How to setup UCMA Development environment locally for Lync 2010?

Question

I have created a chat bot in c#. But the requirement has changed to a bot that can be directly accessed through lync. Lync is present in our network, but the server is separate and my development environment is not at the server side. I have a few questions on the scenario :-

• I have to create an application endopoint. Is UCMA the best way to go?

• Is UCMA free?

• How do I set up my development environment so that I can test my bot without affecting the other lync users?

• Is it possible to make my local system the server, add it to the trusted server list in the actual lync server, add my application endpoint to the trusted application pool in the actual lync server.Would I need anything else if I follow this route?

• I have lync 2010. Will UCMA 4.0 SDK work for lync 2010?

Answer 1

1. Skype / Lync offers UCMA & UCWA. However it depends on your application which might be the best one. Without having more details what you try to build its not easy to answer that. See this posting here for more infos.
2. You need a Skype/Lync environment. This required a valid license.
3. You might try an evaluation version from the Microsoft evalcenter here. You can have only one lync or Skype for Business environment in your active directory. But you can setup an additional pool. However to avoid that you break something I highly recommend to setup a separate developer environment
4. Keep noted that Lync 2010 is quite very old. There is Lync 2013 already in place and got replaced with Skype for Business. Building something on Lync 2010 which is 6 years old didn´t sound a good idea. However UCMA 4.0 and UCMA 5.0 are supported (as written here) by Skype for Business, so your might wish to check if you will not build that for Skype for Business instead.