Locating other application servers in a UCMA application

This post explains how you can access the Lync Server topology from within your UCMA application to find instances of other applications in the environment. In more complex UCMA applications that have multiple components spread across different servers, this is sometimes necessary in order for the various components to coordinate handling of calls, users, conferences, or other resources. By going directly to the topology, you avoid having to stick this information in a database table or configuration file where it can easily get out of date.

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Accessing the inner endpoint

Although the title sounds very philosophical, I’m not going to talk in this post about an inward journey of discovery for your application endpoints. Instead, I want to talk about a way to access some parts of the signaling layer – the lower-level part of UCMA that allows you to work directly with SIP messages – from the collaboration layer, where most UCMA development takes place. Continue reading “Accessing the inner endpoint” »

Presentation tomorrow for the Metro Toronto .NET Users Group

For those of you in the Toronto area, I’ll be presenting tomorrow at the Metro Toronto .NET Users Group on building communication applications with the Lync APIs. It’ll be a broad overview of the client-side, middle-tier, and server-side APIs and what you can do with each of them. I’ll talk for a bit about each API and then show some sample code.

Details are at the following link: http://www.meetup.com/metrotorontoug/events/88284712/

Integrating with third-party SIP endpoints using static routes

One of the topics I get the most questions about is how to get UCMA applications to communicate with non-Lync SIP endpoints. Sometimes these UCMA applications are standalone, meaning they don’t register with Lync Server at all and answer calls directly from a SIP trunk, IP-PBX, or some other system. In other cases, UCMA applications that work with Lync Server also need to communicate with third-party SIP endpoints at the same time, possibly to bridge calls between Lync and another system or integrate Lync calls with functionality provided by another SIP-based platform. Continue reading “Integrating with third-party SIP endpoints using static routes” »

Multi-part SDP and non-Lync endpoints

Lync endpoints, including UCMA applications, are capable of communicating directly with non-Lync SIP endpoints under certain circumstances, without going through the Mediation Server. This can be advantageous for a few reasons. For one, the Mediation Server removes non-standard SIP headers when passing along messages, so any information you try to include in custom SIP headers when connecting to an endpoint through the Mediation Server will be lost. Also, you may need to communicate with other internal SIP systems — a voice mail system, for example — in an environment where the Mediation Server is not in use. Continue reading “Multi-part SDP and non-Lync endpoints” »

Lync Server SDK, 2010 vs. 2013

In getting your Lync Server 2010 applications working and tested against Lync Server 2013, you might occasionally be tempted to cut corners. You might look for ways to avoid supporting multiple code bases, one for Lync Server 2010 and another for Lync Server 2013. Specifically, it might occur to you that, since the Lync Server SDK has barely changed at all from the 2010 to the 2013 version, maybe you can just run the existing version of your Lync Server SDK application, compiled against the 2010 version of the ServerAgent DLL, on Lync Server 2013 Front End Servers. After all, UCMA 3.0 applications can register against Lync Server 2013 Front End Servers, and there are only a handful of additions to the SDK in 2013, which you may not even need anyway. It’s worth a try, right? Continue reading “Lync Server SDK, 2010 vs. 2013” »