I am looking to deploy skype for business, but am not having much luck in finding resources that help plan server count and hardware requirements.

We have numerous sites, but all connected via metro E as if one big network and no firewalls between. At current stance I have no need for an edge server as all users connecting externally would be using SFB via Citrix, though I can see it being useful down the road. This will be 100% virtual.

We are only a company of about 500 computer users, but want to build out with the expectation that we might reach 1000 in the lifespan of this deployment.

Anyone have similar setup and can make suggestions?

When considering lync 2013 previously I was looking at a single front end server and one backend SQL server, both with 16 gb of ram. Is this still feasable? All the examples I see have 5 to 40 servers and the recommendations say 32gb of ram, but even our most utilized SQL server now is only running with 16 and barely uses it.

Any help is appreciated.

Hi Matt,

All the information needed to Deploy your Skype for Business Server 2015 is documented here: (Plan for your Skype for Business Server 2015 deployment ) https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn951427.aspx

Especially this information is very useful for you, since include capacity using the users model. (Capacity planning for Lync Server 2013 using the user models ) https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg615015(v=ocs.15).aspx

For example if you expect to reach 1000 users: 1 Front End / 1 SQL Back End is ok. If both have 16 GB of RAM is OK. I have seen environments running fine with less resources than yours.

Regards,