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DATA CENTER and CAMPUS NETWORKS DEPLOYMENT GUIDE
Deploying Brocade Networks with Microsoft Lync Server 2010 29 of 52
CASE STUDY: FABRIKAM SPORTS
Consider the example of a fictional, but representative, global corporation called Fabrikam Sports. Fabrikam is a
well-known, well-established clothing manufacturer of high-end sports apparel. The recent success of the company
has put a lot of pressure on its IT organization to scale rapidly. Like all growing organizations, Fabrikam has deployed
many different communications technologies along the way. These communications technologies have included
telephony systems, conferencing and collaboration tools, and e-mail. However, a different administrator was
required for each technology to keep up with a rapidly growing mobile workforce. The company realized that in its
current situation, it would be unable to scale to meet projected growth.
Fabrikam maintains offices in the U.S. and is currently planning to open offices around the world. Clothing is
manufactured in Texas, designers are based in San Francisco, a regional sales office is located in New York, and
headquarters are in Seattle. There is currently a total of 4,500 employees worldwide, and this number is growing
rapidly—there are over 200 sales representatives in the U.S. and over 50 sales representatives divided between
Europe and Asia. As a result, the company is facing many challenges in its ability to collaborate effectively and in real
time. Fabrikam Sports is looking for a technology that centralizes VoIP, presence (the reporting of users online),
mobile client connectivity, and conferencing, so that the company can streamline communications to dramatically
reduce overall costs.
Currently, in each office Fabrikam has a PBX with two Primary Rate Interfaces (PRIs) out to the PSTN and a separate
hardware platform for video conferencing, and all employees use their own personal accounts for Instant Messaging
(using Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and so on). The IT department wants to unify these platforms so that they can easily
manage the different technologies in one framework. Microsoft Lync Server 2010 has been chosen, because it
offers a complete set of UC tools and easily integrates with Fabrikam’s current implementation of Microsoft
Exchange Server 2010.
By implementing these solutions, Microsoft Lync Server 2010 lowers Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by reducing the
following costs:
• Hardware costs. Historically, every office needed its own PBX equipment and its own trunk
to the PSTN. Every time an office came online, Fabrikam had to buy a PBX, a dedicated LAG from the
PSTN, and a phone plan. With Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Fabrikam now has centralized
communications to the existing IP network, which largely eliminates hardware costs.
• Maintenance costs. Each Fabrikam office had its own dedicated PBX; however, each was from a
different manufacturer. This was costly, because administrators found it difficult to maintain and
upgrade all the different systems. Typically, IT had to place a tech support call in to each vendor for
help with the upgrade process. In addition, if a user moved or relocated to another office, the
administrator had to manually reconfigure the PBX. With Microsoft Lync Server 2010, a user can be
located anywhere and still be connected, because the communication is software-based.
• Cost of long-distance phone calls. Fabrikam was spending a lot of money on long-distance calling to
both customers and mobile workers. To reduce some of the costs, mobile workers were using calling
cards. In addition, it took a full-time employee just to manage the calling plans for all the offices.
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 offers an IP-based system to make on-net calls possible at essentially no
cost. Additionally, if off-network calls are made, Microsoft Lync Server 2010 automatically routes calls
as cheaply as possible.
• High Availability. Fabrikam has decided to place a Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA) at sites in Austin
and San Francisco to increase the availability of Microsoft Communicator 2010. The SBA allows remote
users to use the local SBA as a Front End Server instead of traversing the WAN to leverage the Front
End Servers at headquarters. Even if the WAN connection between the branch office and headquarters
goes down, users are not affected and can IM their colleagues in the local office and also place
outgoing calls.
In order for Fabrikam to deliver Microsoft Lync Server 2010, a sound network infrastructure was required. The
networking team realized that Unified Communications was going to create greater demands due to voice, video,