Avaya CM and CMM Backup Datasets – Things you need to know

4 Procedures to have you solve common issues.

By the end of this post, Avaya CM and CMM Backup Datasets: Things You Need to Know, you will learn the 4 procedures to to perform, schedule, and troubleshoot the backups related to Communications Manager (CM) and Communications Manager Messaging (CMM) or embedded messaging.

Towards the end of last year, I was helping a customer troubleshoot some failed backup jobs. This particular customer was using an external FTP Server as the main storage to save both CM and CMM files. Here, I’ll explain how I was able to help the customer successfully save this data, after finding out what was wrong with the scheduled backups.

The are the procedures:

• • 1. Understand the customer’s Intentions

• • 2. Explain and provide best options

• • 3. Test and analyze

• 4. Configure and activate

1.- Understand the customer’s Intentions

As I reviewed the existing schedule backups, I couldn’t help notice how some of these datasets lacked the most important information. The customer might think that they are saving the most important data, not knowing that some of these schedule jobs are just saving security and kernel information, leaving out the meat and potatoes.

When talking with your customer/contact verify the following=

System updates and changes – How often they make changes to their voice solution. This includes voicemail and phone system.

Remote Storage – How often is the remote storage backed-up, and is there any redundancy. You also should know what type of storage they have implemented.

Network Connectivity – Is the backup server local or remote

Backup Media – Are they using Virtual or Physical Media

With these elements covered, you are ready to move forward to the next procedure

2. Explain and provide best options

CM and CMM files can be large, especially messages and announcements. It is important to have those messages transferred securely through the network; ideally through SFTP or SCP.

Secured FTP helps encrypt the backup files adding another layer of protection.

3. Test and analyze

Before you can make any adjustments, it is important to test any existing schedule backup jobs. Once tested, you can move forward and analyze what went wrong with the failed backups. It is important to remember these files are traversing through the customer’s network appliances. Make them aware of the network ports and services that CM and CMM are using to transfer those files over.

4. Configure and activate:

Before scheduling the backup, I recommend that you test the job first. Once confirmed that the backups are saving on demand, you can go ahead and schedule the new datasets to be backed up.

Which backup error types have you encountered when performing backups?

Resources

Avaya Mentor – How to backup CM and CMM through the SMI Console