The new Centralized Logging Service

In December 2012 I did my first customer install of Lync Server 2013. Up until then I had only toyed around a little with a lab install of the Preview / Evaluation software, and had not really gotten familiar with the new type of logging tool that comes with Lync Server 2013.

Of course, you never get really familiar with anything until “the shit hits the fan” anyway. So in my case, I was kinda struck with the “awkwardness” of this new way of doing logging for troubleshooting – I mean, I really liked OCSlogger and the easy-going GUI you have there. My first take on CLS is that it is

• slow; it takes fairly a minute or so to start a scenario, whereas OCSlogger was immediate
• cumbersome; you have to know from the list of “Get-ClsScenario”, which isn’t exactly intuitive, what scenario will fit your need – previously in OCSlogger you would know that SIPstack and S4 gave you pretty much what you needed in most circumstances
• poorly documented; I mean, come on, all there is said on TechNet is how to run the “Get-ClsScenario” and pipe it into a formatted table. Seriously Microsoft?

In my efforts to give it a chance anyway I encountered the same thing over and over, where it didn’t seem to produce any results at all. For example, I was running a plain scenario for IncomingAndOutgoingCall, which sounds like it will have something to do with Enterprise voice, Routing and so on:
Start-CsClsLogging -Scenario IncomingAndOutgoingCall -pools pool.contoso.com

Then…wait for it…I would try to produce some contents for the logging service by making some Calls, followed by:
Stop-CsClsLogging -Scenario IncomingAndOutgoingCall -pools pool.contoso.com

Wait some more…and finally, I just threw in a cmdlet to output the result, no filters applied (I leave that one to Snooper):
Search-CsClsLogging -OutputFilePath "C:\Users\admin\Desktop\InOut.txt"

After some previously commented waiting time again, I would just end up with this quite anonymous Message, which I first just took as a feedback that there wasn’t really much to present.

The file would be empty, and inbetween questioning my own abilities to understand whether the right scenario had been applied and such, I tried fiddling with the output cmdlet itself to see if that changed anything:
Search-CsClsLogging -OutputFilePath "C:\Users\admin\Desktop\InOut.txt" -pools pool.contoso.com

And look at that, finally something useful, even though an error Message:

I remembered something from reading about the Preview Version ClsController.exe command, where regional settings for date and time matters (post from Jens Trier Rasmussen). Changing the region settings to en-US format and then restarting Lync Management Shell resulted in this:

A little heads-up to someone else that might struggle with the same.

While I was at it, I decided to retrieve something useful about the scenarios, something that can help me relate to the OCSlogger style of filtering what to look for. So I cooked up this little PowerShell thing to output what the Scenarios are really all about:

$scenariolist = get-csclsscenario
foreach ($scenario in $scenariolist) {
write-host "Scenario: " $scenario.name
foreach ($provider in $scenario.provider) {
$provider.name
}
write-host "-------------------------"
}

This will output a list of the scenarios by name and their related “Components” as they were named in OCSlogger. I also put a little comment in brackets by each of the scenarios, to shed some more light on what it is:

[AlwaysOn is what it states, a little something from all scenarios.
Not all the details though, as it is intended to run all the time]
Scenario:  AlwaysOn
AsMcu
AcpMcu
AVMCU
AVMP
BICommon
BICOSMOS
BIDATACOLLECTOR
CAAServer
Collaboration
DataMCU
DataMcuRuntime
ExumRouting
IMMCU
InboundRouting
InterClusterRouting
McuInfra
MediationServer
OutboundRouting
Routing_Data_Sync_Agent
S4
ServerTransportAdaptor
Sipstack
LDM
AppShareOoty
RDPApiTrace
RDPEncComTrace
RdpApiTrace
UserServices
UDCAgent
PNCHService
TenantAdminUI
HostedMigration
Powershell
UCWA
ChatCommon
ChatEndpoint
ChatServer
ChatCompliance
ChatWebService
XmppTGW
XmppCommonLibrary
XmppListener
XmppRouting
XmppTGWProxy
Lyss
StoreWeb
TranslationApplication
RgsClientsLib
RgsCommonLibrary
RgsDatastores
RgsDiagnostics
RgsHostingFramework
RgsMatchMakingService
CpsDiagnostics
CpsHostingFramework
JoinLauncher
WebInfrastructure
Infrastructure
InternalCommon
McxService
UserPinService
CertProvisioning
BackupService
RtcDbSyncAgent
WebRelay
ServerAgent
----------------------------------
[Basically all the details related to media flow]
Scenario:  MediaConnectivity
MediaStack_AUDIO_AGC
MediaStack_AUDIO_DRC
MediaStack_AUDIO_ECHODT
MediaStack_AUDIO_FAXDT
MediaStack_AUDIO_HEALER
MediaStack_AUDIO_NOISEDT
MediaStack_AUDIO_VAD
MediaStack_AUDIO_VSP
MediaStack_AudioCodecs
MediaStack_AudioEngine
MediaStack_COMAPI
MediaStack_COMMON
MediaStack_Crossbar
MediaStack_Crypto
MediaStack_DebugUI
MediaStack_DebugUI_AEC
MediaStack_DEVICE
MediaStack_MassConvertedTraces1
MediaStack_MediaManager
MediaStack_PerFrame
MediaStack_PerPacket
MediaStack_QualityController
MediaStack_RTCP
MediaStack_RTP
MediaStack_StreamingEngine
MediaStack_TLS
MediaStack_Transport
MediaStack_VIDEO
MediaStack_VOICEENHANCE
----------------------------------
[For screen and Application sharing issues.]
Scenario:  ApplicationSharing
AsMcu
AppShareOoty
ServerTransportAdaptor
RDPApiTrace
RDPEncComTrace
MCUInfra
Collaboration
S4
----------------------------------
[For AV in Conferences issues.]
Scenario:  AudioVideoConferencingIssue
AvMcu
AvMP
MCUInfra
Collaboration
S4
----------------------------------
[For Enterprise voice issues related to Hybrid deployments.]
Scenario:  HybridVoice
MediationServer
S4
Sipstack
OutboundRouting
TranslationApplication
----------------------------------
[For both Enterprise voice and P2P issues.]
Scenario:  IncomingAndOutgoingCall
MediationServer
S4
Sipstack
TranslationApplication
OutboundRouting
InboundRouting
UserServices
----------------------------------
[For Exchange UM issues.]
Scenario:  VoiceMail
Sipstack
Sipstack
ExumRouting
InboundRouting
----------------------------------
[For chat and presence issues.]
Scenario:  IMAndPresence
Sipstack
UserServices
----------------------------------
[For issues with AB download or queries.]
Scenario:  AddressBook
ABCommon
ABServer
ABServerIISModule
Dlx
----------------------------------
[For Phone Edition device issues.]
Scenario:  DeviceUpdate
DeviceUpdate
DeviceUpdateHttpHandler
----------------------------------
[This one I am not sure about, beside UCS which is Unified Contact Store,
or the common Lync/Exchange contact handling within Exchange 2013.]
Scenario:  LYSSAndUCS
UserServices
Lyss
McuInfra
----------------------------------
[For issues with the Logging Service itself.]
Scenario:  CLS
CLSAgent
CLSCommon
CLSController
CLSControllerLib
----------------------------------
[For Sharepoint integration issues, like Skill search.]
Scenario:  SP
SupportPortal
SPHelper
SPModule
SPSearchTool
SPCLSTool
CLSCommon
CLSControllerLib
----------------------------------
[For issues related to Office Web Apps server.]
Scenario:  WAC
DataMCURunTime
DataMCU
LDM
Infrastructure
WebInfrastructure
InternalCommon
----------------------------------
[For client user issues I would think.]
Scenario:  UserReplicator
UserServices
----------------------------------
[For issues related to cloud/on-premise.]
Scenario:  HostedMigration
HostedMigration
Powershell
WebInfrastructure
----------------------------------
[Monitoring and Archiving issues.]
Scenario:  MonitoringAndArchiving
UDCAgent
----------------------------------
[LI = Legal Intercept, LR = Log Retention.]
Scenario:  LILRLegacy
LogRetention
LegalIntercept
----------------------------------
[LI = Legal Intercept, LR = Log Retention.]
Scenario:  LILRLYSS
LogRetention
UDCAgent
----------------------------------
[For issues joining Lync Online Meetings.]
Scenario:  MeetingJoin
Collaboration
S4
UserServices
McuInfra
JoinLauncher
WebInfrastructure
Infrastructure
InternalCommon
UCWA
WebRelay
----------------------------------
[For Response Groups services issues.]
Scenario:  RGS
RgsClientsLib
RgsCommonLibrary
RgsDatastores
RgsDeploymentApi
RgsDeploymentLibrary
RgsDiagnostics
RgsHostingFramework
RgsMatchMakingService
UserServices
Collaboration
S4
Sipstack
----------------------------------
[Call Park Services issues.]
Scenario:  CPS
CpsDiagnostics
CpsHostingFramework
UserServices
Collaboration
S4
Sipstack
----------------------------------
[For XMPP federation issues.]
Scenario:  XMPP
XmppTGW
XmppCommonLibrary
XmppListener
XmppRouting
XmppTGWProxy
Collaboration
S4
Sipstack
----------------------------------
[For Dialin Conferences issues.]
Scenario:  CAA
CAAServer
Collaboration
S4
Sipstack
UserServices
----------------------------------
[For Audio Conferencing Provider issues.]
Scenario:  ACPMCU
AcpMcu
Collaboration
S4
SipStack
----------------------------------
[User authentication issues from all platforms; Lync, mobile, phone etc.]
Scenario:  Authentication
SipStack
UserServices
WebInfrastructure
UserPinService
CertProvisioning
----------------------------------
[HA = High Availability, DR = Disaster Recovery.]
Scenario:  HADR
UserServices
PowerShell
BackupService
RtcDbSyncAgent
----------------------------------
[No comment.]
Scenario:  Powershell
PowerShell
----------------------------------
[For troubleshooting filtering policies.]
Scenario:  FilterApps
IIMFilter
ClientVersionFilter
ServerAgent
SipStack

I guess I’ll eventually come around and think it’s as great as the rest of Lync Server 2013 features. Such as the fact that you can now Control logging on ALL your servers from one Place, and have the results delivered the same way. It still doesn’t take away the fact that it’s painfully slow, but then again so is remoting into several servers to individually manage logging, right?

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