The differences between Lync On-Premises and Lync Online (Shared / Dedicated)

May 5th, 2012 | Tags: Lync Server 2010, Office 365

Almost a year ago I wrote a post on the differences between Lync On-Premises and Lync Online, since then Lync Online has gone through a series of updates and I have become more aware of Lync Online for dedicated customers.

Let me cover off some basics for those unaware:

The Office 365 which can be purchased by individuals, small businesses and medium to large sized Enterprises via the Microsoft Office 365 website – this version of Office 365 is Shared or S and is a shared or multi-tenanted Microsoft Cloud platform aimed at the mass market.
For large Enterprise businesses (typically 5000+ users), Microsoft offers a dedicated version (or D), which has more similarities between the On-Premises version of Lync Server 2010, the features and deployment characteristics are however not identical. In this dedicated model Microsoft hosts dedicated servers for a specific customer, there is also a more personalised service with enhanced SLA

So back to the matter at hand, I have updated the feature table, the original being sourced from the Office 365-S Lync Online service documentation, with the new features available within the Shared platform and now included the Dedicated version of Lync Online. I hope this helps! 🙂

Features	Lync Server 2010	Lync Online (S)	Lync Online (D)
Lync Skill Search in SharePoint Server (on-premises)	Yes	No	Yes
Lync Skill Search in SharePoint Online	No	No	Yes
Persistent Group Chat	Yes	No	No
Privacy mode	Yes	No	No
Lync external connectivity (federation and Public IM connectivity)
IM/presence/audio/video federation with other OCS/Lync Server/Lync Online organizations	Yes	Yes	Yes
IM/presence/audio/video with Windows Live Messenger	Yes	Yes	Yes
IBM Sametime federation	Yes	No	Yes
IM/presence federation with XMPP networks (Jabber, Google Talk)	Yes	No	Yes – via customer hosted XMPP gateway
IM/presence with AOL, Yahoo	Yes	No	No
Meetings (audio/video/web conferencing)
Meeting attendee capacity	250	250	250
Web Scheduler	Yes (installed separately)	Yes	No
Desktop sharing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Application sharing	Yes	Yes	Yes
White boarding and annotations	Yes	Yes	Yes
PowerPoint upload for online presentations	Yes	Yes	Yes
Upload for other file types	No	No	No
Multimedia content upload	No	No	No
Polling	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ad-hoc multiparty PC-based audio/video	Yes	Yes	Yes
Authenticated attendee in Lync Web App	Yes	No	Yes
Unauthenticated attendee in Lync Web App	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lync attendee client	Yes	Yes	Yes
Scheduled conferences (using Outlook plug-in)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Outlook delegation for scheduling meetings	Yes	Yes	Yes
Meeting join via Lync optimized conferencing devices See Meeting Room Devices. Note: Polycom CX7000 is not currently supported	Yes	Partial (RoundTable only)	Yes (Polycom CX7000 is not currently supported)
Lobby	Yes	Yes	Yes
Interoperability with certified partners for dial-in audio conferencing (ACP)	No	Yes	No
Phone dial-out from scheduled meetings via third-party dial-in conferencing service	No	Yes	No
Client side recording and playback	Yes	Yes	Yes
Server-side recording and playback	No	No	No
Generate a link to a scheduled meeting via web page	No	No	No
Scheduling an online meeting in Outlook Web App	No	No	No
Exchange Online Outlook Web App and Communicator 2007 R2 or Lync 2010 Integration	No	No	Yes
Native dial-in audio conferencing on Lync server	Yes	No	Yes
Screen Snapshot (Desktop Annotation)	No	No	No
Backstage/Content Preview for presenters	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mute all attendees	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mute individual attendees	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unmute all attendees	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unmute individual attendees	Yes	Yes	Yes
In-meeting attendee permission controls	Yes	Yes	Yes
Interoperability with on-premises video conferencing systems	Yes	No	Yes (via approved customer hosted gateway)
Voice and telephony
Lync-to-phone (calls with landlines and mobile phones)	Yes	Coming soon via (ACP)	Yes
Call hold/retrieve	Yes	No	Yes
Call-via-Work in Lync Mobile	Yes	No	Yes
Dial-out from ad-hoc Lync meetings	Yes	No	Yes
Advanced call controls (transfer, forward, simul-ring)	Yes	No	Yes
Access to Exchange Online voicemail	Yes	No	Yes
Team call	Yes	No	Yes
Delegation (boss-admin) for Voice	Yes	No	Yes
Call park	Yes	No	Yes
Outgoing DID manipulation	Yes	No	Yes
E-911	Yes	No	No
Dial plans and policies	Yes	No	Yes
Common Area and IP desk phone support	Yes	No	Yes
Resilient branch office appliance	Yes	No	No
Call Admissions Control (CAC)	Yes	No	No
Support for analog devices (such as FAX)	Yes	No	No
Response groups	Yes	No	No
Private Line (secondary DID for executives)	Yes	No	Yes
Interoperability with third-party PBX or trunks	Yes	No	Yes
Presence interoperability with third-party PBX	No	No	No
RCC (click-to-call) with on-premises PBX	Yes	No	No
Malicious call trace	Yes	No	Yes
Unassigned number	Yes	No	No
Network QoS – DSCP	Yes	No	Yes
Media path optimization	Yes	No	No
Phone number management	Yes	No	No
CDR and billing reporting	Yes	No	Yes
Integration with call center solutions (Aspect)	Yes	No	No
Client support
Lync 2010	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lync Web App for participating in scheduled meetings	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lync 2010 Attendee client (joining meetings)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Communicator for Mac client	Yes	No	Yes
Lync for Mac client	Yes	Yes	Yes
Office Communicator Web Access (2007 R2) client	Yes	No	No
Office Communicator 2007 R2 client	Yes	No	No
Lync 2010 Phone Edition (Lync-based IP phones)	Yes	No	Yes
Lync 2010 Attendant client (receptionist rich client)	Yes	No	No
Communicator Mobile (Windows Phones 6.x)	Yes	No	No
Lync 2010 Mobile client	Yes	Yes	Yes
BlackBerry Enterprise Server integration for the BlackBerry client with the Lync Server 2010	Yes	No	Yes
IM and media encryption	Yes	Yes	Yes
IM filtering	Yes	Yes	Yes
Anti-malware scanning for meeting content and file transfers	Yes (partner solutions)	No	No
IM archiving (server side)	Yes	No	Yes
Exchange/SharePoint interoperability
Presence interoperability with Exchange and SharePoint on-premises	Yes	Yes	Yes
Presence interoperability with Exchange Online and SharePoint Online	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unified Messaging interoperability with Exchange Online	Yes	No	Yes
Unified Messaging interoperability with Exchange on-premises	Yes	Yes (with Exchange 2010 Hybrid Server)	No
Lync Online and Lync on-premises, and administration
Lync optimized common area phone and IP phone device auto updates	Yes	No	Yes
Automatic Lync client update via inband client provisioning	Yes	No	No
Server/cloud coexistence (split domain) on user basis (some users on-premises, some users online)	No	No	No
Splitting workloads (for example, IM/presence/voice on-premises, conferencing in the cloud)	No	No	No
PowerShell support	Yes	No	No
Bigfin (web) UI	Yes	No	No
Customer self-service configuration portal	No	Yes	No
Attendee/user reporting	No	No	No
Reporting (CDR, QoE)	Yes	No	Yes
User Management via customer Active Directory	Yes	Yes (with ADFS 2.0)	Yes
Third-party API support
Client-side APIs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Server-side APIs	Yes	No	No
Customer clients using Microsoft SDK	Yes	No	No