Candidates for this exam are IT consultants and telecommunications consulting professionals who design, plan, deploy, and maintain solutions for unified communications (UC). Candidates should be able to translate business requirements into technical architecture and design for a UC solution. Candidates should have a minimum of two years of experience with Microsoft Lync technologies and be familiar with supported migration scenarios. Candidates should be proficient in deploying Lync Server solutions for end users, endpoint devices, telephony, audio/video and web conferences, security, and high availability. Candidates should also know how to monitor and troubleshoot Lync Server using Microsoft tools. The minimally qualified candidate typically should have experience making decisions concerning the design, implementation, and maintenance of the following: central and branch office sites, standard and enterprise edition deployment, high availability and disaster recovery, remote access\external access, enterprise voice, Unified Messaging, conferencing, Persistent Chat, data compliance, client endpoints, and, migration from previous versions of Lync. This course is a core requirement for the MCSE certification.