cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
251
Views
0
Helpful
1
Replies

Unity server consolidation -is there any way to make it less painful?

bradwelch
Level 1
Level 1

Scenario: Conversion to IPT w/ UM. The twist is we have to install unity as a vm only system first because the current Exchange environment is unable to support the additional load of UM.

Phase 1: To replace an EOL legacy VM system, we're going to be installing 2 Unity systems as VM only with on box message stores. The servers will be initially supporting 2 Nortel PBXs with 3000 and 1500 users. One Unity server dedicated to each PBX. We will prepare for the migration to UM by creating Unity mailboxes that match the existing Exchange aliases. We will be following scenario 1 of this document that outlines procedures for migrating from VM to UM. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_white_paper09186a0080109775.shtml#30921

Phase 2: We'll be replacing the Nortel PBXs with a single CallManager cluster. Both Unity servers will be supporting the CallManager cluster at this time.

Phase 3. The Exchange 2000 environment will be uplifted to support UM. We’d like to consolidate the 2 Unity platforms into one with 4500 users and have it use the Upgraded Exchange 2000 environment for its message store .

Is there any bulk method that would allow us to merge the 2 Unity servers? If not, are there any potential issues with configuring both Unity servers to use the same Exchange message store?

I read another post on a similar situation that would have me do manual setup of every mailbox on the 2nd Unity server. I hope there is another way.

Thanks,

Brad

1 Reply 1

lindborg
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

There's no problem having multiple Unity UM servers pointing at the same Exchange message store - that's probably your best bet - just upgrade the two systems where they stand with DiRT and go.

Outside of that, there's no easy way to "merge" systems together like that - I know it sounds like it should just be a snap for me to whip up a tool to do that but it's a really ugly problem to solve - there's default objects on each box that need only a single instance on the merged box and references to the depreciated objects (i.e. the ones not included in the merge of old data such as the opening greeting call handler) need to be updated to point to the new representation on the merged box - tons and tons of references (user input keys, after message actions, after greeting actions, exit actions, owners, message recipients etc...) all have to be then cleaned up after the merge takes place. This is far less than trivial and riddled with the potential to just trash your system where it stands.

As good as it gets is using the Global Subscriber Manager tool which lets you move users from one Unity server to another Unity server within the same dialing domain - you have to do this one user as a time (there's no "bulk" option here) but it does move everything in one shot for the user including their greetings, voice name, phone password etc... if you need to merge multiple UM servers this is one way to do it for user information anyway (audio text applications will have to be created by hand).