Unity/Exchange options... Oh my.

[brobinson]

Hello.

I am a little confused about all the Unity options out there. We currently have Unity 4.2(1) with VM-only (so on-board Exchange) and have purchased a new server to go to v5.x. So we are on Win2000/Exchange2000.

From my understanding, we need to build the new server with the same OS and Exchange and use DiRT to move to the new server. No problem. It would then be a Unity 5.x deployment with Win2000/Exchange2000.

What if we want to upgrade to Win2003 on that box later? What's involed in that? Can it be done on a VM-only deployment with the Exchange on the Unity server?

Please help clear the waters. Hehe. Thanks!

[ranpierce]

here is the installation guide for 5.x and exchange 2003 vm only is in there.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/5x/installation/guide/vmexnofo/5xcuigvmenofox.html

Randy

[espereir]

Hello Ben,

From TAC perspective, it will be better to upgrade the current box to 5.X and then do a clean install and DiRT restore from the old box into the the new server already running Windows/Exchange 2k3; this is because, if you would like to upgrade the OS and Exchange to 2k3 later on, you will need to rebuild the server again.

Hope this helps!

[brobinson]

Thanks for the assistance, the both of you.

Unfortunately Unity 5.x is not on the supported hardware list for the current server. = (

On this topic, we can DiRT backup Unity with on-box VM on Exchange2000 and restore on Exchange2003 and preserve the messages?

[espereir]

Yes, that is possible, let me get home and I will give you the details ;)

[espereir]

Okay Ben, sorry for the delay but I was unable to connect until today; you can create a DiRT backup of Unity with Exchange/AD 2000 and restore it on 2003 because DiRT uses ExMerge to backup and restore the messages, the DiRT backup can be restored as long as the target Unity version is the same as the source (this is the only restriction, not like BARS on CCM).

In addition, there is a new tool called COBRAS that can backup/restore on different Unity versions, this tool is NOT TAC supported at this point, however, with this tool you can restore a 4.X data into any other Unity or Connection versions. This tool can help you with the migration, I guess you can build the new box with Unity 5.X and restore it with a COBRAS backup from 4.X, then, I would check that all the data is there, at least with this method, the only thing that can go wrong will be to re-image the new server ;) and if everything goes well, you will have a newly build Unity 5.X with the migrated data from 4.X :).

Below you will find COBRAS link:

http://ciscounitytools.com/App_COBRAS.htm

Pst.: Check the training videos, those are really helpful!

Hope this helps!

[brobinson]

Thank you all so much for the replies. Very good info! : )

[espereir]

You are welcome, and have a nice one ;)!!!