Unity 8.x with Two Exchange Environments?

[b-krauthamer]

Hi,

In two weeks we will be upgrading our entire Cisco VoIP environment.  CM 4.2(3) to CUCM 8.5, IPCC 4.0(4) to CCX 8.5, Unity 4.2(1) to 8.0.  We are also in the middle of a Microsoft Exchange upgrade.  We currently have an Active Directory forest with our old Exchange 2003 server and a new Active Directory forest with a new Exchange 2010 environment.  Unfortunately the Exchange upgrade will not be complete until after the CUCM upgrade.

We purchased Unity 8.x as a failover cluster.  I am wondering if I can "split" the cluster and setup one Unity 8.x server as a member of the old forest, partnered with Exchange 2003 and one as a member of the new forest partnered with Exchange 2010 then at a later date when the Exchange upgrade is complete remove the server partnered with 2003 and re-establish the cluster.  I do realize that might require some changes in our Unity licensing, that is not my main concern right now.  I'm just trying to determine if my overall plan is even possible.

One of the associate questiosn that goes along with this is will I need two sets of voice mail pilot points in the CUCM 8.5 environment or can two Unity servers share the same VM pilot points?

Any help, tips, suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bryan

[Brad Magnani]

Hi Bryan,

You can't split a Unity failover pair between forests, they need to be located within the same domain, nor can you partner Unity with multiple Exchange versions.  A failover pair requires that each server be partnered with the same Exchange server.  You'd need to install a standalone Unity server in each forest partnered to either the 2003 or 2010 server in your situation.

Someone else with this type of deployment scenario may be able to weigh in with their recommendations as to what works best.  The other route would be to engage your Cisco account team for some design assistance/recommendations.

Hope that helps,

Brad