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” »

Filtering instant messages with the Lync Server SDK

Recently I was answering a question about filtering instant messages between Lync users, and I decided that this would make a good topic for a post. It’s a fairly common use case, and one that is not too easy to implement because it requires the arcane and mysterious Lync Server SDK, which is written in hieroglyphics and can only be used by the light of a full moon.

Okay, that last part isn’t true, but it is true that the Lync Server SDK is one of the least well-known and most challenging APIs in the Lync development platform. It consists of two components, the Microsoft SIP Processing Language, a.k.a. MSPL, and the Managed SIP Application API. The latter of these is the one we’ll need to use to filter instant messages. Continue reading “Filtering instant messages with the Lync Server SDK” »