What does Unity Connection 7.x backup with DRS?

[s.clinard]

Hi all -

I am having difficulty determining exactly what is backed up with DRS on Unity Connection 7.x. Specifically, does DRS backup user voicemail messages? For litigation purposes, if ever needed, I am trying to see if voicemail messages are stored on the local server or in an Exchange message store.

Thanks for any and all help in advance.

Shane

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Shane,

When you do a scheduled or manual backup for Unity Connection

you are prompted for which "Features" you want to back up. One of these choices is

called Connection Messages. The DRS backup can be stored in a tape device

or "off-box"  During normal operation all messages are stored "on-box"

Select Features *

CONNECTION_DATABASE

CONNECTION_GREETINGS_VOICENAMES

CONNECTION_MESSAGES_UNITYMBXDB1

CUC

Cheers!

Rob

[s.clinard]

Thanks Rob!

I went in to the backup location for the last backup that ran, opened 2010-10-21-03-00-00_ROCCUC01_CONNECTION_MESSAGES_UNITYMBXDB1_MESSAGES.tar and noticed a number of .wav files. I wanted to verify that these are indeed voicemail messages, however I am getting a codec error when trying to play them. From what I understand it's the Sipro Lab Telecom ACELP.G.729 (133) codec. I don't believe this codec is available from anywhere except the UC server, and since it's a linux appliance I can't very well play from there.

I'm relatively confident that these are indeed user voicemail messages and DRS does back them up. The next step is to figure out how, in the case they are needed, to play them on a desktop, laptop, etc.

Thanks again,

Shane

[James Hawkins · Accepted solution]

Just to add to Rob's excellent reply (+5) you need to know that DRS keeps an administrator selected number of backups. If you set the number of backups to seven and did nightly backups then you would start to lose messages after a week (this is the case for backups to an SFTP server - if you backed up to tape then I guess you could keep a tape for every backup but that would soon become a PITA).

If you are already storing emails for compliance purposes a possible solution would be to configure Unity Connection to forward voicemail messages to the users email account via SMTP.The voicemail messages would then just be archived using the same process as email messages.

This would simplify your setup and probably make it easier to pull out old messages when required (rather than having to find the appropriate backup TAR file and restoring the Unity messages using COBRAS).

[Jaime Valencia]

Just to add something to the great advice from Rob (Happy Friday Rob =))

The messages are stored in the CUC server, depending on your version you can configure the accept and relay feature and forward your messages to any other email you like. This can also work as a sort of backup.

HTH

java

If this helps, please rate

www.cisco.com/go/pdihelpdesk

[s.clinard]

You are all extremely helpful, just want to point that out

I was unaware that the actual messages are backed up with DRS until you guys gave me some more direction as to where to look. Now the fight begins to speak with management to get a procedure down.

Thanks everyone and happy Friday!

[p-siadoua]

Hi,

My customer has got a unity connection server 7.0.1.11000-2 . The problem is that we have to rebuild it because of many errors and Tac says that the database is corrupted.  There is 250 users mailbox with greetings, schedules, call handler. How can i do to keep these information  if i have to rebuild the server.  Moreover,  we cannot actually access to the unity connection web page because Tomcat service don't want to restart. So it is difficult for us to  make a backup.

If someone can give me some information,  it will be helpful.

Regards.

Pamela.