Unity VM failover legacy config

sposte · ‎03-07-2008

Customer had originally installed Unity 3.1 VM with failover: 1 - Exchange server/member server, 1 Primary Unity/DCGC, 1 Failover Unity/DCGC.

They say this architecture was supported by Cisco at the time of install and they have upgraded to 4.05 2 years ago.

They now want to replace the primary server with new hardware and update to 4.2.

I checked and see in the 4.x Design Doc that running DC on Unity failover servers is NOT supported by Cisco.

I advised rebuilding all 3 servers as per the Cisco spec: either run DC on the Exchange or on a 4th box.

They do not want to change the setup. I do not want to proceed as is if I cannot get TAC support if the server replacement has issues.

Any advice?

Thanks

Scott

ranpierce · ‎03-07-2008

I was in TAC at that time and I do not remember TAC supporing the domain controller on either Unity server. At that time the DC/GC had to be offbox as well as the Exchange server. Unless I am remembering UM and VM was supported that way.

rlp

Tommer Catlin · ‎03-07-2008

I have not seen that before. Normally you can run Unity as DC no matter what. It does put a little more load on the server, but as long as you do not load up 7500 Subscribers AND have it as DC, that would not be recommended because of the load.

If you have that clipping, I would like to see it.

In the past I have always setup (in VMonly) the following setup:

Unity Primary Member server

Unity Secondary (Failover) GC/DC with DNS

Exchange Message server DC with DNS

I looked over the installation guide for 4.x and did not see any mention of not have DC/GC on a Unity box.

In larger setups, I do recommend a 4th AD box just for DC. This will create a backup of your AD domain, users, settings, etc.

If TAC supports your scenario, you should be fine with have like I have.

If it's UM, the Unity servers are member servers typically. I do not dcpromo these servers.

cheers