[cisco-voip] Unity Connection - Mailbox Stores

Wed Mar 23 15:06:31 EDT 2011

We have GlobalScape gsftps as well. We are pointing our Unity Connection 7.1 server to this server which has a mounted drive from another windows server and it operates without issue. Our CONNECTION_MESSAGES_UNITYMBXDB1_MESSAGES tar file is over 8GB. 

That being said, it doesn't seem to behave properly with Cisco Unity Express. I have to revist the backups there, but they were shoot and miss. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. Couldn't get scheduled backups working at all. We upgraded to EFT in order to get support, so we will open a case with them. 

I'm hoping that since they are so close with Cisco, they will make an effort to fix the issue or at least resolve with us. 

--- 
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A. 
Senior Analyst (CCS) * University of Guelph * Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1 
(519) 824-4120 x56354 (519) 767-1060 FAX (JNHN) 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
Cooking with unix is easy. You just sed it and forget it. 
- LFJ (with apologies to Mr. Popeil) 

----- Original Message -----
From: "STEVEN CASPER" <SCASPER at mtb.com> 
To: "Bill Simon" <bills at psu.edu>, "Pat Hayes" <pat-cv at wcyv.com> 
Cc: cisco-voip at puck.nether.net 
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 1:35:38 PM 
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] Unity Connection - Mailbox Stores 

I have two Unity Connection clusters with mail stores around 6 gig and 8 gig. I have tried a lot of SFTP server solutions and so far the most consistent performing solution I have used is Globalscape EFT Server. 

http://www.globalscape.com/gsftps/ 

It is not free but they are a member of the Cisco Technology Developer Program and have provided good support to us. I can attest to the need for a good current DRS backup. In January we ended up with database corruption on both the Pub and the Sub on one of our clusters and had to restore from a DRS backup. Very painful but at least we were able to restore service to 5000 users. Nothing drives home the need for backups like actually needing one! 

Steve 

>>> Pat Hayes <pat-cv at wcyv.com> 3/23/2011 9:41 AM >>> 
To the original question of whether or not you can specify over the 
DRS recommended 15 gigs, yes, you can, but why would you want to? DRS 
being the only supported method of periodic backups, you are 
potentially putting your system at risk by going outside of that. 

For problems backing up the mailbox store, I think there are two main 
ones - first, the SFTP server you use needs to support file uploads 
that large. Check the archives for details on some known problem 
servers. You can verify easily enough by trying to manually upload a 
large file to your server, if it is going to fail it usually fails 
around 1 or 2 gigs. Second, defect CSCtf40892 can cause your backup to 
stall out and fail, usually around the 3 gig mark. Check the bug for 
full details, but essentially everything 7.x prior to 7.1(5b)su3 and 
8.x prior to 8.5(1) is impacted. If you can get past those two issues, 
it should be smooth sailing :-) 

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 7:49 PM, Bill Simon <bills at psu.edu> wrote: 
> All, 
> 
> We have a 10k user base and about 10GB mail store. Backups (DRS) seldom 
> worked on CUC 7.1. Just last weekend upgraded to 8.5 and backups are working 
> fine for this whole mail store. SFTP backups to a Linux server/OpenSSH. 
> 
> Backups and increased scalability were the reasons we moved to 8.5. If 
> you've got a large system, consider moving to this version. 
> 
> 
> On 3/22/11 7:19 PM, Erick B. wrote: 
>> 
>> Hmm... yea, on the 8.02 I have it always fails at just over a gig on 
>> both mailstores> 1 gig. The one mailstore we don't backup the 
>> messages in anymore however, just a lot of mailboxes for various 
>> sites. 
>> 
>> I've worked with TAC on this in past, and they didn't suggest using 
>> more mailstores to help with the backup issue. We had tried a dozen or 
>> so different SFTP servers and all failed at a gig most of time, so we 
>> ruled out SFTP server as problem. Any mailstore less then a gig backs 
>> up fine. 
>> 
>> I'll make some more mailstores to see what the limit is. 
>> 
>> Also, can't move the system mailboxes off the default mailstore. 
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 5:49 PM, Jobe Gates<jobe at gates-tribe.com> wrote: 
>>> 
>>> Mine was up to 6GB's so yes it should go over 1. I thought 5 was the 
>>> limit on 7.x. Not sure about 8. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Thanks, 
>>> Jobe 
>>> 
>>> On Mar 22, 2011, at 6:18 PM, "Erick B."<erickbee at gmail.com> wrote: 
>>> 
>>>> I am having DRS fail at 1 gig, with mailstores over 1 gig in size. 
>>>> I've recently split a client into 5 mailstores now to get past the drs 
>>>> issue. 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> this is with unity connection 8.02 
>>>> 
>>>> so drs should be able to do larger then 1 gig? on the ones it fails on 
>>>> the drs backup process sits at 40% for awhile then fails.... 
>>>> 
>>>> Does anyone know if there is a limit to # of mailstores you can have? 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 3:54 PM, Jobe Gates<jobe at gates-tribe.com> 
>>>> wrote: 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I've had DRS problems with large stores. This was on 7.1 and there was 
>>>>> a known bug if you go over 10GB it would fail. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks, 
>>>>> Jobe 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Mar 22, 2011, at 4:37 PM, Tanner Ezell<tanner.ezell at gmail.com> 
>>>>> wrote: 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Certainly, 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If you haven't already check out the design guide for CUC: 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/8x/design/guide/8xcucdgpdf.pdf 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Section 6 page 4 includes notes about scalability specifically the 2GB 
>>>>>> performance limitation I mentioned. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Regarding mail box size, I cannot speak to that I'm afraid. I have not 
>>>>>> been in a deployment that used such a large mail box. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Also, the CUC guide contains specific sections on scaling which will 
>>>>>> probably be on use to you. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Tanner 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 1:29 PM, Anthony Holloway 
>>>>>> <avholloway+cisco-voip at gmail.com> wrote: 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Thank you Tanner. This is for a 1,200 user deployment on a pair of 
>>>>>>> MCS-7835-I3's, with 300GB HDD space, and 4GB of memory. 
>>>>>>> Do you have a source for the 2GB per mailbox comment, or is that 
>>>>>>> coming from 
>>>>>>> experience? 
>>>>>>> Also, can you comment on the 15GB per mailbox store, as it pertains 
>>>>>>> to DRS 
>>>>>>> backing up at a rate of 3GB/hr? 
>>>>>>> Anthony 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Tanner Ezell<tanner.ezell at gmail.com> 
>>>>>>> wrote: 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Mailbox sizes above 2GB are not recommend for performance reasons. I 
>>>>>>>> don't believe there is a hard limit on mailbox size. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Depending on how many users you are supporting and the hardware 
>>>>>>>> running the platform will really determine the best course of 
>>>>>>>> action. 
>>>>>>>> Anything less than a 50-100 users I wouldn't worry about, beyond 
>>>>>>>> that 
>>>>>>>> you need to take performance into consideration. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:03 AM, Anthony Holloway 
>>>>>>>> <avholloway+cisco-voip at gmail.com> wrote: 
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Unity Gurus, 
>>>>>>>>> I am reading up on the what's what with Mailbox Stores in CUC 8x, 
>>>>>>>>> and I 
>>>>>>>>> have 
>>>>>>>>> two questions: 
>>>>>>>>> 1. How closely should I stick to the 15GB per mailbox store for DRS 
>>>>>>>>> purposes? 
>>>>>>>>> 2. Ignoring DRS concerns, how large can a mailbox store be? All of 
>>>>>>>>> available 
>>>>>>>>> disk space? 
>>>>>>>>> In general, can you provide any real world considerations, tips, or 
>>>>>>>>> warnings 
>>>>>>>>> about going down this path? 
>>>>>>>>> Thanks. 
> 
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