CUCM on vmware - backup issue.

[Rajan R]

Hey Guys,

We have deployed CUCM 8.6 on esxi 5.0. There is no vCenter. I got to know we can shutdown the cucm guest and "export the ovf template". Is this the right way of doing it ? Incase of a server failure can we load this backup into a different server running esxi 5.0 ?

Thanks

[anchoudh]

Hi Varadarajan,

Please check the below link,

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Unified_Communications_VMware_Requirements#VMware_Feature_Support_for_Call_Processing_and_System_Management_8.0.282.29_through_9.0.281.29

Thanks,

Anand

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[Aaron Harrison]

Hi

My advice would be to use the standard CCM DRF backup tool. That avoids any complexity from VMware, or your lack of VMware experience - if you want to do a restore you just build the server from media and restore the backup as you would any other server.

Those DRF backups will be smaller than backing up a whole server's disk files as well.

Aaron

[Joseph Martini]

+5 to both the above posts.  Also to point make sure you're aware.

VMware vCenter is:

• Mandatory for all Specs-based deployments
• Optional for Tested Reference Configuration deployments.

[Rajan R]

We do have regular DRF backups. I am sure you will know restoring the CM from VM is much faster then rebuilding it hence the question.

[ronpatel]

Hi

From above link provided. You can use Copy feature of VM to effectively provide a method to do full system backup/restore.

Copying a Virtual Machine (VM) copies both the virtual server  configuration and the workload (UC OS and application) running on that  virtual server to a file on networked shared storage. This allows VMs to  be copied, then subsequently modified or shut down. This feature  effectively provides a method to do full system backup/restore, take  system images or revert changes to software versions, user data and  configuration changes.

• Prior to copying, the VM must first be shutdown (which will shut down the virtual server, the UC OS and the UC application).
• If uploading a VM copy as a “whole system restore”, clustered  UC applications such as CUCM will probably require their replication to  be manually “fixed” via a CLI command.

But I also suggest you to keep DRS back of the system in case of issue with VMware feature.

Regards

Ronak Patel

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[Rajan R]

We did try this. The CUCM was restored but the services did not come up for around 4 hours after which everything was working fine.

[ronpatel]

Hi

I would say before doing the copy operation see if the DB replication status of the cluster is good.

regards

Ronak patel

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[Rajan R]

Thanks a lot Ronak. There is no cluster. And, when you say copy, is it browsing the datastore and copying it or shutting the VM down and exporting it ? And will browsing the datastore and copying the folder work as well for a restore ?

Regards

Varadarajan.R

[ronpatel]

Hi

It is shutting the VM down and exporting it . We do not support browsing the datastore and copying it.

Reagrds

Ronak Patel

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[Rajan R]

Thanks again Ronak. One more thing, what about the compression rate ? Say I have a 400 GB disk allocated, will the backup be of 400 gb or does it use only the size occupied by actual data ?

Thanks

VR

[ronpatel]

Hi,

It will definately not 400 GB of data, It will be much less.

Regards
Ronak Patel

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[timhughsmith]

Hi,

Sorry, old thread I know. But curious to see documentation regarding this.

I dont think it's clear.

From my reading of the docs, I thought shutdown, browse data store and copy files to PC, then upload to new ESXi host, and import into inventory.

I thought that should be supported?

To change adapters we are allowed to modify vmx file download, upload and then re-import the machine into inventory for example. The copy operation above is quite similar.

The other option is File > Export OVF, then File > Deploy OVA on the new ESXi.

Curious about both those scenarios and their real support.

Cheers,

Tim