New Script: Create and Configure Users for Synthetic Transactions

Do you need a script titled Create and Configure Users for Synthetic Transactions ? Well, you just might, and thanks to Antenehe Temteme of the Lync Server Test Team we happen to have that script. You say you don't know whether you need this script or not? Read on...

If you're at all familiar with Lync Server 2010 (or any of it's previous Office Communications Server versions), you know that it's a pretty complex product. There are a lot of pieces -- instant messaging, conferencing, VoIP, and so on -- that not only need to work beautifully but that need to work beautifully together. So how do you go about making sure that all the pieces really are working properly?

That's a very good question, and, believe it or not, we actually have a very good answer. With the introduction of Windows PowerShell cmdlets to Lync Server 2010 comes a set of cmdlets referred to as synthetic transactions. These cmdlets begin with the verb Test, such as Test-CsDialInConferencing, Test-CsLocationPolicy, and Test-CsRegistration. To quote some of the cmdlet help (because we're too lazy -- er, we don't see the point in making up anything new): "Synthetic transactions are used in Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to verify that users are able to successfully complete common tasks such as logging on to the system, exchanging instant messages, or making calls to a phone located on the public switched telephone network (PSTN)."

One way to work with synthetic transations is to set up a health monitoring registrar. We're not going to go into detail here on what that is; for the full explanation, run the command Get-Help New-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration from the Lync Server Management Shell. What we'll tell you here is that a health monitoring registrar consists of two user accounts (typically test accounts) that have been set up to allow administrators to run synthetic transactions without having to supply credentials for actual users. This allows the administrator to easily run tests and verify functionality.

The Create and Configure Users for Synthetic Transactions script will create two test users, enable them for Lync Server 2010 and, optionally, for Enterprise Voice, and set up a health monitoring registrar. Once that's done all you have to do is run the Test cmdlets of your choice.

Now do you think you need this script? That's what we thought.