Integrating Exchange 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Lync 2013

The newest versions of Exchange, SharePoint and Lync have many integrations between them. Use the links below to learn more and successfully implement them (based on my own personal experience):

High-Resolution Photos in SharePoint 2013 from Exchange 2013
SharePoint Site Mailboxes
Lync IM/Presence in Outlook Web Access
Create Lync Online Meetings in Outlook Web Access
Exchange Task Integration – SharePoint 2013 Tasks in Outlook
Adding Skype Contacts in Lync 2013
Using SharePoint eDiscovery to Search Lync Archived Messages
Using Microsoft Translation Services in Office Web Apps
Using Office Web Apps to Broadcast PowerPoint Presentations in Lync Online Meetings

Windows Server 2012 DHCP Fail-over Cluster

In our network, we manage most IP addresses with DHCP reservations, servers, printers, video cameras, security panels etc.. about the only thing that doesn’t have DHCP reservations are workstations/laptops/devices etc..

I’ve always considered our single DHCP server a weakness as a single point of failure, and it has been (especially if you delete all of your reservations! Hey, it happened). Until Windows Server 2012, the best you could do was to split your DHCP scopes between two or more DHCP servers. The weakness of this approach is that your scopes need to be large enough to support a failure scenario, otherwise you can only support half of your devices (depending on the length and knowledge of your failure) and you still are susceptible of losing your DHCP reservations.

Worry no more. Windows Server 2012 supports true DHCP fail-over. We haven’t actually implemented it yet but will soon. We are in the process of moving to a full virtualized infrastructure with a DC being on of my only physical machines. For reasons that only make sense in my brain, I will probably move our primary DHCP to a physical server as well (or co-locate on the DC) and have the fail-over DHCP running in our Hyper-V cluster.

Here is a link from Microsoft explaining how to configure this setup:
DHCP Fail-over in Windows Server 2012