Centralised Logging in Lync 2013

One of the great feature of Lync (and for that matter, OCS too!) is the ability to do comprehensive debug logging. Pretty much, if there's any sort of activity happening in Lync, you can log that activity to help debug issues. For OCS, the ability to see the SIP traffic, on the wire was fantastic (with Wireshark you saw nothing useful as all the traffic was encrypted).  I have on many occasions used this logging (and the SIP Snooper tool) to work out what’s going wrong,

With Lync 2013, Microsoft has improved this system significantly, and we now have the Centralised Logging feature. In earlier versions, you had to run the debug logging on each machine independently which made tracing things across machines (e.g. edge, to director, to pool server to client etc.) much more difficult. With centralised logging those issues are a thing of the past as logging can now be done in a centralised fashion (I guess the clue is in the name!).

One issue, for some admins, is that the CLS is based on the use of PowerShell cmdlets or using CLSController.exe. The Lync MVP community, particularly Randly Wintle and James Cussen, had the great idea of making a GUI interface. James took the earlier Lync Preview based tool and has created a much improved version.

For more information, and to snag a copy of this cool tool, you should visit James’ blog: http://www.mylynclab.com/2013/04/lync-2013-centralised-logging-tool.html. I don’t know about the legalities of doing it, but adding this tool to the Lync 2013 Resource Kit would be a really great idea. Nice job James!

Technorati Tags: Lync,Lync 2012,Lync logging,Lync Resource Kit

Lync 2010 Resource Kit is Released

The Lync Server 2010 Resource Kit is a technical reference to Lyn Server and extends the planning, deploying and managing documentation in Microsoft’s Lync Technical Library.

After a number of months in preparation, the Lync Server 2010 Resource Kit has been published – and you can download it for free from Microsoft. The book has 18 chapters and you can download each one from the Microsoft Download Center.  And from the same page, you can also get a single zip file with all the documents.

If you are interested in Lync, then these documents are a must read.

 

Technorati Tags: Lync,Resource Kit

Lync Databases

If you are an IT Pro managing Lync, you know that Lync has a key dependency on SQL databases. For the most part, you don’t need to know the details of what databases Lync actually uses but at times that knowledge can be very useful, like during troubleshooting! As a Lync (and OCS) trainer, I know a fair bit about how Lync (and OCS before it) makes use of SQL, but there are details that, until now, I wasn’t totally clear on,

Curtis Johnstone has written a great article on The Lync Server Databases which covers the databases used and what they are used for plus some other relevant information about SQL server (and what  versions are needed).

I recommend reading this article (and bookmarking it) to learn more about this topic.

Technorati Tags: Lync Server,database,SQL

Lync Resource Kit Server Administration Chapter Published by Microsoft

I just got email that Microsoft has published another Lync Resource Kit chapter or your edification. This chapter, Server Administration, was written by Indranil Dutta and Jens Trier Rasmussen. I was, with others, one of the technical reviewers. You can either download just this chapter, or download all 8 of the published chapter from here.

There are three key aspects to this chapter. First, the chapter covers Lync’s Central Management Store, including the data stored in the CMS, how replication of CMS occurs, and how to manage the CMS. The second section looks at the Lync Server Control Panel and how it works. The final section talks about Role Based Access Control and how to create custom RBAC scopes.

IN looking at it, one thing kind of missing is  Management using PowerShell – perhaps an introduction to PowerShell’s object model inside Lync. RBAC is based on PowerShell, so using RBAC and creating custom roles is covered. With over 600 cmdlets, I would have preferred some more details in the Server Administration chapter. Call me fussy!

The writing in the chapter is good, and it’s illustrated by some excellent diagrams. This chapter is 24 pages long – and well worth a read if you are architecting or implementing Lync Server.

Technorati Tags: Lync,Lync Server 2010,CMS,Resource Kit