Skype for Business Server Edge role is precisely the same as Lync Server 2013 Edge role and follow the same deployment process. Edge server role allows external Skype for Business Server users such as remote, anonymous, federated and PIC users to connect with FE Pool/Server. Edge server can be deployed as standalone server or as a pool. If you are planning to deploy standalone server, you can follow the Step by Step Lync 2013 Edge Server deployment blogpost.

This post will cover step by step deployment process of Skype for Business Server Edge Pool. Below illustration describes very high level design of Skype for Business Server topology.

As illustrated in the above diagram, there will be three external interfaces and one internal interface for each Edge server. However, you can use one external and one internal interface for each edge server but in that condition you will use different ports for each service.

First prepare all the edge servers in perimeter network.

• Install Operating System (Windows Server 2012 / 2012 R2)
• Define Server Host Name with DNS Suffix (Ex: P1Edge01.UC.LAB, where UC.LAB is primary DNS suffix)
• Configure IP Addresses (Define gateway only in external interfaces)
  • In my setup, I have three different subnets:
    • 172.80.x.x/21 for Corporate Network (assigned on internal servers such as FE Pool)
    • 192.168.10.x/24 for Perimeter Network (assigned on Edge internal interface)
    • 10.10.80.x/16 for External Network (assigned on Edge external interfaces)
  • If you have two Edge Server in a pool then you need total 9 ip addresses for external interfaces
    • 3 ip addresses per server
      • 1 for Access Edge
      • 1 for Web Conf Edge
      • 1 for A/V Edge
    • 3 ip addresses for VIP for all three services
      • 1 for Access Edge
      • 1 for Web Conf Edge
      • 1 for A/V Edge

Below are the list of ip addresses which will be used in this deployment.

Once you are done with IP configuration part, create network route to move the external traffic via Edge internal interface from Edge Pool to Director / FE pool.

Open the Windows PowerShell or CMD and run ipconfig /all and note down the “Description” of internal adapter.

Run “route print” and note down the Interface list number in this case it is “12”.

Now add route for internal traffic via Edge internal interface; 192.168.10.1 is an ip address of internal firewall which will be used as a gateway to route the traffic. (Again make sure internal interface doesn’t have any gateway assigned.)

Follow the same steps to configure route on second Edge Server.

Next part of this post will cover the topology configuration and SfB Edge Server role installation and configuration.

Skype for Business Server Edge Pool deployment has four parts to cover end to end deployment process. See Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV for step by step process.