Summary

It should be apparent that the new changes to the administration model are going to make lives easier within many organizations. Although the Lync Server Control Panel certainly has its nuances, such as no right-click functionality, the layout and organization are welcome changes. For the tasks that are tedious to perform in a user interface, administrators now have the full power of the Lync Server Management Shell at their disposal. This automates batch tasks or enables organizations to develop scripts to create new users based on PowerShell.

The topology model also helps to reduce the number of errors or anomalies created by requiring administrators to configure servers individually in prior versions. This centralized approach to setup ensures that all pool members are identical and that the topology should work before ever being placed into production. Scope-based policies enable organizations to standardize on global or site policies easily, ensuring that users are not assigned different policies.

A good portion of any Lync Server administrator’s life includes some troubleshooting, so becoming familiar with the most common issues and tools is highly recommended. The new synthetic transactions can help administrators stay on top of problems before they become major issues, and the Lync Server Logging Tool is a valuable resource for diagnosing errors.