Topic Last Modified: 2012-10-22

Many customers adopt a rollout program inside of their enterprises in which users are progressively migrated from Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to Lync Server 2013. The administrators at these companies will care about monitoring both versions of Lync Server to help ensure that all of their end users are getting the best possible communication experience. For this scenario, the Lync Server 2013 Management Pack supports a side-by-side migration path with the Lync Server 2010 Management Pack.

In the Lync Server 2010, Lync Server computers were discovered through the topology document stored with the Central Management store. In this configuration, a single computer would report the existence of all the other Lync Server computers.

The management packs for Lync Server 2013 now use machine-level discovery instead of the central discovery mechanism that was used in Lync Server 2010. This means that each System Center agent essentially discovers itself and reports its existence to System Center Operations Manager. Using machine-level discovery simplifies administration of your System Center infrastructure and also enables different versions of the Lync Server management packs (for example, management packs for Lync Server 2010 and management packs for Lync Server 2013) to coexist more easily.

To support this migration, you will first need to upgrade your existing Lync Server 2010 monitoring to avoid gaps in coverage. To do this, elect an existing Lync Server 2010 computer to service the Central Discovery script for the Lync Server 2010 before upgrading your Central Management store to Lync Server 2013. This is a four-step process:

  1. Upgrade the Lync Server 2010 Management Packs to Cumulative Update 7.

  2. Instruct a Lync Server 2010 computer to run the Central Discovery script.

  3. Override the Central Discovery Candidate in the Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Management Pack.

  4. Verify that the new Central Discovery Candidate has been discovered.

Instructing a Lync Server 2010 Computer to Run the Central Discovery script

To nominate a non-Central Management store computer (for example, a Lync Server Front End) server to handle central discovery, you will need to create the following registry key on the non-Central Management store server:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Real-Time Communications\Health\CentralDiscoveryCandidate

You can create this registry key by completing the following procedure:

  1. Click Start and then click Run.

  2. In the Run dialog box, type regedit and then press ENTER.

  3. In Registry Editor, expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, expand SOFTWARE, expand Microsoft, and then expand Real-Time Communications.

  4. Right-click Health, click New, and then click Key. If the Health key does not exist, then right-click Real-Time Communications, point to New, and then click Key. When the new key is created, type Health, and then press ENTER.

    After the new key has been created, type CentralDiscoveryCandidate and then press ENTER to rename the key.

It may take the computer several hours to pick up this change. To make the change take effect immediately, stop and then restart the Health Agent service. To restart the Health Agent service, complete the following procedure on the Lync Server 2010 computer:

  1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.

  2. In the console window, type the following command and then press ENTER:

    Copy Code
    Net stop HealthService
    
  3. You will see a message that states "The System Center Management service is stopping," followed by a second message that tells you that the service has been stopped. After the service has stopped, you can restart it by typing the following command and pressing ENTER:

    Copy Code
    Net start HealthService
    

Overriding the Central Discovery Candidate in the Lync Server 2010 Management Pack

After instructing a Lync Server 2010 computer to report on Lync Server 2010 computers, you will need to inform the Lync Server 2010 Management Pack about this change as well. To do this, you will need to create an override in the Management Pack. That can be done by completing the following procedure:

  1. In the Operations Manager console, click Authoring.

  2. On the Authoring tab, expand Management Pack Objects, click Object Discoveries, and then click Scope.

  3. In the Scope Management Pack Objects dialog box, select the item with the Target LS Discovery Candidate and then click OK. Note that LS Discovery Candidate will appear only if you have installed the Lync Server 2010 Management Pack.

  4. In the Operations Manager console, right-click LS Discovery Candidate, point to Overrides, point to Override the Object Discovery, and then click For all objects of class: LS Discovery Candidate.

  5. In the Override Properties dialog box, select the Override check box next to the parameter Central Discovery WatcherNode Fqdn. Type the fully qualified domain name of the Lync Server 2010 computer in the Override Value and Effective Value boxes. Select the Enforced check box and click OK.

After you have created the override, you need to restart the health service on the Root Management Server. To restart the health service, complete the following procedure on the Root Management Server:

  1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.

  2. In the console window, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

    Copy Code
    Net stop HealthService
    
  3. You will see a message stating that "The System Center Management service is stopping," followed by a second message that tells you that the service has been stopped. After the service has stopped, you can then restart it by typing the following command and pressing ENTER:

    Copy Code
    Net start HealthService
    

Verifying that the New Central Discovery Candidate Was Discovered

The final step before upgrading Central Management store is to make sure that the new central discovery candidate was discovered by the Lync Server 2010 Management Pack. To do this, open the Operations Manager console and then click Monitoring. On the Monitoring tab, expand Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Health, expand Topology Discovery, and then click Discovery State View. Verify that a row in the display has a Path that lists the fully qualified domain name of the central discovery candidate. You should also verify that the computer state is reported as Healthy.