Hosted Lync Bandwidth Requirements

If you are considering whether to deploy Microsoft Lync internally, evaluating a Hosted Lync offering, or even considering how Microsoft Lync will impact your organization long term – this post is for you. Deciding how much bandwidth is required for your hosted Microsoft Lync Implementation requires a review of your general communication infrastructure. There are several things that can influence how much bandwidth you will need.  To Begin – these guys created a great tool to calculate specifically what you might need: Hosted Microsoft Lync Bandwidth Tool.

There are multiple types of communication and scenarios that Hosted Microsoft Lync uses bandwidth.   In order to give you a good idea of how much bandwidth you will need we will need to know two sets of data – how many employees and which of these scenarios you will be using Lync.

cloud microsoft lync

Internal Communication 

  • Internal Phone Calls
  • Internal Chat
  • Internal Video
  • Internal Screen Shares or Conference Calls

External Communication (This only works if you are using Hosted VoIP or Collaboration Suite from OGO)

  • Calling Customers or Clients
  • Chatting with Customers or Clients (Lync 2013)
  • Screen Shares with Customers or Clients
  • Video Calls with Customers or Clients (Lync 2013)
  • Webinars with Clients

So essentially – we will need to look at the Audio, Video, and Conference Requirements to give you a good idea of how much bandwidth you will need for Hosted Microsoft Lync.

How many Employees will be using the connection?

The most significant factor we have found in using Microsoft Lync involves the number of employees who will be sharing the connection and the type of work (screen shares and webinars take a lot more bandwidth than phone calls). Make sure you count remote or home office workers. Generally we would recommend about 100kbps for each of the first 10 users or about a T1 line. As you get above 10 users you will start to gain some efficiency on the voice side – but not so much on the video.   Here are three charts based on how you see usage in your company.

Hosted Lync Bandwidth for Voice and Chat only  (Hosted Microsoft Lync Standard)

T1 Line (1.5mbps) 10 Users
Bonded T1 Lines (3mbps) 50 Users
10 mbps (EVPLS) 200 Users
100 mbps (EVPLS, Ethernet, etc.) 1000+ Users
1 gbps(Ethernet, etc.) 1000+ Users

Click here for a full description of the various types of internet connections.

Hosted Lync Bandwidth for Voice + Non-HD Video (you don’t do a lot of screen shares of conference calls)

T1 Line (1.5mbps) 5 to 10 Users
Bonded T1 Lines (3mbps) 10 to 15 Users
10 mbps (EVPLS) 30 to 50 Users
100 mbps (EVPLS, Ethernet, etc.) 300 to 400 Users
1 gbps(Ethernet, etc.) 1000+ Users

Hhosted Microsoft Lync Bandwidth for Voice + Video + Screen Shares and Conference Calls (Click here to compare Lync to GoToMeeting)

T1 Line (1.5mbps) 3 Users
Bonded T1 Lines (3mbps) 5 to 10 Users
10 mbps (EVPLS) 25 Users
100 mbps (EVPLS, Ethernet, etc.) 100 Users
1 gbps(Ethernet, etc.) 1000+ Users

What type of connection do you need for Hosted Microsoft Lync?

For most companies – general internet connectivity will be fine. All of your data will be encrypted and secured between your employees (wherever they are) and the Cloudworks Hosting facilities. For some clients who want a completely private connection – we can deploy an MPLS or EVPLS type solution and lock down routers and firewalls at your work place so that they can only talk to the Ongoing Operations hosting facility. Either scenario is acceptable.

What other services are running over your Bandwidth?

The chart above assumes that you are running over your bandwidth is Hosted Microsoft Lync. It you have other solutions and requirements that leverage that same connection, you will need to consider the impact. For example, if you use Hosted VOIP or Virtual PBX or Hosted Virtual Desktops than each service will place some requirement on the connection like the hosted microsoft lync. If that is your scenario than you will need to plan for additional bandwidth for hosted Lync. You may also want to do some offsite data vaulting or something else that consumes your local bandwidth. Ongoing Operations is happy to help evaluate and review what traffic is currently on your connection as part of your Hosted Lync evaluation.

Quality of the connection

Sadly – all internet is not created equal and can greatly impact your success in using the cloud or Hosted Microsoft Lync. In general if an internet connection is being used for browsing the web – the quality can be pretty low as a few millisecond delay is not really noticeable to humans or the performance. In Hosted Microsoft Lync however, that same millisecond delay can be very frustrating.  Video and webinars may require your local screen to be refreshed from the cloud very frequently. Any delay results in a screen flash or pause. For the vast majority of our clients – this is a non-issue and the benefits far outweigh the occasional flash. For those with poor internet connections – it is a terrible experience. As part of your evaluation – we can look at your existing connectivity provider and determine how much latency (or delay) and if their is any packet loss on the connection. If either the latency or packet loss is high – we may recommend a different carrier or solution to ensure a good Hosted Microsoft Lync experience.

Monitoring

We highly recommend monitoring your connectivity before and after you implement hosted Lync. Tying your network into the Cloudworks monitoring tools is relatively easy. Once done – we will provide alerts and notifications if you start hitting 80% utilization or we see increased latency or packet loss. We aim to be very proactive in this regard to make sure your Hosted Lync continues to work well into the future.

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