Unity Backup Best Practices

[d-roush]

We are looking at our Disaster Recovery when it comes to our Unity Voicemail servers and I am looking for some Best Practices when it comes to backing up Unity. Does anyone have any whitepapers/suggestions? Thanks.

[gpulos]

if you mean unity backup as in backing up the data, then the suggested method is four fold...

1) using a backupExec or the likes, with a SQL agent, backup the SQL database(s) on unity.

2) using a backupExec or the likes, with an Exchange agent, backup the Exchange database(s) used by unity.

3) using a backupExec or the likes, perform a Windows 2000/2003 full backup including SystemState. (open file option is also available for backupExec)

4) for DR recovery purposes, using DiRT, backup the unity system.

see this link for more unity backup info:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_white_paper09186a00801f4ba7.shtml

if you mean backing up unity as far as failover, then you can use the link that follows to create a failover environment for your unity:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/prod_installation_guides_list.html

[yshraybman]

In the past I successfully recovered Unity from ground up using only DiRT. Using other utilities may speed up the process but not required for successful recovery.

In case of Unified messaging just follow your vendor recommendation to backup email store (Exchange or Lotus Notes).

[Matthew Bryant]

I never trust a full system backup, it always seems to go wrong someplace.

Since you may or may not have the same hardware platform, in case its a hardware issue, I only use the DiRT backup and restore.

Although you need to remember when you rebuild your server, you will need to install the same version of Unity as what was backed up. Thats about the only catch.

Since the system will be down, you might as well take the opportunity to upgrade your hardware, just remember to get a new license from Cisco, since the license is key to the mac address.

[d-roush]

Thanks for all your advise.