Load Balancing Skype for Business
To maximize the availability and performance of a Skype for Business environment, a load balancer provides the best possible solution with automatic detection of out-of-service nodes and delivery of user sessions to the optimal Skype for Business server. Kemp LoadMasters, as either hardware or virtualized appliances, are ideally suited to addressing the load balancing requirements of Skype for business with predefined templates to assist with deployment and integration with management frameworks such as Microsoft System Center to simplify operations.
Load Balancing and Reverse proxy with Skype for Business
Figure 1 – Example LoadMaster Skype for Business IM and Presence topology
The reverse proxy is required in Skype for Business to
- download the Address Book
- connect to Address Book Web query URL
- provide distribution list expansion
- download meeting content
- connect to the Mobility Service
- connect to the Skype for Business AutoDiscover Service
- connect to Dial-in URL
- connect to Skype for Business Web App
- connect to CertProvisioningService
LoadMaster also load balances SIP and HTTPS services on the front end pool.
When integrating an on-premise Skype for Business environment with Office 365 Skype for Business, there may be a requirement to implement ADFS to support single sign-on from Office 365. LoadMaster supports the highly available deployment of ADFS services between on-premise, Office 365 and Azure environments. For more information about load balancing ADFS and Skype view the Load Balancing ADFS pages.