The documentation set for this product strives to use bias-free language. For the purposes of this documentation set, bias-free is defined as language that does not imply discrimination based on age, disability, gender, racial identity, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality. Exceptions may be present in the documentation due to language that is hardcoded in the user interfaces of the product software, language used based on RFP documentation, or language that is used by a referenced third-party product. Learn more about how Cisco is using Inclusive Language.
The Multi-data Center (MDC) licensed feature is available in version 2.5 and higher. Version 2.5 allows two CWMS systems to be joined into a single MDC system. One license must be purchased for each CWMS data center in a MDC system. MDC licenses should be purchased before you attempt to deploy MDC. A system with a single data center does not need a feature license. MDC licenses are further described in About MDC Licenses.
End user access to all data centers by using one URL and one set of phone numbers; the existence of MDC is transparent to end users.
Host licenses, recordings, and related management data migrate freely between joined data centers.
Users can dial into meetings without geographic restrictions; attend meetings by dialing local phone numbers.
Data centers can (optionally) be located in different geographic areas.
Zero-downtime during some planned maintenance events, when the data centers can be running different CWMS 2.5 update versions. Consult the release notes at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/conferencing/webex-meetings-server/products-release-notes-list.html to determine which CWMS versions can run simultaneously.
Occasionally, data centers in a MDC system can be running different update versions. Consult the release notes at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/conferencing/webex-meetings-server/products-release-notes-list.html to determine which CWMS versions can run simultaneously.
A disaster recovery environment that is transparent to users. If one data center fails for any reason, the other data center supports users.
Although in a MDC environment the data centers are all running CWMS and considered peers, for the purpose of joining data centers in a system, the relationship between data centers are considered primary and secondary. Before the Join, the primary data center supports the system you want to retain. The secondary data center becomes part of the MDC system. The distinction is important especially if you are joining data centers that have been actively supporting users.
Note | There is no increase in capacity when a data center is added to a MDC system. If a 2000-port data center is added to a MDC system supported by a 2000-port data center the resulting system is a 2000-port MDC. |
If you are joining a newly-created, secondary CWMS system data center that has no user data to a MDC system, continue to Preparing a MDC System to Receive Data Center Join Requests.
If you are joining an active, secondary CWMS system data center that includes user data to a MDC system, continue to Preparing to Join an Active CWMS Data Center to a MDC System.
All global data is overwritten. (Configuration parameters local to the data center are preserved.)
User information, scheduled meetings, reports, and related emails that was on the secondary data center is deleted.
Meeting recordings are inaccessible to users. The recordings remain intact on the NAS, but they cannot be accessed or recovered by users. (See Preserving Recordings before Joining a MDC System.)
Host licenses are lost, but Permanent Host licenses that were hosted on the secondary data center can be recovered by re-hosting them on the MDC system. (If the primary data center is removed from the system, the licenses must be re-hosted on another data center.
If the primary data center goes off-line for any reason, it must be brought back online before host licenses can be modified. If the managing data center cannot be recovered, surviving data centers go into a grace mode for 180 days. To recover, Permanent Host licenses must be re-hosted before the grace period ends. (See Re-hosting Licenses.) If the licenses are not re-hosted before the grace period ends, the system is put into Maintenance Mode until the licenses are re-hosted.
The user-to-host license associations on an active secondary data center are lost when data centers are joined. Users that were hosts on an active secondary data center can recover their licenses simply by hosting meetings on the joined system or an administrator can manually assign host licenses from the data center managing the licenses.
The CWMS data on a secondary data center being joined to a MDC system is overwritten or rendered inaccessible. If you are joining a CWMS data center that has not been put into service, there is no meaningful data to preserve and you can continue to Preparing a MDC System to Receive Data Center Join Requests. Otherwise, consider preserving critical data.
When a secondary data center joins a MDC system, that data center loses:
User-Host license associations
Host licenses (that can be recovered by re-hosting them on the MDC systemRe-hosting Licenses after a Major System Modification)
Scheduled meetings (that must be manually rescheduled on the MDC system)
Meeting recordings that can be preserved by:
Asking users to download and retain recordings locally.
Archived for retrieval by a system administrator.
Both. (Recommended)
Meeting recordings "live" on the NFS, so they are not lost; they are not accessible to users from CWMS.
Under the NFS:/nbr directory are the Recording, nfskeepalive, and Snapshot directories. To archive the files, copy NFS1:/nbr/1/* to NFS2:/nbr/1.
Note | This procedure is provided as an example. The process for your system might vary. |
For the purposes of the example steps, assume the NFS is on DC1 and named sanjose-nfs:/cisco/cwms and the NFS on DC2 is named rtp-nfs:/cisco/cwms.
Data centers can be joined and managed as a single system. This procedure describes how to prepare the primary data center that is already servicing the system to receive Join requests from the secondary data center:
Verify the CUCM transport on both data centers use the same protocol. The transport protocol can be TCP, UDP, or TLS.
Step 1 | Notify users on
the secondary system of the Join. If the secondary data center has not been a
part of any active system, skip this step. If this data center is supporting an
active system, see
Preparing to Join an Active CWMS Data Center to a MDC System.
User data, scheduled meetings, and access to meeting recordings on the secondary data center is lost as a result of a Join. Before sending a Join request from the secondary data center, we recommend that you send notification to users that if they want to preserve any meeting recordings, they should download the recordings to their local PCs. | ||
Step 2 | Select | ||
Step 3 | Enter:
| ||
Step 4 | Download the
certificate that will be used to Join the systems.
The certificate from the primary data center must be uploaded to a secondary data center prior to the join. Certificates are modified by the system, so it is best not to try to reuse old certificates to accomplish a join.
| ||
Step 5 | Select Done. | ||
Step 6 | Sign-in to the secondary data center and send a Join request from that data center. See Joining a Data Center to a MDC System for instructions. |
The Join request is sent from a secondary data center to the primary data center (the data center supporting the CWMS Multi-data Center (MDC) system that will retain its data and access to meeting recordings after the Join). The MDC feature licenses and Permanent Host licenses are typically hosted and managed on the primary data center. There is no trial period for a MDC system; MDC licenses must be loaded on the primary data center prior to the Join. Without an available MDC license on the primary data center, a secondary data center cannot join a system.
Note | When joining data centers, the primary data center certificates are updated. The new certificates are self-signed and automatically regenerated to pick up the new URLs from the secondary data center. This causes a certificate warning in the browser when you access the primary data center or the MDC Administration site. Accept the warnings and follow the standard procedure to update the system certificates. (See Managing Certificates.) |
If this data center is supporting an active system, Host licenses supported on this data center are removed. These Host licenses can be re-hosted on the data center hosting the License Manager. (See Re-hosting Licenses.) We recommend that you save a license request from this data center before you start the join in case you later need help from TAC to locate your licenses.
Common site URL—Public
VIP address for each data center.
Common Administration
URL—Private VIP address of both data centers.
Local Site URL (of a
data center)—Public VIP address of that data center.
Local Site URL (of the
other data center)—Public VIP address of that data center.
Local Administration Site
URL (of a data center)—Private VIP address of that data center.
Local Administration Site
URL (of the other data center)—Private VIP address of that data center.
Modify the Audio Access Numbers and Service Language
The audio access number and service language configured on the primary data center are configured as the global access number and service language, replacing the original access number and service language configuration. If necessary, go to global configuration and adjust the access numbers and service language appropriately. (See Configuring Audio Settings).
In a Multi-data Center (MDC) environment where one data center has failed due to a hardware or system issue, we recommend replacing the failed data center by creating a new data center and joining that data center to the system. (See also Disaster Recovery by using the Storage Server). The replacement data center is quickly populated with the user information. If the License Server is on the failed data center, the MDC and user licenses must be re-hosted (see Re-hosting Licenses) on the replacement data center.
The remaining data center supports the system as long as it is up. However, the system does not have any redundancy in this scenario.
If the Data Base node of one data center goes down, data changes happening in the other data center are queued up. This queued data is synced when the failed data center comes up or when a replacement data center is joined.
If the queue grows beyond the limit, the data center stops queuing to prevent disk from becoming full and thus risking its own functionality. If the queue has exceeded the limit, the MDC does not attempt to synchronize data, even if the failed data center comes up; the system will no longer be an MDC from that point on.
Proper email notifications are sent out when failure is anticipated.
Step 1 | Sign on to the Administration site of the surviving data center. |
Step 2 | Remove the
failed data center from the system.
(See Removing a Data Center). |
Step 3 | Create a new
data center to replace the failed data center.
The version of the replacement data center should match the version of the surviving data center. |
Step 4 | Complete the local configurations, such as CUCM, SNMP, and so forth, matching the failed data center. |
Step 5 | Prepare the
surviving data center in the system to receive Join requests.
(See Preparing a MDC System to Receive Data Center Join Requests). |
Step 6 | Join the new data center to the system. The data from the surviving data center is replicated on the new data center. |
Step 7 | Update the DNS with the new URL and IP address information. |
When a data center is removed from a Multi-data Center (MDC) system, all CWMS settings are removed. Parameters that applied to the removed data center are deleted from the surviving data center.
Note | In a Multi-data Center (MDC) environment the License Manager is running on only one data center; it cannot run on more than one data center. If you remove the data center that is hosting the License Manager, you have 90 days to configure the License Manager on another data center and re-host the licenses. (See Register Licenses to be Re-hosted.) |
Make a backup of the system and the data center to be removed.
Remove all the DNS and Communications Manager entries.
Step 1 | Power-off the virtual machines for the data center being removed. |
Step 2 | Sign in to the
Administration site.
In a Multi-data Center system, the DNS determines which data center Dashboard appears. All data centers can be managed from this Dashboard. |
Step 3 | Select The . Data Centers window appears. |
Step 4 | (Optional)Verify that the
data center is unreachable.
You can verify this manually or you can begin the process of removing the data center and let CWMS check availability. If the data center can be pinged, the remove process does not proceed, and an error message appears. |
Step 5 | To send a
request to remove a data center from a MDC system, select
in the
Action
column.
If the data center being removed is hosting the License Manager, a warning appears. There is also a warning that DNS changes are required. The primary data center is put into Maintenance Mode and the Remove Data Center window appears showing the progress of the action. |
Step 6 | Select Continue |
Step 7 | When all tasks are green, select The data center is removed and you are returned to the . Data Centers window. |
Step 8 | Verify that the data center was removed. URLs for system access change and system only retains the global URLs. |
Step 9 | Remove all DNS entries for the removed data center and map the Public and Private virtual IP addresses of the surviving data center to the global URLs. |
Step 10 | Turn off Maintenance Mode. See
Turning Maintenance Mode On or Off for Version 2.5 and Later.
When you turn off Maintenance Mode, the system determines if a restart (takes approximately 3 - 5 minutes) or a reboot (takes approximately 30 minutes) is required and displays the appropriate message. If this data center is part of a Multi-data Center (MDC) system, the administrator is re-directed to the global admin URL. The data center that the administrator sees is determined by the DNS resolution policy. If Key Regeneration is enabled, taking one data center out of Maintenance Mode automatically takes all data centers in the system out of Maintenance Mode. Meeting service for users on this data center is restored. |
Step 11 | (Optional)If you removed the data center that hosts the License Manager, re-host the License Manager and licenses on the surviving data center. |