Avaya MBT HA Server best practices.

By the end of this post ‘Avaya MBT Server best practices, 4 key points for a successful HA implementation’, you will understand how to deploy the MBT (Mid-Market Business Template) with High Availability (HA) Solution. The server capacities, software implementation, and patching are some of the core elements that I cover in this post.

I have created these 4 key points to help you avoid mistakes I found along the way while implement a new High Availability (HA) server.

This customer serves the health care insurance sector which meant the work had to be done after-hours or on a weekend, I noticed the production server with an early version of communications manager, that’s when I realized this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.

4 Key points to deploy the MBT-HA

• 1.- Identify the customer’s goals
• 2.- Assess the system environment
• 3.- Understand the system configuration
• 4.- Plan and install

1.- Identify the customer’s goals

Whenever incorporating, or upgrading any components to an existing solution you have to identify the core reason(s) to why the customer made the decision.

Internal resources – Start by reaching out within your team, asking questions and gathering reasons behind the upgrade. This helps you to look smatter in front of your customer, and ask direct questions that weren’t answered while doing the internal research.

Reason of the upgrade – For this particular customer they were looking for a redundant server that served as a backup in case their Core system crashed. As the customer, they don’t understand every moving piece of the of the puzzle, this is when you become the hero of the story by following the next steps.

2.- Assess the system environment

When assessing the system environment you have to identify the following=

Software – It is very important to know the software that the system is actually running as well as patches and service packs.

As I mentioned this was a legacy CM 5.2.1 installed as a template running on a 6.0.3.7  System Platform with a couple of patches. These files were not available in the http://support.avaya.com portal and I had difficulties finding them under PLDS. After intensive research I was able find the files by doing a wildcard search in the PLDS website.

Hardware – Depending on the system capacities check the Avaya Matrix publications in order to successfully install the solution. You have to watch out for every detail when working with duplicated servers, things like disk space, memory size and types, etc.

Gathering the existing server hardware information is always the best solution to avoid any server incompatibilities in the future. You can do this by running these commands for the shell=

• environment – list the system components and status)
• hardware_info – outputs server HDDs, RAID Configuration, and RAM.

Distance between servers – Based on Avaya recommendations you have to install these servers as far as 328 feet or 100 meters from each other. I strongly recommend that you stage the systems side-by-side when performing the data replication.

3.- Understand the system configuration

As technical people that we are, we sometimes get wrapped up on pulling information from the CM, AES, CMS, etc. This honestly can slow you down when getting to understand the reason why the customer has these components implemented, that is if of course they are truly using them.

Have the customer walk you through their daily business operations, and ask questions related to any activities associated with call handling.

4.- Plan and install

What software to download?

System Platform is the only component needed when installing it as an HA server. When deploying the SP template for MBT look out for the Media Services element which is only use on a Port-Network environment.

Should I use a crossover cable between servers to start the duplication process?

The short answer is No, preferably you want to use a switch or hub to allow the duplication process, in some cases you must use a hub if both interfaces are sharing the same IP Address.

Software Installation

What not to do – After downloading the software and verifying that each patch and version were the same, I proceeded by installing them in to the new server, I also installed CM, AES, and Utility templates. I quickly learned that none of these templates need to be deployed when installing it as the HA.

After removing, and starting a fresh installation with SP 6.0.3.7, I happily started the data transfer from server A to B, this process took around 6 hours. Once the data was successfully transferred, there was corruption in the HA Server, and it would not interchange. The corruption was caused by the way the software was installed in the HA Sever. The original server was upgrade twice before, and apparently some files didn’t get updated though the upgrade process.

The fastest solution was getting both servers installed with new images of the 6.0.3.7, restored the backups to the primary and lastly replicate the data between servers A and B. Keep in mind that licenses must be also backed up.

Q – Have you ever implemented MBT before?, if so tell me on thing that you learned during the process

Quick tip – Patches must be installed in the same fashion on both servers.

Resources

Installing and Configuring Avaya Midsize

Midsize Business Template Slide Deck