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Untiy Upgrade questions

smartnet
Level 1
Level 1

I have a few questions regarding Unity upgrade which I think Cisco documentation is not completely clear about.

We are running Unity UM 4.2(1) on windows 2000 with off-box exchange 2003. We would like to upgrade to unity 5.x, with a brand new MCS7845 server.

After reading Cisco upgrade doc, I think the general procedures would be:

1-backup existing Unity with DIRT.

2-install same version of unity on the new hardware and restore from DIRT.

3-in place upgrade of the new 7845 to Unity5.x.

The question I have is, at what point do I connect my new 7845 server to my Windows domain? By installing the new server with windows 2003 and joining the the windows domain with the same name, how do I handle the unity server with same name but different SID?

Can someone please explain this in more details?

Many thanks for your help!

9 Replies 9

Brandon Buffin
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

The simplest thing would be to give the new Unity server a new name. If the requirement is to keep the same name, you will need to do the following.

1. Backup existing Unity with DiRT

2. Disjoin existing Unity server from domain

3. Install OS and same version of Unity on new server

4. Restore with DiRT

The downside to this option is that it increases your migration time. If you choose a new name, the new Unity server can be configured and running and downtime will only consist of the time it takes to restore.

Hope this helps. If so, please rate the post.

Brandon

Thanks Brandon!

Would it be a problem to restore a DiRT backup from Unity on windows 2000 to the same version of Unity on Windows 2003? How about restoring DiRT to different IP address and server name if I use a different ip address and server name.

Regards.

Yes, you can backup Unity on W2K and restore to Unity on W2K3 as long as the Unity versions are the same. In fact, if you look at the reconfiguration and upgrade guide, this is the procedure for upgrading to W2K3.

Yes, DiRT can restore to a machine with a different name and IP address. I did this a while back and it worked great.

Hope this helps.

Brandon

Thanks for the great info!

Doing a upgrade like this without changing my exchange server backend, should I backup all subscriber messages with DiRT? Or should I leave it unchecked to save time since I am running UM and they all should be in my Exchanger server already anyway.

I recall seeing somewhere that I will have to backup subscriber messages also if I were to change server name and IP address.

Regards.

If you're binding to users in AD that are attached to the same mailboxes there's no need to backup messages - it'd be a good idea to skip this if you can since ExMerge is not a very efficient way of carting messages around. It's only necessary if you're moving to a completely new messaging store.

Thanks Jeff.

If I install my new Unity server with a new name and a different ip address, Can I have both unity online and connected to my callmanager at the same time? Conceptually it sounds possible. I have my upgrade licenses and all I have to do is create a new VM pilot number and ports pointing to the new Unity server. This way I can have my new Unity server fully tested prior to retiring my old server. It will also let me backout and reverse back to the old server with little downtime just in case the new server is not stable.

Any faults in my logic here?

Thanks Again!

Sure, you can have both Unity servers up and running at the same time pointed to the same Call Manager. However, the new Unity server would be using its own new unique set of voice mail ports and pilot configured on CCM(sounds like you got that covered). Can't share the same set of ports between two Unity servers. Your logic is correct.

Hope this helps, if so please rate.

Brad

If I have both Unity on line at the same time, does it mean that a subscriber will have his VM box homed to both servers. i.e. if a VM is left for a subscriber, How is the MWI handled? Am I using the same MWI on/off numbers for both servers, or I will have to define a new pair for each servers.

Regards.

Subscribers will only be homed to one server. You can use the same MWI numbers for both servers.

Hope this helps.

Brandon

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