Dean Suzuki Blog

Title: Lync 2013 Monitoring Created: 12/24/2012 Description: In this post, I studied and researched Lync 2013 Monitoring. I discovered that in Lync 2013:

There isnt a dedicated monitoring or archiving server role (as it was the case in Lync 2010) Instead, the monitoring and archiving services are built into the front-end server A backend SQL database is still required and must be setup. The database can be SQL 2008 R2 or SQL 2012. Lync leverages SQL Reporting services to generate the reports and includes a Lync Report pack.

For folks not familiar with the Lync Monitoring, this is a key capability that should be deployed with every Lync deployment. It allows us to understand how Lync is being used (how many IM, conferences, calls, etc.). Also, I would consider it a must for deployment when deploying Lync Voice. Lync Voice is Lyncs capability to be used as a PBX. When deploying Lync Voice, I recommend conducting a small pilot and including participants at multiple locations across the company. Then, watch the Lync monitoring reports to analyze what the media quality. This will give us a preliminary understanding of the network conditions and identify areas where network remediation may be required (more bandwidith, network issues (packet loss, latency, areas with missing QoS, etc).

Review the articles below to learn more about Lync 2013 Monitoring. References: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj204752.aspx ; Planning for Monitoring http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398199.aspx ; Deploying Lync 2013 Monitoring

Disclaimer:

(C) 2012 Dean Suzuki, All Rights Reserved

Contents of this blog and article represent the opinions of Dean Suzuki, and do not reflect the views of my employer. (C) 2012 Dean Suzuki, All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents
1 2 3 4 Pre-requisites ........................................................................................................................................ 2 Enable Monitoring in the Topology ...................................................................................................... 2 Create the Lync Monitoring Databases on the SQL Server ................................................................... 5 Create Lync Report User and Report User Group ................................................................................. 8 4.1 4.2 5 6 Create a Lync Report User ............................................................................................................ 8 Create a Lync Report Group ........................................................................................................ 10

Install the Lync 2013 Monitoring Reports........................................................................................... 10 Access the Lync Monitoring Reports................................................................................................... 12

1 Pre-requisites
This document assumes that you have already installed Lync 2013 Front End. Also, you will need a server with SQL server and SQL reporting services loaded on it.

2 Enable Monitoring in the Topology

The first step is to enable the Lync monitoring and archiving capabilities in the topology. Go to the Front End Server, load the Lync Topology Builder.

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Go to the Front end server. Right-click and select Edit Properties.

Scroll down to the Archiving and Monitoring section.

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Click the Monitoring button to enable it. Press New and specify a data store. Specify your SQL server. Mine is: lab2012-i3-db.contoso2012.com

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I am also going to enable Archiving and specify the same data store.

Publish the topology. Go to Action > Topology > Publish

3 Create the Lync Monitoring Databases on the SQL Server

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During the Topology publish process, the following dialog box appears.

Setup says that it is going to create the reporting database on the SQL server.

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I got a warning and investigated it.

The warning says that we need to change the startup mode of the SQL Server Agent to Automatic from Manual. Go to the SQL Server and change the SQL Server Agent service to Automatic.

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Launch SQL Server Management Studio. Notice the Lync reporting databases (LcsCDR, LcsLog, QoEMetrics) have been created.

4 Create Lync Report User and Report User Group

4.1 Create a Lync Report User
Go to the Domain Controller and create a new user (LyncReportUser). Go to the SQL database, launch SQL Management Studio and give the user System Admin rights on the SQL database.

(C) 2012 Dean Suzuki, All Rights Reserved

(C) 2012 Dean Suzuki, All Rights Reserved

4.2 Create a Lync Report Group

Create a group that will be allowed to access the Lync Reports. In my lab, I named the group LyncReportUsers.

5 Install the Lync 2013 Monitoring Reports

Go to the SQL Server. Insert the Lync 2013 DVD. Launch the Lync 2013 Deployment Wizard

Specify the SQL server

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Specify the Lync Report User created earlier.

Specify the Lync Report Group created earlier.

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6 Access the Lync Monitoring Reports

Go to: http://<servername>/ReportServer and navigate to the Lync Monitoring reports. In my lab, the URL is: http://lab202-i3-db/ReportServer

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