Plan for using a single IP address to publish HTTPS protocols for Meetings, Dial In, Discover and External web presence but published through reverse proxy.A single public IP Address can be used, but it adds the configuration complexity with the port configuration on firewalls. Plan for using multiple public IP addresses to publish SIP, Audio, Video, and Web conference URLs to Edge servers on port 443.Ensure redundancy for Office Web Apps Server is provided and make use of hardware load balancers to balancer the client requests from both internal and external uses. Office Web Apps is a new optional server deployment that delivers browser-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote from web and Skype clients.If you deploy Skype for Business in a virtual environment then make sure that the virtual server can take advantage of the virtualization platform failover functionality.Microsoft Application Request Routing (ARR) could also be used for the reverse proxy. A hardware load balancer can act as the reverse proxy. If you have multiple front end servers then use hardware load balancers to load balance the HTTPS traffic. Consider making use of a reverse proxy to publish HTTPS URLs for meetings, Dial in, Office web apps, discovery and other published services to clients connecting to the front end servers.If DNS round robin is used for front end servers then use that for Edge servers as well. When hardware load balancers is used from front end servers then also use hardware load balancing for Edge servers as well. Load balance Front End Pool servers using hardware load balancers or DNS round robin for client connections.Also consider future growth when planning and designing the solution. Use Skype for Business 2015 planning tool to plan and design your environment to meet all the business and technical requirements.Plan to provide high availability for any SQL Server used by Skype for Business, by making use of SQL Mirroring or SQL Clustering.Make sure to provide bandwidth for client connections and server replication in the failover location so that users have an acceptable user experience in a DR scenario. Consider and plan for disaster recovery (DR) by designing the solution to failover to another datacenter when any outage on the main site occurs.Distributed File System (DFS) should be used to provide HA for file stores. Configure HA for File Servers which store meeting content and address book information. Consider and plan for High Availability (HA) by deploying multiple instances of Front end servers, Edge servers, Director, Mediation, and Video interop Servers.Make sure you consider whether high availability is required before ordering licenses. Both provide the same user features, but the standard edition does not provide high availability and also has a limitation on number of users it can host.

Skype for Business is available in standard and enterprise editions.You could plan for initial on premise deployment and the move into hybrid mode or completely move online in the cloud later as needs grow and change. A hybrid approach makes the best use of both deployment methods. Also consider the option of a hybrid deployment with some users on premise and others in the Cloud.

Validate which method meets your messaging, business, legal, compliance, and user requirements. Consider and evaluate both Skype for Business on premise deployment and Cloud deployment.In this article, we will discuss 15 topics to consider before deploying Skype for Business Server 2015 in your organization. The new platform supports hybrid deployment with Office 365 and can host users both on premise and in the cloud. Skype for Business delivers the well know and liked native Skype user experience coupled with the Lync Server features such as security, compliance, collaboration, federation, and manageability. It combines the features from the previous release of Skype and Lync Server to deliver a premier component in the Microsoft communications and messaging platform.

Skype for Business has replaced Lync Server 2013 in Microsoft’s messaging portfolio.

Skype server 2015 requirements