The Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer (RCA) is a web page that contains a collection of tools to verify the Exchange and Lync functionality, both on-premises and on Office 365.

We have already used the RCA in the Authenticating with online services using DirSync recipe of Chapter 2, Lync 2013 Authentication to verify our Single Sign-On solution. RCA runs outside our corporate network, so it is one of the best ways we have to check our Lync services from the point of view of an external user. The checks performed by RCA are aligned to the best practices suggested from Microsoft, so we can also use it as a sort of validation for our solutions. We will see the RCA tools dedicated to Lync.