This quick blog snip -it is not intended to be a deep dive into Lync Server components but rather a quick reminder of a subtle change that could have a big impact on your migration.
Since the inception of the Communications Server solution, at least starting with OCS, the client executable file was always branded communicator.exe. As the product suite evolved and was renamed from OCS to Lync, the rebranding stopped at the surface. Under the hood and much to the surprise of the System Integrators, the client executable remained communicator.exe. Although this was simply a trivial indifference, it was still at the time a little odd but nonetheless had no impact whatsoever on the deployments; until now.
Lync Server 2013 has finally rebranded the executable to Lync.exe. This is great as I feel like Lync has finally shunned the OCS brand and can now be completely referred to as Lync Server with less traces of its predecessor. With this change of the executable however, could very well spawn a “gotcha” as the adopters start migrating from OCS 2007 R2 and Lync Server 2010 to Lync Server 2013.
In most cases, QoS was configured on Lync Server 2010 and the Lync clients to take advantage of an organizations current QoS infrastructure. These settings are then written to the CMS database and maintained within the SQL Server backend. When you migrate from Lync Server 2010 to Lync Server 2013, the CMS remains intact and is simply moved to the new pool. This means that all native settings and configurations for Lync Server 2010 such as the ‘Set-CsConferencingConfigration and Set-CsConferenceServer’ settings for QoS are therefore moved and preserved into your Lync Server 2013 environment.
What aren’t moved, however, are the client side QoS GPO settings that are configured to reflect the settings you configure for communicator.exe as shown below.
Communicator GPO
With this name change of the client executable, as soon as you start rolling out the 2013 Lync client, your QoS will cease to operate as the GPO’s simply will not apply. It is important to remember this subtle change and adjust accordingly as shown below to maintain the media quality that you were getting with Lync Server 2010.
Lync.exe GPO
