HP Shares Validated Lync Architectures with Partner Channel
HP Shares Validated Lync Architectures with Partner Channel by Kevin Kieller
Microsoft has always expected its solution partners to participate in developing and deploying complete solutions. For most of its existence Microsoft has been a software company; designing the appropriate hardware platform to enable use of the Microsoft software has been the responsibility of its large partner community. (Of late Microsoft is working to remake itself as a “devices and services” company but in the enterprise space partners are still expected to deliver complete solutions.)
This approach has provide great opportunity for Microsoft channel partners but when it came to Microsoft’s unified communications solution, consisting of Microsoft Lync and Exchange Unified Messaging for voice mail, this also required the partner to have strong voice and telecom experience in order to design and implement a complete solution. And while Lync is a great solution for many organizations, it is important to correctly design and select the hardware and network components in order to have a successful implementation.
The challenge is that assembling a team with the necessary software, server hardware, network and telecom experience, in order to capitalize on all the benefits a Lync solution can provide, is not easy. This has been one area where more vertically integrated partners such as Cisco, who “bundle” a complete solution of software and hardware, have rightfully suggested Lync is more complicated.
Enter HP.
In January of 2010, HP and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership, called “Frontline,” to drive new opportunities for the 32,000 HP and Microsoft channel partners. Under the terms of the agreement, HP and Microsoft agreed to invest $250 million in order to “significantly simplify technology environments for businesses of all sizes.”
Consistent with this agreement, HP is now sharing a series of tested, validated and detailed Lync 2013 solution architectures with Lync channel partners. As a customer, this means that you can choose a channel partner of your choice, and your channel partner can use the HP Lync solution architecture to reduce risk. According to HP, the intent is to release pre-validated Lync architectures that scale from 250 users all the way up to multi-site architectures that can accommodate as many as 80,000 users.
Alan MacLeod, Director of the UC&C Initiative, suggests that having this pre-validated, detailed architecture may help channel partners reduce the Lync detailed design process by as much as 80 percent. To me this feels about right. In addition, because HP has stress tested a specific hardware component configuration, this greatly reduces the risk of performance related problems. While Microsoft does make available a Lync 2013 performance testing tool, performance stress testing is something no channel partner has the time or project budget to accomplish; as such, they usually rely on general published performance guidelines or the Lync Server 2013 Capacity Calculator which provides general hardware guidance as opposed to the specific tested guidance HP includes with their Lync architectures.
I asked Alan about whether using a pre-validated Lync architecture from HP would reduce overall revenue for the channel partner. In response, Alan suggested that HP’s intent was to allow the channel partner to leverage the work HP has done in order to reduce the design costs and as such allow the channel partner to focus on the business specific issues associated with the Lync implementation that are required for overall project success; the overall project revenue would likely remain the same but the completeness of the solution would increase and the project risk would be reduced.
I have often observed the importance of training, communications and change management as part of a successful UC implementation. Re-allocating some of the project time and costs from detailed design and into training is something I believe would benefit both the end-customer and the channel partner. Also, some of the project budget previously allocated to design could perhaps be used to leverage “Lync as a platform” in order to implement process improvement (CEBP) functionality. (Channel partners see “Making Money with Lync – Part 2” for more details.)
HP is in a unique position to be able to provide prescriptive Lync architectural guidance as HP offers servers, networking gear, IP phones, PCs and laptops, all certified or optimized to work with Lync. The question is whether customers are ready to go “all in” with HP components.
The HP Lync architectures leverage the ProLiant line of servers along with HP ProActive Insight Architecture, the HP FlexNetwork portfolio of unified wired and wireless network products the, relatively new, HP IP phones optimized for Microsoft Lync (HP 4410 and HP 4120) and HP notebooks and PCs that have been specifically optimized for Microsoft Lync.
I applaud HP’s willingness to share these detailed Lync architectures with the UC channel. The initiative will potentially benefit customers who have invested, or are looking to invest, in HP networking and server components and it will benefit channel partners who are selling, or are interested in selling, HP products.
The challenge HP and channel partners will face in leveraging these Lync architectures relates to what happens when a customer already has non-HP equipment or wants to use servers or phones from another manufacturer. While prescriptive architectures work great in “green field” deployments, where previous infrastructure elements imposes no constraints, most of the time the “real world” is about leveraging at least some previous infrastructure components. In the “mix and match” world it remains to be seen if the testing HP has done will remain valid even as different components are brought into the mix. Challenges aside, as a channel partner I would encourage you to review these new HP Lync architectures and make use of them as appropriate to reduce the time required to design and test Lync solutions.
As a channel partner do you see value in these pre-validated Lync 2013 architectures from HP? As an end-customer does this make you more likely to work with your HP solution partner in implementing a Lync solution? I welcome any and all feedback in the comments below or via twitter @kkieller. I will respond to each and every comment.
This paper is sponsored by HP. Email for more information.
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