Contents
Backup
and Migration Strategies
COBRAS
Backup and Restore with Messages.
COBRAS
Backup and Restore, Message Shuttle for Messages
COBRAS
Backup and Restore, DRS Message Restore Tool
Unity Connection has a number of backup and migration options that each have their advantages and disadvantages and can be used in different situations depending on what type of Connection installation you are working with. This document covers the basic options and when/why you would want to use them for backup or migration scenarios.
This document uses “restricted install” and “unrestricted install” which I know has confused some folks in the field. Here’s the short definition:
This is an installation of Unity Connection that is allowed anywhere in the world (that’s the “unrestricted” meaning). These installations have significant limitations on the encryption capabilities that are allowed. These limitations include not allowing secure IMAP which is required for extracting messages from Unity Connection using IMAP – the only alternative is then extracting messages via HTTP REST protocol which is considerably slower (around 15x as slow). As such tools like the Message Shuttle are not supported on these installs.
This installation type of Unity Connection is not allowed in some parts of the world based on US and local country import/export restrictions. A restricted installation allows you to enable the encryption features that allow SSL for IMAP, secure MIME, secure SCCP, SIP and SRTP among others. Tools such as COBRAS and Message Shuttle can use secure IMAP for exporting messages that greatly increase the speed of migration/backup.
The Disaster Recovery Service (DRS) has been built into the platform for many of the voice products including Unity Connection from its first version. For Unity Connection this backs up the database components, greetings and message stores based on what you select for backup. For restore it completely replaces all data and messages in the system, so it’s not possible using this tool to do anything like a “migration” or “partial restore” of any data.
Notably you cannot restore a backup of an unrestricted system onto an installation of a restricted system or vice versa. DRS has no migration capabilities on its own. See other options below for more on that.
As noted above, when you restore any backed up component, it completely replaces all data for that component. So when restoring a message backup, all messages in the current Unity Connection installation will be wiped out and replaced with what’s in the backup. As such if the backup was taken a week ago, the system will effectively be “rolled back” to that point in time and all changes since then lost.
· All data/settings are restored in total from the backup. For tools such as COBRAS that allow more flexible backup/restore options some configuration will be required to be done by hand on the new target installation before doing a restore.
· Restore times are relatively quick given it’s completely replacing entire database tables in one shot – there’s no migration logic, settings migration, reference updating or the like to slow things down.
· It’s a monolithic restore meaning all existing data on the system at the time of restore is lost. All data updates since the moment the backup completed will be wiped out.
· The system cannot be taking calls while restoring data.
· DRS effectively does not support migration. It must be restored to the same Unity Connection version on a system with same domain name etc. Further, you cannot restore an unrestricted backup onto a restricted system or vice versa. This tool on its own is effectively a way to roll back to a point in time for an install.
Cisco Unified Backup and Restore Application Suite (COBRAS) is a set of tools that allows backups of selected Unity Connection data and messages and a wide variety of selective restore, merges, migrations across platform types and versions of Unity Connection.
The COBRAS suite includes a backup and restore application as well as a data editing tool allowing for the updating of user alias and extensions in a backup prior to restoring as this is a common migration request from customers. These tools all run on a Windows client or server installation and attach to Unity Connection using ODBC/ADO, HTTPS, SMTP and IMAP protocols for various needs.
The latest versions of the tools, help files and TOI videos for COBRAS can be found on its home page here: http://www.ciscounitytools.com/Applications/General/COBRAS/COBRAS.html
COBRAS Backup is basically two parts – directory backup (all user, call handler, greetings, routing rules etc.) from the Unity Connection database and messages for all mail stores. Separate Access databases (MDB files) are created for both.
COBRAS Import is a detailed wizard application that allows for restores of some or all of the data backed up. It can span platform types (restricted and unrestricted) and can restore onto any version of Unity Connection that’s the same or a later version then was backed up. You can split items from one backup into several restores or merge several backups onto one system.
· COBRAS is unparalleled for migration scenarios – combined with tools like Message Shuttle and now the new DRS Message Restore tools (see below) it can handle many and varied migration needs.
· You can restore as little as a single individual user from the backup to all directory data, greetings and messages. The restore wizard allows you to choose which objects to restore.
· You can copy call handler trees (i.e. Auto Attendant setups) from one Connection server onto several Connection servers in your network. Since call handlers don’t replicate around the network this can be a handy way to copy complex call trees without creating them manually.
· COBRAS handles restoring selected objects into a new Unity Connection configuration that has little or no similarity to what’s backed up. The restore wizard allows the administrator to decide which COS, Phone System, Exchange setup etc. users are associated with when restored. This allows for merging multiple systems onto a single install and/or splitting a single install onto multiple systems depending on what you want to do.
· COBRAS Export supports both secure IMAP (for restricted installs) and HTTPS REST (for unrestricted installs) for messages. However note that there are now better options for moving messages that are much faster (see Message Shuttle and DRS Message Restore tools below).
· Message restores are non destructive – meaning duplicates are not created and only messages that don’t already exist for the user are restored. No existing messages are removed.
· COBRAS offers a “hot mode” that allows load balancing by moving live users between multiple clusters in a network installation on the fly for small batches of users at a time.
· You can do restores of various objects and messages while Unity Connection is running and even processing calls – there is no need to have call processing shut down.
· All data is backed up into portable Access MDB files so the source Connection server and the target Connection server do not have to be accessible to one another.
· COBRAS will be slower for a full system DRS restore – it’s designed to allow for handling changes in the database across versions and to allow for migrations to systems that are configured in new environments in different ways.
· The restore wizard can be daunting for first time users – understanding how “reference mapping” is done for all objects being restored for complex restore scenarios (i.e. merge/split migrations) takes a little practice. This is not a “point and click” restore tool.
· Administrators need to configure the target Connection server for all external systems (phone system, LDAP integration etc.) prior to importing data from COBRAS.
· Not all data is restored – notably information about the phone system integration, attachments for Exchange mail integration and such are not included – this is by design since migrations are often onto systems configured differently and COBRAS is designed to allow for that. See the COBRAS help file for more details on what data is included and what is not.
· Message backup and restores will be slower than Message Shuttle and DRS based message restore (see below for more on those). Each message extracted has to be compressed and then encrypted prior to inserting into the Access database during backup and the reverse done during restore – this chews up a lot of CPU cycles and cannot be easy done on multiple threads.
· Backup of large message databases will be cumbersome – given the size limitations on Access Databases very large mail stores have to be broken into multiple MDB files.
· Message restores are done on a mailbox by mailbox basis meaning single instance message optimization for messages to distribution lists will be lost.
Message Shuttle provides an alternative, must faster way to copy messages from a source Connection server to a new target Connection server for migration scenarios. It does not store messages or even create local files, it’s specifically for migrating to new platforms quickly.
The Message Restore tool and help files and TOI training videos for it can be found on its home page here: http://www.ciscounitytools.com/Applications/CxN/MessageShuttle/MessageShuttle.html
The migration strategy using COBRAS and Message Shuttle together is to do a COBRAS backup (without messages) and restore to a new target Connection server ahead of cut over – this can be the same or later version of Connection, configured differently and the platform type (restricted or unrestricted) doesn’t matter.
Typically then the night of “cut over” you use message shuttle to copy messages from the old source server to the new server and then decommission the old Connection server. Since Message Shuttle only adds new messages and never overwrites or deletes existing messages on the target it can be run multiple times without issue.
This greatly reduces the migration window time frame as the message copy process is much faster than having to unpack encrypted files from the backup database created by COBRAS and import them into Connection one at a time.
See the advantages and disadvantages for COBRAS backup and restore above, but the items related to messages don’t apply here.
· Message Shuttle is considerably faster than COBRAS for copying messages from a source Connection server to a target server. It extracts and sends messages on multiple threads at once (adjustable) to optimize speed.
· No local file is ever made of the messages and as such no compression or encryption is involved. Messages are fetched via secure IMAP, assembled into an EML in memory and sent via SMTP to the target Connection server.
· Message Shuttle uses the user alias to map mailboxes from the source to the target – nothing else needs to be the same between the source and Connection installations including mailstore configurations or the like.
· Message Shuttle only copies messages to the target that are not already present in the mailbox for a user and never removes messages already there. It can be run multiple times without worry of any destruction.
· Message Shuttle only supports secure IMAP for extracting messages, not REST. As such it can only be used on restricted installs.
· The target and source Connection installs need to be on the same local network to work efficiently. For cases where that’s not an option you’ll need to use COBRAS by itself or, better, in conjunction with the new DRS Message Restore tools (see below)
· There is no alias mapping option – so if you’re planning on migrating to a new platform and also changing your alias naming convention in one shot, Message Shuttle cannot be used for copying messages to the new target.
· Message restores are done on a mailbox by mailbox basis meaning single instance message optimization for messages to distribution lists will be lost.
The DRS Message Restore tool provides a new method for both migration and selective restore of messages starting in June of 2020. Back in Unity Connection 9.x the DRS service started encrypting the TAR files created by the backups which then prevented the use of tools for selectively restoring messages found in those TAR files to Unity Connection. A decryption tool was provided and approved by Cisco legal and the TAC group for use to decrypt these TAR files, allowing a new, updated version of the DRS Message Restore tool to be supported.
The DRS Message Restore tool allows administrators to selectively restore individual messages, mailboxes or all mailboxes found in a DRS message backup quickly and without removing or harming any existing messages in the target Connection server.
For migrations, similar to using Message Shuttle, it’s typical to have done a COBRAS backup and restore to the new target system ahead of time and copy messages from the source to the target on the night of the cut over. This does require completing a DRS message backup on the source Connection server and decrypting it first as opposed to message shuttle which can just start moving messages immediately. However since this can work on both restricted and unrestricted installs and can be on separate networks, it’s often a better choice for migrations.
The DRS Message Restore tool and its companion DRS File Decryption tool along with their help files and TOI videos can be found on their homepage here: http://www.ciscounitytools.com/Applications/CxN/DRSMessageFisher/DRSMessageFisher.html
See the advantages and disadvantages for COBRAS backup and restore above, but the items related to messages don’t apply here.
· The DRS Message Restore tool allows for selective restore of individual messages or mailboxes or the entire mail store in a non-destructive way – messages are only ever added to the system that aren’t already there and existing messages are never touched. This is useful for both backup/restore and migration scenarios.
· The DRS Message Restore tool runs on multiple threads (adjustable) and is considerably faster than restoring messages via COBRAS.
· Both the COBRAS backup and the DRS backup are file based and portable, as such there’s no requirement that the source and target Connection server reside on the same network and/or be accessible to one another.
· Both COBRAS and the DRS Message Restore tool are version independent – the target and source server do not have to be the same version or platform type (restricted vs. unrestricted installs).
· To use the message backup TAR file you first have to decrypt it using the decryption tool available on the tool page. It’s up to the administrator to make sure to provide a secure location for doing this and then deleting the unencrypted TAR file when complete.
· There is no alias mapping functionality – either editing in the backup (as COBRAS offers) or on the fly during restore time. If you are migrating systems and wanting to change the alias naming convention at the same time, this won’t work for you.
· Message restores are done on a mailbox by mailbox basis meaning single instance message optimization for messages to distribution lists will be lost.
· A DRS backup of messages needs to be done on the “night of” migration which can add some time to the migration window.