Now that Skype for Business Server has been released I thought I’d start off by having a look at the changes introduced to the topology builder. The role of the topology builder hasn’t changed from Lync but there are a few new additions due to new roles and new deployment options.

As has been widely reported you can’t deploy the tools on a machine that currently has the Lync 2013 tools installed, so after finding a suitable machine the first thing you notice is that the icon has been updated with the Skype logo

 When you open it you’ll get the same prompt for downloading, opening or creating a new topology.

You now get the option to upgrade an existing Lync pool

And then the confirmation

When creating an enterprise pool, the options have changed slightly with the introduction of support for SQL AlwaysOn

If you create a standalone SQL server the options display as:

But when you tick the box for high availability it selects AlwaysOn as by default (SQL mirroring is being depreciated by the SQL product team but mirroring is still supported with Skype for Business)

If you change it to mirroring you can then enter the mirror port number

After choosing which HA SQL method you’ll be using the define sql Server store options will change and will remove the option for creating a mirror if you chose AlwayOn

Again if you chose AlwaysOn for the Archiving/Monitoring stores it will remove the mirroring options

When creating a Skype Edge server you’ll notice there is a new box to select for federation

Another new option in Skype for Business is the video interop server, initial configurable options are limited: