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70-665 Exam: A Guide to Lync Server 2010 Administration Part 1 - Foundational Administration

The Microsoft 70-665 Exam was the benchmark certification for IT professionals specializing in the administration of Microsoft Lync Server 2010. Titled "PRO: Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Administrator," this exam validated the skills and knowledge necessary to manage, maintain, and troubleshoot a Lync Server 2010 environment. Although this exam and the technology it covers are now retired, understanding its objectives provides valuable insight into the evolution of unified communications (UC) platforms. Lync Server 2010 laid the architectural groundwork for what would become Skype for Business and, eventually, Microsoft Teams.

This certification was aimed at administrators responsible for the day-to-day operations of a Lync Server 2010 infrastructure. The exam covered a broad range of topics, including core administration, high availability, network configuration, client and device management, and troubleshooting. It was designed to ensure that a certified professional could effectively manage a communications platform that integrated instant messaging, presence, audio/video conferencing, and enterprise voice services. Passing the 70-665 Exam demonstrated a deep understanding of these complex and interconnected components.

This five-part series will serve as a historical guide to the key knowledge domains of the 70-665 Exam. We will deconstruct the core competencies that were required to successfully pass this certification. In this first part, we will focus on the foundational administrative tasks, exploring the Lync Server 2010 architecture, the primary management tools, and the procedures for managing users, policies, and core services like Response Groups. This provides the essential context for the more advanced topics in the subsequent parts of this series.

Core Lync Server 2010 Architectural Components

A solid understanding of the Lync Server 2010 architecture was fundamental to success in the 70-665 Exam. The environment was composed of several distinct server roles working in concert. The Front End Server was the heart of the system, handling user authentication, presence, instant messaging, and conferencing services. In smaller deployments, a Standard Edition server combined all necessary roles onto a single box. For larger organizations, multiple Front End Servers were grouped into an Enterprise Edition pool to provide scalability and high availability.

The Back End Server, a dedicated SQL Server instance, worked in conjunction with an Enterprise Edition Front End pool. It served as the primary database repository for user information, contact lists, conference schedules, and other critical data. This separation of the application logic on the Front End from the data storage on the Back End was a key architectural pattern for scaling the platform. Understanding the relationship between these two roles was crucial for managing and troubleshooting the environment.

Other specialized roles were essential for providing a complete feature set. The Edge Server was deployed in the perimeter network to securely enable communication with external users, federated partners, and public IM networks. The Mediation Server was responsible for transcoding media between Lync and the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) via a gateway. Finally, the Archiving and Monitoring servers provided capabilities for compliance and call quality reporting. The 70-665 Exam required a deep understanding of how these roles interacted to deliver a seamless unified communications experience.

Managing the Lync Server Environment with Control Panel and Management Shell

The 70-665 Exam placed significant emphasis on the two primary tools used for Lync Server 2010 administration: the Lync Server Control Panel and the Lync Server Management Shell. The Control Panel was a web-based graphical user interface (GUI) that provided an intuitive way to perform common administrative tasks. It allowed administrators to manage users, configure policies, set up response groups, and view the overall health of the topology. Its user-friendly, task-oriented design made it accessible for administrators who were not yet proficient with command-line interfaces.

For power users and automation, the Lync Server Management Shell was the tool of choice. This was a dedicated instance of Windows PowerShell that came with a comprehensive set of cmdlets (command-lets) specifically for managing Lync Server. The Management Shell offered a level of granularity and control that was not always available in the Control Panel. It was essential for scripting repetitive tasks, performing bulk operations on users, and accessing advanced configuration settings. Proficiency in the Management Shell was a non-negotiable skill for anyone preparing for the 70-665 Exam.

A key administrative concept tested was Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). Lync Server 2010 integrated with Active Directory to provide a predefined set of administrative roles, such as CsAdministrator, CsUserAdministrator, and CsVoiceAdministrator. By adding administrators to these security groups, you could delegate specific administrative tasks without granting full control over the entire environment. Understanding how to use RBAC to create a secure and partitioned administrative model was a core competency for any Lync administrator.

Administering Lync Users and Rights

The day-to-day management of users was a central theme of the 70-665 Exam. The process of enabling a user for Lync involved taking an existing Active Directory user account and extending its attributes with Lync-specific settings. This could be done through the Control Panel's "Enable Users" wizard or by using the Enable-CsUser cmdlet in the Management Shell. When a user was enabled, they had to be assigned to a specific Front End pool, which would become their home server for registration and services.

Once a user was enabled, an administrator could assign various policies and features to them. This included determining their conferencing policy, voice policy, and whether they were enabled for Enterprise Voice. The process of configuring a user's phone number, or Line URI, was a critical step in enabling them for enterprise telephony features. All of these settings could be managed on a per-user basis, allowing for granular control over the capabilities of each individual in the organization.

Simple URLs were another important concept for user access. These were easy-to-remember URLs that provided access to key Lync features. The "Meet" Simple URL was used for joining conferences, while the "Dialin" Simple URL provided access to the dial-in conferencing webpage. A third, "Admin" Simple URL, provided access to the Lync Server Control Panel itself. Configuring these URLs correctly in DNS and in the Lync topology was an essential administrative task that was covered in the 70-665 Exam.

Configuring User and Device Policies

Policies were the primary mechanism in Lync Server 2010 for controlling the user experience and enforcing organizational rules. The 70-665 Exam required a thorough understanding of the different types of policies and how they were applied. Policies governed nearly every aspect of the Lync environment, including conferencing, external user access, client versions, archiving, and voice features. An administrator had to be able to create and modify these policies to meet specific business and security requirements.

Lync Server 2010 used a hierarchical policy model with different scopes. A "Global" policy was the default policy that applied to all users in the deployment unless a more specific policy was assigned. "Site" policies could be created and applied to all users within a specific physical site, as defined in the Lync topology. Finally, "Tag" policies, also known as per-user policies, could be created and assigned directly to individual users or groups of users. This structure allowed for both broad and granular control.

A common scenario presented in the 70-665 Exam would involve a request to restrict a certain capability for a specific group of users. For example, you might be asked to prevent a group of temporary employees from using video conferencing or from federating with external contacts. To solve this, you would need to create a new conferencing or external access policy with the desired restrictions and then apply that per-user policy to the relevant user accounts. Understanding this policy precedence and application was critical.

Managing Response Groups

The Response Group Service (RGS) was a powerful feature in Lync Server 2010 that provided basic call routing and queuing capabilities. It was designed for managing calls to internal departments like a help desk, customer service line, or sales queue. The 70-665 Exam required administrators to know how to configure and manage this service. RGS allowed you to create a phone number that, when called, would route the call to a designated group of agents based on a defined set of rules.

The configuration of the Response Group Service involved several key components. An Agent Group was a list of Lync-enabled users who would answer the incoming calls. A Queue was used to hold calls if all agents were busy. You could configure settings for the queue, such as the maximum number of calls and what should happen when a call times out. Finally, a Workflow defined the entire call flow logic, including business hours, welcome messages, and how calls should be routed to the agents (e.g., in parallel or serially).

Setting up a response group involved creating and linking these different components together. For instance, you would first create your agent group, then create a queue, and finally create a workflow that uses that queue and agent group. The workflow would be assigned a unique phone number. An administrator needed to be proficient in using the Lync Server Control Panel or the Management Shell cmdlets (such as New-CsRgsQueue) to build and manage these workflows to meet specific business requirements for departmental call handling.

Understanding Conferencing in Lync Server 2010

Conferencing was one of the most powerful features of Lync Server 2010, and its administration was a key topic on the 70-665 Exam. Lync supported multiple conferencing modalities, allowing users to seamlessly escalate a conversation from instant messaging to a multi-party audio or video call, and even add desktop or application sharing. This rich collaboration experience was enabled by several components running on the Front End Server, including the A/V Conferencing Server and the Web Conferencing Server.

Administrators had granular control over the conferencing experience through conferencing policies. These policies allowed you to enable or disable specific features for users. For example, you could use a conferencing policy to prevent certain users from organizing conferences that included external participants, or to disable their ability to use application sharing. You could also control the maximum meeting size and the amount of content that could be stored for a meeting.

Dial-in conferencing was another important feature to manage. This allowed users to join the audio portion of a Lync conference from a standard telephone by dialing a public phone number. An administrator was responsible for configuring the dial-in access numbers, setting up the conference attendant, and managing the PIN policies that users needed to authenticate as a meeting organizer. Ensuring that this service was correctly configured and highly available was a common administrative responsibility tested on the 70-665 Exam.

Preparing for Administration Questions on the 70-665 Exam

To succeed on the foundational administration portion of the 70-665 Exam, a candidate needed a blend of conceptual knowledge and practical skills. The exam questions were often scenario-based, presenting a business requirement or a problem and asking for the correct administrative action or PowerShell cmdlet to address it. For example, a question might describe a new corporate policy about meeting recordings and ask you to identify the specific setting within a conferencing policy that would enforce it.

Hands-on experience was invaluable. The best way to prepare was to build a lab environment and work through the common administrative tasks repeatedly. This included creating users, assigning policies, setting up dial plans and voice routes, and configuring response groups. Using both the Lync Server Control Panel and the Lync Server Management Shell for these tasks was crucial, as the exam could ask questions related to either tool.

A deep understanding of the PowerShell cmdlets was particularly important. Candidates were often expected to know the correct syntax for common cmdlets like Get-CsUser, Set-CsUser, New-CsConferencingPolicy, and Grant-CsVoicePolicy. Being able to read a PowerShell command and understand what it would do, or identify an error in a given script, was a skill that separated successful candidates from unsuccessful ones. Memorization was not enough; a practical understanding of how these commands were used to manage the Lync environment was essential.

The Importance of Availability for Unified Communications

For a real-time communications platform like Lync Server 2010, high availability and data resiliency were not optional features; they were core requirements. The 70-665 Exam recognized this by dedicating a significant portion of its objectives to these topics. Unlike email, where a short delay in delivery is often acceptable, services like voice calls, video conferences, and instant messaging are expected to be available instantly and reliably. Any downtime could lead to significant disruptions in business operations, making a robust availability strategy paramount.

It was important for administrators preparing for the 70-665 Exam to clearly differentiate between high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR). High availability refers to the mechanisms that provide service continuity within a single datacenter in the event of a component failure, such as a server or a network switch. Disaster recovery, on the other hand, refers to the ability to restore service in a different geographical location in the event of a site-wide disaster, such as a power outage or a natural disaster. Lync Server 2010 provided tools and architectural patterns to address both of these needs.

The skills tested in this domain required an administrator to not only understand the concepts but also to be able to implement, manage, and maintain the features that provided this resilience. This included managing the core configuration store, ensuring the availability of user-facing services through pooling, and protecting the data generated by the system, such as call records and archived instant messages. A failure in any of these areas could compromise the integrity and availability of the entire platform.

Managing the Central Management Store

The Central Management Store (CMS) was the authoritative repository for all Lync Server 2010 topology and configuration data. It was hosted on a SQL Server database on the Back End Server of the first Enterprise Edition pool or on a Standard Edition server. A deep understanding of the CMS was critical for the 70-665 Exam, as its health and availability were essential for the entire Lync deployment. Any changes made through the Control Panel or Management Shell were first written to the CMS.

From the CMS, configuration changes were replicated out to all the other Lync servers in the topology. This replication was managed by the Lync Server Master Replicator Agent and File Transfer Agent services. An administrator needed to know how to monitor the status of this replication using cmdlets like Get-CsManagementStoreReplicationStatus to ensure that all servers had a consistent and up-to-date copy of the configuration. A failure in replication could lead to inconsistent behavior across the environment.

Given its critical nature, managing the CMS also involved knowing the procedures for backup, restoration, and recovery. In the event of a failure of the server hosting the CMS, an administrator would need to be able to bring it back online or, in a disaster scenario, move it to a new location. The Move-CsManagementServer cmdlet was the tool for relocating the CMS. The 70-665 Exam would often present scenarios testing an administrator's knowledge of these critical recovery procedures.

High Availability for Front End Pools

For user-facing services, high availability in Lync Server 2010 was primarily achieved through the use of Enterprise Edition Front End pools. A pool consisted of multiple Front End servers working together to serve a common group of users. If one server in the pool failed, the other servers would automatically take over its workload, providing a seamless experience for the users. This required a deep understanding of how client traffic was distributed and how the pool maintained its internal state.

Client sign-in and SIP traffic were distributed across the servers in a pool using DNS Load Balancing. This involved creating multiple A records in DNS for the pool's fully qualified domain name, each pointing to a different Front End server. The Lync client would retrieve all these IP addresses and connect to one of them. If that server was unavailable, the client would automatically try the next one in the list. This provided a simple yet effective mechanism for client-side failover.

However, certain types of traffic, specifically the HTTP-based traffic for web services like conferencing content and address book downloads, required a Hardware Load Balancer (HLB). The HLB would sit in front of the pool and distribute this web traffic across all the active Front End servers. The 70-665 Exam required administrators to understand the difference between these two load balancing methods and know which type of traffic each one handled. A misconfiguration of either could severely impact service availability.

Implementing Archiving and Monitoring Services

Data resiliency in Lync Server 2010 was not just about configuration and service availability; it also involved protecting the data generated by the platform. The 70-665 Exam covered the administration of two key server roles for this purpose: the Archiving Server and the Monitoring Server. The Archiving Server was designed to meet compliance and regulatory requirements by capturing and storing all instant messaging conversations and meeting content.

An administrator needed to know how to deploy the Archiving Server role and configure archiving policies. These policies could be set to control whether archiving was enabled or disabled and whether critical archiving was enforced. When critical archiving was enabled, Lync communications would be blocked if the Archiving Server was unavailable, ensuring that no un-archived conversations could take place. This was a crucial setting for organizations in regulated industries.

The Monitoring Server provided a different kind of data resiliency by capturing vital operational data. It collected Call Detail Records (CDRs) for all peer-to-peer and conference sessions, which provided detailed information for usage tracking and billing. It also collected Quality of Experience (QoE) data, which contained detailed metrics about the quality of audio and video sessions, such as jitter and packet loss. This data was invaluable for troubleshooting call quality issues and was stored in its own SQL database.

Voice Resiliency Features in Lync Server 2010

For organizations that relied on Lync Server 2010 for their telephony needs, voice resiliency was a top priority. The 70-665 Exam tested an administrator's knowledge of the features designed to maintain voice services, especially for branch office users, in the event of a network outage. The primary solution for this was the Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA). An SBA was a physical device located in a branch office that contained a small Lync Server registrar and a PSTN gateway.

During normal operations, users in the branch office would register with the central Lync pool over the Wide Area Network (WAN). However, if the WAN link failed, the SBA would take over. Branch office users would automatically re-register with the SBA, which would allow them to continue making and receiving calls to and from the PSTN. The SBA ensured that basic telephony services were always available, even when disconnected from the central site.

In addition to SBAs, Lync Server 2010 had other voice resiliency features. Call routing could be configured with failover routes, so if a primary PSTN gateway was unavailable, calls would be automatically rerouted to a secondary gateway. While full site-to-site disaster recovery with pool failover was a feature that was more fully developed in later versions of Lync, the concepts of geographically dispersed pools and resilient voice routing were foundational elements that an administrator needed to understand for the 70-665 Exam.

Backing Up and Restoring Lync Server 2010

A comprehensive data resiliency strategy must include a solid backup and restore plan. The 70-665 Exam required administrators to know which components of a Lync Server 2010 deployment needed to be backed up and how to perform the necessary restoration procedures. The most critical component to back up was the Central Management Store, as it contained the entire configuration of the topology. Regular backups of the SQL databases for the CMS, archiving, and monitoring roles were essential.

In addition to the databases, user-specific data also needed to be backed up. This included user contact lists and conference information, which were stored on the Back End database. The Export-CsUserData cmdlet could be used to export this data for a specific user or pool. Response Group configurations were another key piece of data that needed to be backed up using the Export-CsRgsConfiguration cmdlet, as they were not stored in the main databases.

Knowing how to restore this data was just as important. In the event of a user's contact list becoming corrupted, an administrator would need to use the Import-CsUserData cmdlet to restore it from a backup. The Update-CsAddressBook cmdlet was used to force the address book service to regenerate its files. The 70-665 Exam would often test these operational procedures, requiring a candidate to know the correct tools and cmdlets for both backing up and restoring the critical data that powered the Lync services.

Approaching HA/DR Scenarios on the 70-665 Exam

The questions on the 70-665 Exam related to high availability and disaster recovery were typically presented as business scenarios. A question might describe a company's requirements for uptime and data retention and ask you to design an appropriate Lync Server 2010 solution. This required you to synthesize your knowledge of all the available resiliency features and choose the correct combination to meet the stated goals.

For example, a scenario might ask for a solution that provides 99.9% uptime for internal users and supports continued PSTN calling for a branch office during a WAN failure. The correct answer would involve proposing an Enterprise Edition Front End pool with DNS load balancing and an HLB at the central site, and a Survivable Branch Appliance at the branch office. You would need to be able to justify why each component was necessary to meet the requirements.

To prepare for these questions, it was not enough to just memorize the features. You had to understand the specific problem that each feature was designed to solve. When does DNS load balancing suffice, and when is an HLB required? What is the trigger for activating an SBA? What are the dependencies for the Archiving Server? By building a strong conceptual understanding of these trade-offs and dependencies, a candidate could confidently analyze any scenario and select the most appropriate and effective solution.

Fundamentals of Lync Server 2010 Networking

The performance of a real-time communications platform like Lync Server 2010 was profoundly dependent on the quality of the underlying network. For this reason, the 70-665 Exam dedicated a significant portion of its objectives to network management. An administrator needed to have a strong foundational knowledge of networking concepts as they applied to voice and video traffic. This included a deep understanding of factors like latency (delay), jitter (variability in delay), and packet loss, and how each of these could degrade the user experience.

Lync Server 2010 generated several distinct types of network traffic. Signaling traffic, which was used for setting up and tearing down calls, used the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This traffic was relatively small but very sensitive to delay. The actual voice and video conversations used the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) for media streaming. This media traffic consumed significant bandwidth and was highly sensitive to jitter and packet loss. Finally, web-based traffic for conferencing and address book services used HTTPS. The 70-665 Exam required you to know the purpose of each traffic type and its network requirements.

An administrator's role included working with network teams to ensure that the network was properly configured to support these different traffic types. This often involved implementing Quality of Service (QoS), which is a mechanism for prioritizing real-time media traffic over less sensitive data traffic. While the deep configuration of network routers and switches was outside the scope of the exam, a Lync administrator needed to know the recommended port ranges for Lync traffic and be able to provide these requirements to the networking team.

Configuring the Edge Server Role

The Edge Server was one of the most critical and complex components in a Lync Server 2010 topology, and its configuration was a major topic on the 70-665 Exam. The primary purpose of the Edge Server was to provide a secure boundary between the internal Lync deployment and the public internet. This enabled a variety of external communication scenarios, including allowing remote users to connect, federating with other organizations, and connecting to public instant messaging networks.

The Edge Server consisted of three distinct services, each with a specific function. The Access Edge service handled all SIP signaling traffic for external users, providing a secure proxy for authentication and routing. The Web Conferencing Edge service proxied web conferencing traffic, allowing external users to join meetings and view shared content. The A/V Edge service was responsible for securely relaying the audio and video media streams for external users. Understanding the role of each of these services was essential.

Deploying an Edge Server had strict networking requirements. It needed to be deployed in a perimeter network (also known as a DMZ) and required two network interfaces: one facing the internal network and one facing the public internet. It also required several public IP addresses and specific firewall rules to be opened. Furthermore, a significant part of the configuration involved obtaining and assigning public certificates to the Edge Server to secure the communication. The 70-665 Exam would frequently test these complex setup and configuration details.

Managing Call Admission Control

In organizations with a centralized Lync deployment serving multiple branch offices over a Wide Area Network (WAN), managing bandwidth was a critical concern. Real-time audio and video conversations could easily overwhelm a constrained WAN link, leading to poor quality for all users. Call Admission Control (CAC) was the feature in Lync Server 2010 designed to prevent this problem, and its configuration was a key skill tested on the 70-665 Exam.

CAC worked by tracking the amount of bandwidth being consumed by real-time media on specific network links and preventing new calls from being established if they would exceed a predefined limit. The configuration of CAC involved defining the network topology within Lync. An administrator had to create Network Regions (representing major hubs like datacenters), Network Sites (representing locations like branch offices), and associate IP subnets with each site. This allowed Lync to know the physical location of every client.

Once the topology was defined, you could create Inter-Site Policies. These policies defined the bandwidth limits for audio and video sessions between any two sites. For example, you could create a policy that limited the total bandwidth for all concurrent calls between your main office and a small branch office to 1.5 Mbps. If a user tried to start a new call that would violate this limit, they would receive a notification, and the call would either be blocked or automatically routed over the PSTN, if configured.

Understanding and Configuring Media Bypass

The Mediation Server plays a key role in Enterprise Voice by processing all media traffic that goes to and from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) gateway. In the default configuration, the media path for a PSTN call would flow from the user's client, to the Mediation Server, and then to the PSTN gateway. Media Bypass was an optimization feature in Lync Server 2010 that allowed for a more direct media path, and the 70-665 Exam required administrators to know how and when to implement it.

When Media Bypass was enabled and certain conditions were met, the media for a PSTN call could flow directly from the user's client to the PSTN gateway, completely bypassing the Mediation Server. The Mediation Server would still handle the SIP signaling to set up the call, but it would get out of the way of the actual media stream. This had two major benefits: it reduced the processing load on the Mediation Server, and it could significantly improve call quality by eliminating a potential point of latency and failure from the media path.

Configuring Media Bypass involved enabling it globally or on a per-site basis and ensuring that there was direct network connectivity between the Lync clients and the PSTN gateways. The feature also had its own built-in form of Call Admission Control to determine if there was sufficient bandwidth on the direct path. Understanding the logic that Lync used to decide whether a call could bypass the Mediation Server was a key piece of knowledge for the 70-665 Exam.

Managing Location Information Services

A critical aspect of providing Enterprise Voice, particularly in the United States, was support for Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1). This is the ability to provide the emergency dispatcher with the physical location of the person making a 911 call. Lync Server 2010's Location Information Service (LIS) was the feature that provided this capability, and its configuration was a required skill for the 70-665 Exam.

LIS worked by creating a database that mapped network elements to physical street addresses. An administrator was responsible for populating this database. You could add mappings for IP subnets, wireless access points, network switches, and even individual switch ports. When a Lync client connected to the network, it would send its network information to the Locus Information Service, which would then return the corresponding physical address.

This location information was then included in any emergency call placed from the client. When the call reached the E9-1-1 service provider via the PSTN gateway, the location data was used to route the call to the correct Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) and to display the caller's address to the dispatcher. Properly configuring LIS was a complex but vital task for ensuring the safety of users and meeting legal requirements for telephony systems.

Enterprise Voice Routing and Configuration

The core of Lync Server 2010's telephony capabilities was its sophisticated call routing engine. The 70-665 Exam required administrators to have a mastery of the components that controlled how calls were routed from a Lync user to the PSTN. This involved configuring a logical pathway that started with the user and ended at the PSTN gateway.

The process began with Dial Plans, which were used to normalize phone numbers into a standard E.164 format. Next, Voice Policies were assigned to users to define what calling features they had access to, such as whether they could make long-distance or international calls. A voice policy was associated with one or more PSTN Usages, which were simply records that linked the policy to a specific call route. Finally, Routes would match a dialed number pattern and direct the call to a specific PSTN Gateway.

An administrator needed to be able to design and implement a complete call routing strategy using these interconnected components. For example, to allow a group of users to make international calls, you would need to create a new voice policy, a new PSTN usage for international calls, and a new route that defined the pattern for international numbers and pointed to the appropriate gateway. Understanding how to build and troubleshoot this logical chain was essential for the 70-665 Exam.

Tackling Network Questions on the 70-665 Exam

The networking questions on the 70-665 Exam were often some of the most challenging because they required a deep understanding of both Lync Server configuration and general networking principles. The questions would frequently present you with a network diagram or a description of a company's physical topology and ask you to design a solution for a specific problem, such as enabling external access or managing WAN bandwidth.

To prepare, a candidate needed to be very comfortable with the concepts of IP addressing, subnets, firewalls, NAT, and DNS. For Edge Server scenarios, you had to know the required firewall ports and certificate configurations like the back of your hand. For Call Admission Control scenarios, you needed to be able to read a topology diagram and correctly translate it into Lync Network Regions, Sites, and Policies.

Practice was key. It was highly recommended to build a lab environment that included a simulated perimeter network to practice deploying an Edge Server. Similarly, creating a lab with multiple network sites (even if they were just virtual subnets) allowed you to practice the configuration of CAC and Media Bypass. By working through these complex configurations in a hands-on manner, you could build the confidence and expertise needed to dissect and solve any networking scenario presented on the 70-665 Exam.

Overview of Lync 2010 Clients

A comprehensive understanding of the various Lync 2010 client applications was a core requirement for administrators taking the 70-665 Exam. The primary client was Microsoft Lync 2010, the full-featured desktop application for Windows. This client provided the complete unified communications experience, including instant messaging and presence, audio and video calling, and rich conferencing capabilities like desktop sharing and whiteboarding. It was the main interface through which most users interacted with the Lync environment, making its management a top priority.

Beyond the main desktop client, several specialized clients existed to serve different needs. The Lync 2010 Attendant was a console application designed for receptionists and administrative assistants who needed to manage multiple conversations and call transfers simultaneously. For users without the full client installed, or for external participants, the Lync Web App provided access to conferencing features directly through a web browser. Additionally, Lync Mobile clients were available for major smartphone platforms, providing core features like IM, presence, and single-number reach on the go.

Each of these clients had a slightly different feature set and use case. An administrator preparing for the 70-665 Exam needed to know the capabilities and limitations of each one. For example, you would need to know that the Lync Web App was primarily for attending meetings and did not support all the features of the full desktop client. This knowledge was essential for providing proper user support and for making informed decisions about client deployment strategies.

Deploying Lync 2010 Clients

The 70-665 Exam tested an administrator's knowledge of the methods for deploying and configuring Lync clients across an organization. For large-scale deployments, manual installation was not feasible. Therefore, administrators needed to be proficient with automated deployment methods. A common approach was to use Group Policy in Active Directory to push the Lync 2010 installer to all domain-joined computers. For organizations with a more advanced software management infrastructure, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) could be used to provide more granular control over the deployment process.

A critical aspect of client deployment was understanding the client bootstrapping and sign-in process. This was a frequent source of trouble and a key topic on the exam. When a Lync client started for the first time, it needed to automatically discover the Lync Front End server to connect to. This discovery process relied heavily on specific DNS records. The client would perform DNS lookups for special SRV (Service) records, such as _sipinternaltls._tcp for internal connections and _sip._tls for external connections.

An administrator was responsible for ensuring that these DNS records were created correctly and pointed to the appropriate Lync server or pool. A failure in the sign-in process could almost always be traced back to a misconfiguration in DNS. The 70-665 Exam would often present scenarios describing a client sign-in failure and require the candidate to identify the missing or incorrect DNS record as the root cause.

Configuring Client Policies and Settings

Administrators had extensive control over the features and behavior of the Lync client through a system of policies and in-band provisioning. The 70-665 Exam required a deep understanding of these configuration mechanisms. We have previously discussed policies like conferencing and voice policies, but there were also policies that directly governed the client application itself. The Client Version policy, for example, was used to control which versions of the Lync client were allowed to connect to the servers. This was useful for enforcing upgrades or blocking outdated clients.

In-band provisioning was the mechanism by which the Lync server would push down a wide range of configuration settings to the client upon sign-in. This allowed an administrator to centrally manage the client experience for all users. Settings that could be controlled through in-band provisioning included privacy mode configurations, phone control settings, and enabling or disabling specific features within the client UI. These settings were managed using cmdlets like New-CsClientPolicy and Set-CsClientPolicy in the Management Shell.

Another important client-related service to manage was the Address Book Service. This service generated address book files that the Lync client would download, enabling users to search for anyone in the organization. An administrator needed to know how to manage the address book generation process and how to use the Update-CsAddressBook cmdlet to force an update. Properly managing these policies and settings was key to providing a consistent and controlled user experience.

Managing Lync-Certified Devices

The quality of a user's voice and video experience in Lync was heavily dependent on the quality of the endpoint device they were using, such as a headset, speakerphone, or IP phone. The 70-665 Exam stressed the importance of using Lync-optimized devices, which were devices that had been officially certified by Microsoft to work seamlessly with Lync Server 2010. These devices underwent rigorous testing to ensure they provided high-quality audio and plug-and-play functionality.

For personal use, USB-attached devices like headsets were the most common. But for telephony-heavy users or for common areas, Lync-optimized IP phones were often deployed. These phones ran a special version of the Lync client, called Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition, and connected directly to the Lync server. An administrator was responsible for managing the deployment and ongoing maintenance of these devices.

This included managing the DHCP options required for the phones to locate the Lync server and sign in. It also involved managing the device firmware. Lync Server 2010 included a Device Update Service that could be used to centrally test, approve, and deploy firmware updates to all the IP phones in the organization. The 70-665 Exam required knowledge of these device management procedures, including how to configure Common Area Phones, which were phones intended for use in shared spaces like lobbies or conference rooms.

Configuring External and Remote User Access

Enabling secure access for users outside the corporate network was a major administrative task and a core topic of the 70-665 Exam. This functionality was entirely dependent on the proper deployment and configuration of the Edge Server. When a remote user tried to sign in, their Lync client would use the external DNS records to connect to the Access Edge service. The Edge Server would then act as a secure proxy, relaying the sign-in and signaling traffic to the internal Front End servers.

Media connectivity for remote users was handled by the A/V Edge service. This service used industry-standard protocols like ICE, STUN, and TURN to help the remote client establish a media path through firewalls and Network Address Translation (NAT) devices. Understanding how these protocols worked to enable audio and video for remote users was a key piece of technical knowledge for the exam.

An administrator had granular control over what remote users could do through external access policies. These policies could be configured to control whether remote users were allowed at all, and if so, whether they could communicate with federated partners or public IM networks. The 70-665 Exam would test an administrator's ability to configure these policies to meet specific security requirements, such as enabling remote access for employees while blocking all public IM connectivity.

Managing Client Security Features

Security was a fundamental design principle of Lync Server 2010, and the 70-665 Exam required a solid understanding of the features that protected communications. All SIP signaling traffic between the client and the server was encrypted by default using Transport Layer Security (TLS). This ensured that all sign-in credentials, contact lists, and instant messages were protected from eavesdropping on the network.

The real-time media streams for audio and video were secured using the Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP). SRTP provided encryption and authentication for the RTP packets, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of the media conversations. An administrator needed to understand that this end-to-end security model was a core part of the Lync architecture and that it was enabled by default.

A critical prerequisite for this security model was the proper deployment of certificates. All Lync servers that clients connected to, including Front End and Edge servers, required a valid and trusted certificate. The Lync client would not connect to a server if it did not trust its certificate. Therefore, a Lync administrator needed to be proficient in requesting, installing, and managing these certificates. The 70-665 Exam would frequently include troubleshooting scenarios related to expired or misconfigured certificates.

Preparing for Client and Device Scenarios on the 70-665 Exam

The questions on the 70-665 Exam related to clients and devices were highly practical and often focused on the client sign-in process and troubleshooting connectivity issues. A typical question would describe a user who is unable to sign in and provide a set of symptoms. You would then be asked to identify the most likely cause, which was often a DNS, certificate, or policy misconfiguration.

To prepare effectively, it was essential to have a detailed mental map of the entire client bootstrapping and sign-in flow, for both internal and external users. You needed to know which DNS records were queried, which servers were contacted, and how certificates were used at each step. This would allow you to quickly diagnose the scenarios presented in the exam questions.

Hands-on practice was once again indispensable. Setting up a Lync client and intentionally breaking parts of the configuration (like deleting a DNS record or un-assigning a certificate) was an excellent way to learn the specific error messages and symptoms associated with each type of failure. Similarly, creating and applying different client and external access policies in a lab environment would solidify your understanding of how these controls worked in practice.

Introduction to Lync Server 2010 Troubleshooting

The final, and perhaps most critical, domain of the 70-665 Exam was troubleshooting. This is where all the knowledge from the previous domains came together. An administrator's value is often most apparent when things go wrong, and their ability to quickly and efficiently diagnose and resolve issues is paramount. A systematic approach to troubleshooting was essential. This involved clearly defining the problem, gathering relevant data, analyzing that data to form a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and finally, implementing a solution.

A deep understanding of the Lync Server 2010 architecture and the flow of signaling and media traffic was the foundation of effective troubleshooting. Without knowing how the different server roles were supposed to interact, it was nearly impossible to identify where a failure had occurred. For example, to troubleshoot a call to an external user, you needed to visualize the path of the SIP signaling from the internal user to the Front End, then to the Edge, and across the internet, as well as the separate path for the media traffic through the A/V Edge service.

The 70-665 Exam tested this skill by presenting complex troubleshooting scenarios. The questions were designed to assess not just your knowledge of the tools, but also your logical problem-solving abilities. A successful candidate needed to demonstrate a methodical process for isolating the root cause of a problem, whether it was related to client connectivity, call quality, or conferencing.

Key Troubleshooting Tools for Lync Server 2010

Microsoft provided a powerful set of tools for troubleshooting Lync Server 2010, and proficiency with these tools was a core requirement for the 70-665 Exam. The primary tool for deep diagnostics was the Lync Server Logging Tool. This application, which could be run on any Lync server, allowed you to capture highly detailed trace logs for specific server components and scenarios. For example, you could enable logging for the "SIPStack" and "UserServices" components to trace a user's sign-in attempt.

The log files generated by the Logging Tool were in a binary format and were not human-readable. To analyze them, you had to use a companion tool called Snooper. Snooper would parse the log files and display the messages in a formatted, color-coded interface that made it easy to follow call flows, view SIP messages, and identify errors. The ability to read and interpret a Snooper trace was one of the most important advanced troubleshooting skills for a Lync administrator.

For proactive testing, Lync Server 2010 provided a set of PowerShell cmdlets called Synthetic Transactions. These were cmdlets, such as Test-CsUserSignIn or Test-CsAVConference, that simulated common user actions. An administrator could run these synthetic transactions on a regular schedule to verify that all core Lync functionalities were working correctly. If a test failed, it would provide an early warning of a potential problem before users were impacted.

Troubleshooting Internal Client Connectivity

One of the most common support issues an administrator would face was a user being unable to sign in to the Lync client from within the corporate network. The 70-665 Exam would frequently test the troubleshooting steps for this scenario. The process always began with the basics: verifying that the user's account was enabled for Lync and that they were entering the correct sign-in address and password.

If the basics were correct, the next area to investigate was almost always DNS. As discussed previously, the Lync client relies on specific SRV records to discover the Front End server. An administrator would need to use tools like nslookup to verify that the _sipinternaltls._tcp SRV record existed and resolved to the correct FQDN of the Lync pool. If DNS was correct, the next step was to check for certificate issues. The client must trust the certificate presented by the Front End server, so checking for expired or misconfigured certificates was crucial.

Other potential issues included problems with the user's account in Active Directory, policy misconfigurations, or issues with the Front End server itself. Using the Lync Server Logging Tool on the client machine or on the Front End server during a sign-in attempt would provide the detailed error messages needed to pinpoint the exact cause of the failure.

Conclusion

Success on the 70-665 Exam was the culmination of deep conceptual knowledge and extensive hands-on practice. As you approached the exam, the final preparation should have focused on consolidating your understanding of the entire Lync Server 2010 ecosystem and practicing your troubleshooting methodology. Reviewing the signal and media flows for different scenarios (internal calls, external conferences, PSTN calls) was a great way to reinforce your architectural knowledge.

The exam questions were designed to mimic real-world administrative challenges. When faced with a complex troubleshooting scenario, it was important to read the question carefully and not jump to conclusions. Break the problem down logically. What is the scope of the problem (one user or many)? What is the specific feature that is failing? Where in the architecture does that feature operate? This logical process would help you eliminate incorrect answers and focus on the most likely cause.

Ultimately, the 70-665 Exam was a test of a candidate's ability to be a competent and effective Lync Server 2010 administrator. While the technology is now part of history, the skills it tested—a deep understanding of a complex product, a systematic approach to problem-solving, and the ability to use specialized diagnostic tools—remain timeless and valuable for any IT professional.

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