Unity Design Question

[zulfi]

WE have multiple Unity sites and each site will have there own Voice Mail Unity 4.2 server.

Site 1:

will have dedicated Unity/Exchanges2K server and also will have

dedicated DC/GC/AD/DNS server, AD Schema will be extended on DC server

Site 2 will have similar confiuration on its own domain.

All the domain controller will talk to each other and Sync with AD forest for Digital networking.

I'm I missing anything in the picture ?

TIA,

[Tommer Catlin]

To have Digital networking, you need to have the same domain/forest.. sounds like you do, just make sure the AD setup the most effecient way. There is no need for a seperate domain, just create a new Site in AD and the links and you should be good. No need to complicate it if it's just used for VM

[Ginger Dillon]

Hi -

As long as your domains are in the same AD forest, i.e. same directory, you can implement digital networking. We have 3 4.2 Unity servers, each in its own domain and Exchange administrative group (due to our somewhat decentralized Exchange model) and they are digitally networked. Our users can cross-box login, a nice feature for some. Another advantage of digital networking is that, if you want, you can implement license pooling on each server (for about the cost of one Unity exchange user per server) and share your total user license allocation amongst your Unity servers (as long as you don't exceed your total licensed number of users on both servers). Back to your design, as tcatlinins mentioned, the simpler your design for Unity, the better. I think his suggestion is a good one.

Ginger

[zulfi]

tcatlinins Please look at this url on bottom of page 5:

http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/products/ps4608/c1612/ccmigration_09186a008022f4a6.pdf

It says "Cisco Unity can support subscribers in a maximum of three Windows 2000 sites in the same Windows 2000 domain"

Therefore, what you said in your email "There is no need for a seperate domain, just create a new Site in AD and the links and you should be good." well it is not going to work for our confiuration since we have seven different Unity sites; we will have to configure each site to have its own DC/GC.

Thanks,

[Tommer Catlin]

That's odd. Because I have personally built a Unity Single Forest, Single Domain, 30+ sites with Unity at each site. We created Site links between each WAN connection with a cost 100 to cut down on AD replication/syncro. Seperate subnets at each site, AD will then recongize this a site when configured. Each Unity server at each is a DC, Exchange, Unity, SQL on one box.

I think what Cisco is trying to say is that if you had (1) Unity server, supporting (3) seperate sites in AD, then it would be a little tough because of delayed replection, etc.

It's basic Microsoft topologies with Exchange. Unity is just riding on the back of AD/Exchange. Build the AD as you would from Microsoft. (best practices)