This blog post is a continuation of my preceding post “Skype for Business Cloud Connector” and deep dive into the Cloud Connector Edition Components. Cloud Connector Edition deploys a set of VMs which help Skype for Business online to connect and use on-premises telephony infrastructure. It comes with four major components which enable Skype for Business online to talk to the on-premises telephony infrastructure. It encompasses Edge server role components, Mediation server role components, central management store (CMS) and Domain Controller. Let me go in reverse order and explain all of these components.

Domain Controller: It deploys one Domain Controller which is very unique to the respective cloud connector. Let me make it more descriptive; whenever a cloud connector get deploys, it install Active Directory Domain Services and Active Directory Certificate Services. Deployed, ADDS will be part of the new forest and there should not be any connection to the production Active Directory. ADDS is required to store all the global configuration and groups necessary to deploy cloud connector components while ADCS will be installed to generate internal certificates for cloud connector configuration.

Central Management Store: Here CMS consist of two things, CMS role and CMS replica. CMS role store the topology configuration and includes CMS file transfer while CMS replica synchronizes configuration information from the global CMS DB on the CMS role server.

Mediation Server Component: Meditation role components include SIP and other media protocols which are required for PSTN connectivity between Skype for Business and telephony infrastructure. Mediation role also keep and replica of the CMS database which replicates from the global CMS database.

Edge Server Role: Edge server role enables the communication between on-premises topology and the online services which goes through the Edge component. This role consist of following components:

    Access Edge: Enables SIP routing between On-premises topology and Online Services.

    Media Relay: It enables media routing between mediation components and other media endpoints.

    Media Relay Authentication Service (MRAS): It generates tokes to access for media relay.

One more component, outbound routing plays a vital role here. Outbound Routing enables routing to gateways based on policies for outbound PSTN numbers and adhere only global policies.

If you are deploying or integration more than one cloud connector edition in your infrastructure then all the components will be deployed again. Therefore it indicates, all these components are unique to the specific cloud connector.