Unity Connection 8.5.1 with Exchange 2003 & 2010 Servers

NickParece · ‎06-07-2011

Hi there,

My customer is migrating from Unity 7.x to Connection 8.5.1. Their Exchange environment is mid migration from 2003 to 2010. Unfortunately, we have to migrate Unity before that project will complete. I've been reviewing the documentation but I'm a little confused. Am I able to have CUC attempt to locate the user's Exchange server automatically using 'Search for Exchange Servers?" The docs seem to state that this won't work for 2003 servers.

It seems to at times state that this is possible and at other times state that I need to setup up a Unified Messaging Account for one 2010 server and for each of the 32 2003 servers that make up the environment. This will cause a management and workflow challenge as users are migrated to 2010.

Can anyone shed some light on how this would best be configured?

Thank you in advance.

Nick Parece

AT&T

Tommer Catlin · ‎06-08-2011

I would skip the automated find for 2003 or 2010 and set it up manually for now. For 2003, i have done it twice now and it works perfect. Just make sure you have done the following:

- setup an Exchange Mailbox for Exchange Admin rights (like Unityinstall, but do not use this account). Log into that mailbox at least once, so its set, otherwise WebDav will FAIL!

- manually point to the Exchange 2003 by IP address (do not search)

- Use HTTP for authentication (if you use HTTPs, you will have to load the CERT on CUC)

- add this 2003 UM service profile in and save it. (IE Exchange2003UM)

- test on a CUC voicemail box. It should send any old VMs messages to the Exchange 2003 server

Now, go back and setup a new Exchange 2010 UM service profile. Call this one Exchange2010UM and run another test with a 2010 Exchange mailbox and CUC voicemail box.

When the Exchange mailbox gets migrated from Exchange 2003 to 2010, you can simply update the service in the CUC UM settings from 2003 to 2010. Im not quite sure you can add both services to it, as I think it will fail. (have not tried quite yet)

NickParece · ‎06-10-2011

Thanks Tommy!

I'm still working with the Exchange Admins here to get this in place. The painful part is that there are 35 Exchange 2003 servers... It makes for an account management nightmare while user are shuffled around and off to 2010.

panjwani80 · ‎08-15-2011

Hi Nick,

I have exactly the same scenario as yours. Just wondering how did you go with your migration?

did you end up creating 35 different unified messaging service (AD) accounts for each of the 35 exchange 2003 servers? if so how would you deal with the scenario when the user mailbox is moved across from one exchange 2003 server to another 2003 server? My understanding is I will need to manually go to each subscriber properties and delete unified messaging account pointing to old unifed messaging service and recreate unified messaging account pointing to the new unified messaging service. Now this a ridiculous amount of manual work given that our exchange admin team regularly move user mailboxes between two exchange 2003 servers! and I also checked we can't update unified messaging account using BAT tool.

Hi Tommy,

Can you elaborate little bit more on the following points you mentioned above

1) setup an Exchange Mailbox for Exchange Admin rights, otherwise WebDav will fail! I don't see any reference in the CUC messaging guide to create a mailbox?

2) When the Exchange mailbox gets migrated from Exchange 2003 to 2010, you can simply update the service in the CUC UM settings from 2003 to 2010. Does this mean we need to change settings for each subscribers to associate with exchange 2010 unified messaging service?

Thank You

Aamir

Josh Edwards · ‎08-22-2011

Nick/Aamir - I am working at a client site with a very similar situation to yours:

Unity 5/Exchange 2003 --> migrated to Unity Connection 8.5.1/Exchange 2003 via COBRAS

For this we only needed one Unified Messaging service for Exchange 2003. As Tommer described above we had the Exchange/AD group create a service account with appropriate permissions - we provide the Unified Messaging guide and they were able to build the appropriate account from that.

The Client is now migrating from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010

For this we created a new Unified Messaging service for Exchange 2010 - you cannot apply both Unified Messaging services to a single user account in Unity Connection... you must remove the Exchange 2003 service from the user before adding the exchange 2010 service...

This brings up a troublesome point - in Unity Connection 8.5.1 you cannot BAT Unified Messaging Service Accounts... (or at least, I have not been able to)

Right now we are still in the pilot phase for Exchange 2010 so they are only moving ~10 mailboxes per night... this is easy to manually update... when we get to the production migrations they will be moving ~100 mailboxes per night (there are ~3500 Unity Connection Mailboxes total)

Has anyone come up with a solution to Bulk Update the Unified Messaging Service in Unity Connection?

panjwani80 · ‎08-22-2011

Joshua - As per below link you can't bulk update unified messaging service within unifed messaging accounts which is just

ridiculous!

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/8x/user_mac/guide/8xcucmacappa.html#wp1043169

This is the reason I have recommended to the business not to integrate CUC with exchange 2003, and provided them

2 temp workaround until exchange 2010 environment is ready. First option is to use SMTP text notification and second option

is to use IMAP

You mentioned you have created one AD 2003 account with appropriate permission, however, I am assuming that from CUC

side you created several unified messaging service account using the same AD account point to IP address of different

exchange 2003 mailbox servers?? Basically unified messaging service account equal to the number of exchange 2003 mailbox

servers right?

Thanks

NickParece · ‎08-23-2011

Guys,

Anjwan you have it completely wrong. And Josh, I think you may to. To respond in to each:

First, I use one account to talk to all 35 Exchange 2003 servers. If the proper permissioning has been applied to all servers and WebDAV is running as outlined in the docs, it will work. AN IMPORTANT NOTE, make sure you put the domain\user (examplecompany\unityaccount) for the service account. Cisco can explain this better, but the way Unity Connection autodiscover for 2003 works is that it queries DNS for an AD controller. It contacts the AD controller and requests the Exchange server for the account in question. It then attempts to connect to the Exchange server directly. This works wonderfully in this environment. Spend some time and you'll get it up and running.. This will be SO much easier than configuring SMTP notification or IMAP accounts in everyone's mailbox. Trust me on that one.

Next, Josh BAT will bulk subscribe UMS accounts. I'm not sure what the doc says, but it requires 2 steps. Bulk delete a set of users' UMS accounts only (BAT>Select Delete>Select Unified Messaging Services>Put in file) and then using BAT to update users' UMS accounts (BAT>Select Update>Select Unified Messaging Services> Put in file). This will now subscribe the user subset to this new UMS.

You cannot use find users to bulk edit this, I'll agree. But BAT proper will do so.

NickParece · ‎08-23-2011

One additional note. If your environment is large enough from an Exchange server count perspective, Cisco did release a fix in ES55 that allows the use of one UMS for both 2003 and 2007/2010 even when http/https is not the same across all. I'd recommend performing the 2 step process outlined above if feasible. If your Exchange 2003 environment is too large or the migrations are outside of your control, then open a TAC case and request ES55 or greater and have them pull the release notes. There is a bug id fixed in 55 that refers to exchange 2003/2010 mixed environments. They will have to give you the detailed directions for how to enable this after upgrade.

Josh Edwards · ‎09-01-2011

Hey Guys - yes, I do have a single Unified Messaging service setup for Exchange 2003 - this works great no matter which Exchange 2003 server the mailbox is on...

I'm not able to use the same Unified Messaging service for Exchange 2010 because the client is also migratin AD domains at the same time and the two Exchange environments are in different AD domains...

no big deal... the BAT process that Nick described above to chang Unified Messaging services works great - Thanks!

r.stockton · ‎12-13-2011

I am doing a similar migration (with the added step up upgrading from Unity 4.x) and am having trouble with the BAT portion of things. As it stands, I have a couple of test users pointing to the Exch2003UM account and can run the BAT export to generate a file for import, however, it looks like I have to populate each user with their smtp address and some sort of hash. There must be something I am missing. My question, thus is:

How do I create the 'input file' for the BAT tool to add a brand new UM Account (for 2003). Once I have that, I'll do the same for the delete and add for 2010. (As part of the migration, I have to first upgrade Unity4.x to CUC 8.6, then point to the Exch 2010 server as there is no support for Unity4.x)

Thanks,

-Robert