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Monitoring Lync with the User Registrations Viewer—Free NMC tool #2

 
HPSW-Guest| February 13, 2013 - last edited March 5, 2013
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By Mark Pinskey

Sr. Product Marketing Manager – Automated Network Management

 

Editor's note: HP Software recently announced the launch of six free network utilities. This series of blog posts provides short overviews of how each tool can help you manage your network.

 

Microsoft Lync Unified Communications (UC) deployments on corporate networks require close monitoring. Administrators or operators who are managing Lync need quick access to information about configured Lync users, and the ability to check dynamic information about the users such as their registration and their Front End pool or server in order to track the changing distribution of user registrations.

 

HP User Registrations Viewer for Microsoft Lync, a new free Network Management Center tool, gives administrators a clear view of activity across the Lync central site and associated branch sites. The Viewer provides insight into configuration settings of individual Lync users, and offers a quick way to compare the actual distributions of user registrations versus the planned capacity for the load balanced pools of Front End servers.

 

What it does

The Viewer has two main tabs, Configured Lync Users and Registered Lync Users.

 

Configured Lync Users (Figure 1) provides an inventory of all users, including information on primary registrar, voice and location policies and dial plans assigned to the user. This tab also includes a dashboard that illustrates the number of total configured users vs. unique registered users, which lets an administrator gauge overall Lync license and infrastructure usage and adjust capacity and licenses accordingly.

 

Lync3.png

Fig. 1

 

The second tab, Registered Lync Users (Figure 2), provides an inventory of all users who are currently signed in and using the Lync infrastructure. This inventory contains information such as the client version, IP address and the physical Front End server that the user is signed in to.

 

This tab also features a dashboard that illustrates:

○      Registrations by Front End pool

○      Registrations by Front End servers

○      Registrations by client applications and versions

○      Registrations by login type (Internal / External, ex. coming in via an Edge Server)

 

Lync4.png

Fig. 2

 

Working with the tool

Once installed using a standard Microsoft Installer, the tool can be launched via the desktop or the Programs menu shortcuts.

 

When the user clicks on refresh, the tool uses a combination of Powershell and SQL to retrieve information about configured and registered users from all Front End pools of the central site that the selected Front End pool belongs to, and additionally from all the Front End Pools in Branch sites associated with the central site.

 

For the tool to be able to communicate with the Lync server and retrieve all the required information, the user must configure the following using the Communication Configuration page (Figure 3), found in the Options menu:

 

  • FQDN of one Front End pool per Central Site — Although a single Lync server deployment or Lync site could have multiple central site Front End servers pools configured for user registrations, and Lync server deployment could also have associated branch sites and corresponding branch Front End server pools, the tool needs the FQDN of just one of the multiple central site Front End Server Pools.
  • Credentials of a user belonging to the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group of Windows users configured for Lync — User of the tool must be a domain user belonging to the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group, which must also be enabled to login to the RTCLOCAL database instance of each Lync Front End server with a specific set of permissions.

 Lync1.png

Fig. 3

 

Once configured, the Front End pools display in the drop down menu on the Configured Lync Users tab (Figure 4).

 

Lync2.png

Fig. 4

 

Please note that there is no support for authentication and authorization of tool users. However, tool users must specify one of the Front End Server Pool’s FQDN and associated windows authentication credentials for the tool to be able to retrieve information about configured Lync users and their registrations.

 

Download the tool

Want to see it for yourself? It’s free. Get access to the HP User Registrations Viewer for Microsoft Lync utility and the other five free Network Management Center administration tools.

 

To read other posts about the free utilities, check out the Business Service Management blog and keep an eye out for new posts soon. Next in the series, we will look at HP Network Port Scanner, which enables you to scan devices for open and used ports, view the status of ports and export to a CSV file.

Tags: HP NMC| Lync Viewer| Microsoft Lync| network management| Network Management Center| View All (7)
Labels: HP NMC| Lync Viewer| Microsoft Lync| Network Management| Network Management Center| network toolkit| NMC
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About the Author(s)
  • Beth Parker is a Product Marketing Manager for HP Software. Beth is responsible for outbound marketing and sales enablement for the HP Systems Management portfolio including HP Operations Manager, Operations Agents, Smart Plug-ins and SiteScope. She is based in Naples, Florida.
  • Doug is a subject matter expert for network and system performance management. With an engineering career spanning 25 years at HP, Doug has worked in R&D, support, and technical marketing positions, and is an ambassador for quality and the customer interest.
  • This account is for guest bloggers. The blog post will identify the blogger.
  • Jim is a technology marketer with over two decades experience in product launch, branding, and product marketing
  • Jimmy Augustine is Director of Product Marketing within HP Software and leads the HP Application Performance Management and Configuration Management System product marketing teams. JImmy has been with HP for over a year. Prior to HP, Jimmy was VP of Marketing for ASG Software Solutions. Prior to joining ASG, Jimmy was at IBM for ten years. He was a marketing manager for IBM's Outsourcing business, the market leader, and helped launch IBM's market leading web hosting business. Jimmy holds an M.S. in industrial engineering and a B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Florida. Jimmy resides in Naples, FL with his wife and two children.
  • Ken is responsible for worldwide marketing of HP’s virtualization and systems management products. His experience includes over 20 years in marketing, product management and business development. In addition to IT management software, his background includes enterprise storage and systems.
  • Mark Pinskey is the Product Marketing Manager for HP Network Management Solutions within HP Software and concentrates on HP's Network Management Center software solutions. Mark has been with HP for over 29 years. Prior to HP, Mark has worked within the IT organization for the FBI in Washington D.C.. Mark has spent much time evangelizing HP's Automated Network Management solution and the value proposition this solution provides to customers. Mark holds a dual major B.S. in Political Science and Biology and additional credentialis in Computer Science. Mark resides in the Cleveland, Ohio area with his wife and two grown children.
  • Ramkumar Devanathan works in the IOM-Customer Assist Team (CAT) providing technical assistance to HP Software pre-sales and support teams with Operations Management products including vPV, SHO, VISPI. He has experience of more than 12 years in this product line, working in various roles ranging from developer to product architect.
  • Sonja is a Product Marketing Manager for the HP Software Operations Center portfolio of products. She has 19 years of product marketing, product management, engineering, and consulting experience with privately-held, start-up, and Fortune 500 companies. Sonja has been responsible for positioning, messaging, strategy, and go-to-market programs for both consumer and B2B product lines.  Companies that she has worked for include InstallShield, Loudcloud, Sun Microsystems, and AT&T.


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