Converting Unity UM to VM only

[sbandaka]

Could some one please point me to any white paper that describes the steps to follow if some one wants to convert from Unity Unified messaging to VM only? Right now we have Unity Failover pair operating in production and we need to separate VM from Email. We are willing to put a separate exchange server 2000. Can we just bulk delete users from unity and add them back with new alias and point to new exchange server? Or do I have to actually uninstall unity and reinstall? Do you see any issue with using existing AD recourses like DNS/ GC/DC? Are there any issues with we using VM solution with Unified messaging License. Can you think of any hidden issues?

We are using 4.0.4Sr1

[kechambe]

We don't have a white paper because this isn't a common request.

Your licensing is fine.

You can use your existing Exchange org/AD/DNS but keep in mind that you will still be on the hook for supporting it. TAC will only issue with those components if they are dedicated to Unity of course. If your reason for switch has anything to do with Cisco supporting these components you will need a dedicated forest and Exchange org.

If you want to continue to use you existing infrastructure you can use the 'Migrate Subscriber Data' utility on ciscounitytools.com to point the Unity subscriber account in SQL to a different mailbox. This tool is great cause it maintains all of the subscriber data but it can only do a user at a time. So that might get old if you have more than 100 of them. Also remember to re-run the permissions wizard to make sure Unity has rights on the new Exchange 2000 server.

That is all I can think of. Let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks,

Keith

[sbandaka]

Keith: Thank you for your response. Its not that I want to get TAC support for AD. Customer had several outages because their exchange team kept making changes to their servers like adding mailstore / upgrading etc and they experienced several outages .So its kind of political battle.

Talking about process If I want to use the same AD I have to create separate alias for all users. Below is the process I have come up with. If you could comment , that would be great.

1. Decide & come up with VM AD alias naming convention.

2. Populate their existing AD with new alias. ( We can do it from Unity bulk import tool but we can only populate “ First name last name extension/DTMF ID and user Alias )

3. Install a new exchange server 2000. We need a new exchange server because of Unity Failover setup we have in place.( customer should make it available before we start this process to reduce the down time )

4. Break the Failover relation ship between Primary and secondary Unity server.

5. Un-Install Unity from Primary & Secondary using Unity uninstall tool

6. Re-Install Unity as Primary with VM only option with failover

7. Make the new Exchange server as partner sever

8. Using bulk import tool either import new-aliases from AD or a CSV file

9. Re-Install Unity on Secondary Server

10. Run Failover Wizard

Thanks again for your time

[kechambe]

It sounds to me like Unity needs to have a didicated AD/Exchange. Otherwise that Exchange team could continue to cause problems, even if you have an Exchange server just for the Unity mailboxes.

If you rebuild the environment DiRT can do all the account/mailbox creation for you. Basically you will backup the failover (because it doesn't have all the SQL replication tags), reinstall and get your new environment working with just the primary and then restore. After the restore you can configure failover.

Make sense?

Thanks,

Keith

[sbandaka]

Keith:

.That would a perfect scenario where I can totally isolate Voice from data and build everything on a brand new AD environment. But if they want me to use the existing AD infrastructure and just use a separate exchange box for mailstore then I cannot use same alias and cannot use DiRT. If that’s the case can I just

* Delete existing unity accounts on Unity using bulk delete

* use / make new exchange2000 as partner server

* create another set of CSV file for bulk import and use the new mail store on new exchange servers ?

OR

Do I have to actually uninstall unity on both PRI and SEC and redo every thing from scratch plus above steps??

Thanks again for your input.

Sreeram

[lindborg]

Just as a side note - DiRT can change the alias for you on restore - it supports an "alias mapping file" that you can use to force new alias names on restore on the fly... just so you know... check out the help for more details.

[sbandaka]

Why didn't I think of it. I have seen that option on DiRT restore but never used it. Great point thanks for the hint.

One last question. This is relatively small setup with less than 300 user at this time and not expecting a major change in next few years. For this migration if customer decides to go with a complete separate AD for VM only can I promote Unity servers ( Primary and Failover ) as DC/GC do you see any issue with Cisco TAC supporting DC/GC on unity server.

[kechambe]

If you choose to remap the users with DiRT make sure to run the Unity uninstall first before restoring. Otherwise both the old and new user will be stamped as Unity subscribers which will cause you problems.

Another option is the use Bulk Subscriber Delete and then do a DiRT dirty restore. That gets you around the step of having to uninstall/reinstall.

Thanks,

Keith