Check out the most comprehensive, actively managed Lync blog roll in the known universe, your one-stop source for links to over 100 of the very best Lync blogs. Here you will also find weekly blog highlights and a feed for a dozen of the top blogs.
Lync Server Support Home
Top Lync Solutions RSS Feed
Microsoft Senior Support engineers walk you through real-life support cases, giving you an insider’s view into the systematic approach they use to troubleshoot Lync Server issues.
These short videos focus on specific tasks and show you how to accomplish them for Microsoft Lync Server 2010.
We’re excited to announce that System Center Advisor is now available for Lync! Not familiar with System Center Advisor? Let’s start with some background.
System Center Advisor is a cloud service that enables IT pros to assess their server configuration and proactively avoid problems, while helping support staff to resolve issues faster by accessing current and historical configuration data, all with the security features that meet their needs. Additionally, System Center Advisor helps reduce downtime by providing suggestions for improvement, and notifying customers of key updates specific to their configuration.
Authors: Kaushal Mehta, Microsoft Senior Support Escalation Engineer and Nick Rosenfeld, Microsoft Principal Escalation Engineer
Publication date: November 26, 2012
Product version: Lync Server 2010
Proactively Avoid Problems
Resolve Issues Faster
Help Reduce Downtime and Improve Performance
System Center Advisor is available as a benefit of Software Assurance for supported entitled server products. This service brings new support and maintenance value to Software Assurance coverage at no additional cost. For additional information on purchasing software assurance, please see Software Assurance.
As mentioned earlier, we’re thrilled to add Lync Server 2010 to the list of products that can take advantage of System Center Advisor. This service provides you with up to date information about your Lync Server environment and alerts you when there is a potential issue. Here is the complete list of products currently supported by System Center Advisor:
Lync environments can be impacted by missing Windows hotfixes, server certificates expiry, SQL backend and more. System Center Advisor can alert you to a possible issue and recommend a fix for all these scenarios. These rules are written by Customer Support Services Escalation Engineers based on the common issues that they see while supporting Lync Server. New rules are added regularly and downloaded automatically by the System Center Advisor agent.
For example, Figure 1 shows an alert related to the Windows firewall being ON and there is no exception for Windows PowerShell.
Figure 1. System Center Advisor alert screenshot.
Figure 2 shows an example of certificate expiring on the Lync server in less than 7 days.
Figure 2. System Center Advisor certificate expiration alert.
Figure 3 is an example of an alert for a mobility related rule.
Figure 3. System Center Advisor alert.
Figure 4. System Center Advisor User Interface.
The following list provides descriptions of the UI options illustrated in Figure 4.
UI option
Description
A
Active alerts in the Lync Server environment. This should include SQL Backend Servers as well. If the environment includes SharePoint, Exchange, and the like it is encouraged to also run the System Center Advisor agents on those servers.
B
Current configuration in the Lync environment.
C
Configuration change history that reports the date when the configuration was changed, server where it was changed, old value and new value.
D
Servers present in the Lync Server environment along with their status and reporting type (gateway vs. agent).
E
Manage user accounts that are authorized to receive email alerts and have permissions to view the portal.
1
The three servers that reported the shown alerts.
2
Sort the alerts based on severity, server name and so forth.
3
Server name where the alert is thrown and configuration changes needed.
4
Send feedback about a particular rule.
5
Copy the alert to the clipboard (similar to event viewer copy option).
6
Contextual information collected to evaluate this rule.
7
The flag’s value as reported.
8
The complete alert description. The goal is to proactively help Lync admin make the right configuration change well in advance of issue occurring.
We’re excited to have Lync Server 2010 added to the System Center Advisor family and hope that you are too. As you can see, SCA is a great tool that can proactively alert you of potential issues in your Lync deployment. Give it a try and leave us your feedback here.