Lync Server Control Panel

A fairly drastic shift that started with Lync Server 2010 was the initiative to completely remove the emphasis on managing servers using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). As in Lync Server 2010, the MMC is replaced with the Lync Server Control Panel (LSCP), which is a web-based management interface that uses the Microsoft Silverlight runtime for management tasks. Figure 14.1 shows the layout of the new interface.

Figure 14.1. Lync Server Control Panel interface.

This change has several benefits that are immediately visible to administrators familiar with installing the old management tools on a separate workstation. Installation of the administrative tools took manually going through four to five different installation package prerequisites before the OCS administrative tools could be installed. Instead, the requirement now is that the end user must have the latest Silverlight plugin for the web browser.

From within the Lync Server Control Panel, administrators have a centralized dashboard for all management activities. This includes managing user accounts and policies that control what features are available to users.

The Lync Server Control Panel is divided into several sections, and each section has subsections for specific actions or policies. An overview of the options available within each section is given in the following:

• Users—Enables or disables users for Lync services, assigns policies to users, and moves users between pools.

• Topology—Provides a health overview of the deployment and reports on the status of all services. The different server applications and trusted applications are also displayed in this section.

• IM and Presence—Provides the file transfer, and intelligent IM filter settings.

• Persistent Chat—Sets the configuration for persistent chat categories, policies, and global configuration.

• Voice Routing—Contains settings for dial plans, voice policies, routes, trunk configuration, and PSTN usages. This section also contains test cases for assessing whether dial plans and routing are working as expected.

• Voice Features—Contains settings for the voice applications such as call park and unassigned number routing.

• Response Groups—Provides links to the management interface for Response Group configuration. Queues and groups can be added or modified in this section as well.

• Conferencing—Configures conferencing policies, meeting configuration, dial-in access numbers, and PIN policies.

• Clients—Controls Lync client versioning and updates. Firmware updates for Lync Phone Edition phones are also managed in this section.

• Federation and External Access—Contains external access policies controlling federation and public IM connectivity. Federated domains and allowed public IM networks are configured within this section.

• Monitoring and Archiving—Configures settings for Call Detail Records, Quality of Experience monitoring, and instant message archiving.

• Security—Controls authentication methods for clients and PIN policies for Lync Phone Edition devices.

• Network Configuration—Configures the topology used for Call Admission Control, Media Bypass, and E-911.