Haiku #106
A star is born: Keep
Lync and AD in synch with
Update database.
Hey, everyone, and please accept our apologies for being so late with today's haiku. Remember the old ad slogan "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine?" Well, here at the Lync Server PowerShell blog we like to say that a day without the daily haiku is like … well, like a day without the daily haiku.
Note. Yes, we really should get a new marketing department, shouldn't we?
At any rate, the author of today's haiku spent the morning working on a new set of videos for Lync Server's Monitoring Server Reports. So was the author the dashing and charismatic young star of these videos? Well, no, not exactly. Was he the technical advisor whose vast knowledge of Lync Server ensured that the video content was technically accurate? Um, not quite. Was he like the artistic director, the person who ensured that the video itself was of feature film quality? Not really. However, his computer did have a piece of software installed on it that they needed in order to record the video. And because no one wanted to bother installing that software on another computer, his computer had to be shanghaied and used in order to do the recording. In turn, the author contributed by sitting quietly in a corner and not bothering anyone while they finished their work.
Show business: it's every bit as exciting and as glamorous as think it would be.
Anyway, right now there's a break in the action and the author of today's haiku is waiting to hear if and when he'll get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Note. What do you mean "He doesn't deserve a star on the Walk of Fame"? After all, Cary Grant has a star there, and how many times did Cary Grant ever donate his computer for use in making a Monitoring Server Reports video? Exactly.
During this break, the author of today's haiku decided he should actually take a minute and write today's haiku. However, because the break is only going to last half an hour or so, that meant he had to pick an easy cmdlet to write about for today. And he did: Update-CsUserDatabase.
Note. Which, coincidentally enough, was the name of the movie that Marilyn Monroe was working on when she died.
Or so we think anyway.
As everyone knows (including big-name Hollywood celebrities like the author of today's haiku), Microsoft Lync Server 2010 relies on Active Directory to store most user-related information. At the same time, however, Lync Server has a user database that stores information about Lync Server-specific things such as contacts, Lync groups, and access permissions. In order to keep things running as smoothly as possible, Lync Server periodically contacts Active Directory to ensure that the information stored in the directory service and the information stored in the user database is in synch.
Typically this synchronization takes places automatically without administrators having to give it a second thought. However, it's at least theoretically possible that a problem could crop up that interferes with this auto-synchronization. Should that ever happen, then it’s Update-CsUserDatabase to the rescue!
Note. Yes, just like the Lone Ranger.
The Update-CsUserDatabase cmdlet enables you to force the user database to synch its contents with Active Directory. When you call this cmdlet, the user database will clear its replication status with Active Directory; in turn, that causes the database to re-read and update all the user-related information stored in the directory service.
Which, come to think of it, is something even the Lone Ranger himself couldn't do.
Best of all, Update-CsUserDatabase is almost-embarrassingly easy to run. How easy are we talking here? This easy:
Update-CsUserDatabase
Yep, that's it: just type the name of the cmdlet and Update-CsUserDatabase will force a re-synch of the user database located in the same pool as the computer on which the command in being run. You say you actually need to update the user database in a different pool? That's fine; just tack on the Fqdn parameter, like so:
Update-CsUserDatabase -Fqdn atl-cs-001.litwareinc.com
And that, as we say in the movie business, is a wrap. In fact, we also say – oops, sorry, Steven Spielberg just popped his head in the office, which means he must need this computer. See you tomorrow.