Querying RTCLocal in Lync 2013

With the introduction of Windows Fabric in Lync 2013, user services data is now  written to 3 RTCLOCAL\RTC replicas in the FE Pool, known as the primary, secondary and tertiary replicas. This data is then lazily written to the backend
SQL Database for rehydration and FE Pool startup purposes, thereby allowing greater scalability of the FE Pool. For more information on how Windows Fabric works in Lync 2013, I would recommend reading this blog article from MCM 
Richard Brynteson. Querying the RTCLOCAL database can be useful for troubleshooting purposes. Unfortunately, the default install of SQL2012 Express on each Lync FE Server does not include SQL management studio 2012 for querying
the RTCLOCAL databases. This brief post walks through what needs to be installed on  the LyncFE Server to get SSMS 2012 running.

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First we need to grab the SQL 2012 Express install bits from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29062. Start the installation and on the first screen, select the first option as shown below:

Next, on the Installation Type we choose the "Add features to an existing instance...." as shown below

Then on the Feature Selection window, for SMSS we just need select the "Management Tools - Basic" option:

Allow the installation process to continue with defaults and when completed the wizard will prompt for a restart. I found that this restart was necessary to get SSMS working otherwise it will be unable to connect to the RTCLOCAL database with a connection error:

After restarting the server, lauch SSMS and connect to the RTLOCAL database using administrator credentials as shown:

Once the connection is successful, you can then use SSMS to run SQL queries against the RTCLOCAL database for troubleshooting purposes. For example, the SQL query below lists down the 6 Routing Groups created in the FE Pool:

That's all for getting SSMS to work on a FE Server.