitations for scaling have been removed from the consolidated configuration, making it the preferred solution both in terms of scaling and simplified administration. For details about the expanded configuration, see Enterprise Edition Expanded Topology.
  

The following figure is a reference topology that illustrates the server roles and components in a consolidated configuration. The topics that follow describe the various topologies, components, and configurations that are supported for the internal network and the perimeter network.

 

Supported Active Directory Topologies

Office Communications Server relies on Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) to store global settings and groups necessary for the deployment and management of Office Communications Server. Office Communications Server 2007 R2 supports the same Active Directory topologies as Office Communications Server 2007.

Office Communications Server can be deployed in a locked-down Active Directory environment. For details about the special considerations involved in deploying Office Communications Server in a locked-down environment, see Preparing a Locked Down Active Directory Domain Services in Preparing Active Directory Domain Services for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in the Deployment documentation.

This section identifies the Active Directory topologies supported by Office Communications Server 2007 R2. For details about operating system and domain functional level requirements for AD DS, see Environmental Requirements.

For details about supported Active Directory topologies, see Active Directory Domain Services Requirements in the Planning and Architecture documentation.

For details about preparing AD DS for Office Communications Server installation, see Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Active Directory Guide in the Deployment documentation.

Office Communications Server supports single-forest and multiple-forest Active Directory environments.

The Active Directory topologies supported by Office Communications Server are as follows:

• Single forest with single domain
  
• Single forest with a single tree and multiple domains
  
• Single forest with multiple trees and disjoint namespaces
  
• Multiple forests in a central forest topology
  
• Multiple forests in a resource forest topology