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Maintenance Guide for Cisco Unity Release 8.x (With Microsoft Exchange)
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Index
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Preface
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Introduction
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Monitoring the Cisco Unity 8.x Server
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Best Practices for Managing Exchange for Cisco Unity 8.x
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About Backing Up a Cisco Unity 8.x System
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Routine and Scheduled Maintenance on the Cisco Unity 8.x Server
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Cisco Unity 8.x Data and Log Files, and Subscriber and System Mailboxes
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Performance Monitoring in Cisco Unity 8.x
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Installing the Latest Service Packs and Updates for Cisco Unity 8.x
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Remote Access for Cisco Unity 8.x
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Reports for Cisco Unity 8.x
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Feedback
Table Of Contents
Best Practices for Managing Exchange for Cisco Unity 8.x
Setting a Maximum Size for Exchange Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x
Suppressing Mailbox-Limit Emails in the Cisco Unity 8.x Voice Messaging Configuration
Managing the Size of Subscriber Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x
Checking for Mailboxes That Are Over Their Size Limit for Cisco Unity 8.x
Using the Message Store Manager Utility in Cisco Unity 8.x
Using the Subscriber Message Store Status Report
Configuring Circular Logging in Exchange
Best Practices for Managing Exchange for Cisco Unity 8.x
We recommend that you follow the best practices in this chapter on every Exchange server on which Cisco Unity subscriber mailboxes are stored.
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Setting a Maximum Size for Exchange Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x
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In addition to the instructions in this chapter, see the Microsoft website for best practices on maintaining Microsoft products.
Setting a Maximum Size for Exchange Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x
Voice messages can consume significant amounts of disk space. For example, voice messages recorded by using the G.711 codec consume 480 KB/minute. If Cisco Unity subscribers save many of the voice messages they receive, send, or delete (as applicable), the hard disk on the server where messages are stored can quickly run out of space. To prevent the hard disk from filling up, set appropriate limits on the size of subscriber Exchange mailboxes.
To view and set the size of subscriber mailboxes, you can use the Message Store Manager utility, available in Tools Depot (see the "Using the Message Store Manager Utility in Cisco Unity 8.x" section for additional information).
Or, if you prefer, use the applicable procedure in this section:
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For other ways in which you can manage mailbox size, see the "Managing the Size of Subscriber Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x" section.
For more information on Exchange storage limits, see the Microsoft Exchange documentation.
To learn more about how Cisco Unity handles full subscriber mailboxes, see the "How Cisco Unity Handles Full Mailboxes" section in the "Messaging and Default Accounts Overview" chapter of the System Administration Guide for Cisco Unity Release 8.x at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/8x/administration/guide/8xcusagx.html.)
For information on mailbox size and Cisco Unity performance, see the "Guidelines for Monitoring Cisco Unity 8.x Performance" section on page 7-9.
To Set Limits for All Users in Exchange 2007
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To Set Limits for Individual Users in Exchange 2007
Use this procedure to set different limits for individual users (for example, to set no limit for the company president).
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To Set Limits for All Users in Exchange 2003
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To Set Limits for Individual Users in Exchange 2003
Use this procedure to set different limits for individual users (for example, to set no limit for the company president).
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Suppressing Mailbox-Limit Emails in the Cisco Unity 8.x Voice Messaging Configuration
When you set a maximum size for Exchange mailboxes, as recommended in the "Setting a Maximum Size for Exchange Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x" section, Exchange automatically sends email warnings to subscribers whose mailboxes approach their size limits. However, when Cisco Unity is installed in the Voice Messaging configuration, subscribers who do not have text-to-speech access to email messages cannot delete any emails that are delivered to the Exchange mailbox that contains Cisco Unity voice messages.
Do the applicable procedure in this section if you want Exchange to enforce mailbox-size limits but suppress warning emails so subscriber mailboxes are not cluttered with messages that subscribers cannot delete.
To Suppress Mailbox-Limit Emails for All Users in a Mailbox Database in Exchange 2007
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Managing the Size of Subscriber Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x
You can manage subscriber mailbox size in the following ways:
Understand How Cisco Unity Handles Full Mailboxes and How Performance Is Affected by Mailbox Size
To learn more about how Cisco Unity handles subscribers' full mailboxes, see the "How Cisco Unity Handles Full Mailboxes" section in the "About Message Handling" section in the "Messaging and Default Accounts Overview" chapter of the System Administration Guide for Cisco Unity Release 8.x at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/8x/administration/guide/8xcusagx.html.)
Because the processing of messages happens in real-time when the users log on to check their messages, mailbox size directly affects Cisco Unity conversation performance. For mailbox size recommendations and other performance considerations, see the "Guidelines for Monitoring Cisco Unity 8.x Performance" section on page 7-9.
Understand That the Choice of Audio Codec Affects Message File Size
As illustrated in Table 3-1, the audio codec used to record a voice message has an effect on the file size of the message. Messages recorded with the G.711 Mu-Law and A-Law audio codec require the most disk space to store, while the G.729a audio codec offers the smallest file size.
Stored voice messages can consume considerable amounts of disk space. The amount of storage a WAV file uses depends on what kind of compression the audio codec uses, if any. The higher the compression, the smaller the file and the affect on the disk-space of the database and at the subscriber workstation. However, some sound-quality reduction and some CPU processing overhead may result when compressing messages during recording and decompressing at playback.
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For information on choosing and implementing audio codecs, refer to the Audio Codecs and Cisco Unity white paper at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/prod_white_papers_list.html.
You can change the audio codec for recording voice messages by using the Set Record Format Tool in Tools Depot.
Set Appropriate Size Limits on Subscriber Mailboxes
Setting lower size limits on subscriber mailboxes can help prevent the hard disk of the server on which messages are stored from running out of space. You can use the Message Store Manager utility to view and set mailbox size limits (see the "Using the Message Store Manager Utility in Cisco Unity 8.x" section), or you can use the procedures in the "Setting a Maximum Size for Exchange Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x" section to do so in Exchange.
For more information on Exchange storage limits, refer to the Microsoft Exchange documentation.
Enforce a Message Retention Policy
You can manage the size of subscriber mailboxes by automatically deleting messages from mailboxes based on the criteria outlined in the message retention policy for your organization. For example, a message retention policy may specify that messages are permanently deleted from the message store server after 30 days, three months, or another period of time. (Check with members of the legal and information systems groups in your organization for advice on defining a message retention policy for the organization.)
Periodically deleting messages from subscriber mailboxes can prevent the hard disk on the server on which messages are stored from filling up, and may be an especially important practice if the subscribers in your organization have class of service rights to save and manage their deleted messages, but do not often remember to permanently delete them.
You can use the Message Store Manager utility to automatically purge subscriber messages according to the schedule you specify (see the "Using the Message Store Manager Utility in Cisco Unity 8.x" section). To set up this functionality, refer to the Message Store Manager utility Help. When you are ready to enforce the message retention policy for your organization, notify subscribers. If subscribers know that their saved, sent, and deleted messages (as applicable) are only stored on the server for a certain period of time, they can plan to archive or move messages themselves and you can reduce support desk requests for "lost" messages.
Prevent Mailboxes From Filling Up While Subscribers Are on Vacation or On an Extended Leave of Absence
For as long as a subscriber alternate greeting is enabled, you can specify that Cisco Unity will prevent callers from leaving messages for the subscriber, which can help reduce mailbox size when subscribers are out of the office and do not plan to check messages regularly. In addition, you can increase caller awareness of a subscriber absence by specifying that Cisco Unity will prevent callers from skipping the greeting.
To set caller options for a subscriber alternate greeting, refer to the "Specifying Subscriber Greetings Settings" section in the "Setting Up Features That Are Controlled by Subscriber or Subscriber Template Settings" chapter of the System Administration Guide for Cisco Unity Release 8.x at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/8x/administration/guide/8xcusagx.html.
Train Subscribers to Better Manage Their Own Mailbox Size
Subscribers can make room in their mailboxes by deleting messages (including messages in the Sent and Deleted Items folders in Microsoft Outlook or in the Cisco Unity Assistant, if applicable). To archive a message before deleting it, subscribers can use the Copy to File option available from the Options menu on the Media Master control bar, and save the file to their hard drives. Unified Messaging subscribers can use Outlook to move messages to private folders that they set up on their hard drives.
For these and more tips, refer subscribers to the "Managing the Size of Your Mailbox" chapter of the User Guide for the Cisco Unity Phone Interface (Release 8.x) at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/8x/user/guide/phone/8xcuugphonex.html.
Checking for Mailboxes That Are Over Their Size Limit for Cisco Unity 8.x
If you set limits on the maximum size of subscriber mailboxes as recommended in the "Setting a Maximum Size for Exchange Mailboxes for Cisco Unity 8.x" section, we recommend that you also monitor subscriber mailbox size, taking note when "mailbox full" warnings have been generated, to determine whether mailboxes are sized correctly to meet subscriber needs. To monitor mailbox size, schedule the Subscriber Message Store Status report in the Message Store Manager Utility, available in Tools Depot. For more information, see the "Using the Message Store Manager Utility in Cisco Unity 8.x" section.
Using the Message Store Manager Utility in Cisco Unity 8.x
The Message Store Manager utility, available in Tools Depot, can be used for a variety of subscriber message store maintenance tasks, including updating subscriber properties, archiving messages, deleting messages, and running detailed mailbox status reports, all according to configurable schedules.
The Message Store Manager utility allows administrators to set up subscriber groups, called agents. Each action that an administrator sets up the Message Store Manager utility to do is performed on an agent, or on a specified subset of the members of the agent. Agents are set up by using Cisco Unity distribution lists, classes of service, extension ranges, imported CSV files, or home mail servers. Any membership changes to these groups that are made by using the Cisco Unity Administrator are automatically carried forward to the Message Store Manager agents.
After setting up the agents, you can configure and schedule tasks to be run daily, weekly, or monthly, according to the needs of your site.
For more information on setting up agents and using the Message Store Manager utility, refer to the utility Help.
Using the Subscriber Message Store Status Report
The Subscriber Message Store Status report, available in the Message Store Manager utility, is a CSV file that contains detailed data about selected subscriber mailboxes, including the capacity of each mailbox, whether "mailbox full" warnings have been generated, the count and size of all messages in the mailbox, and other information specific to message type.
Subscriber Message Store Status reports are written to a file that is unique to the agent and to the time that the report generation began. For example, the file name for a report for the "Sales" agent could be Sales_MailboxDump_<mmddyy>_<hhmmss>.csv. Report files are saved in the Temp directory of the account that is used to run the report. You may want to move the report files to a different location for storage. Periodically delete report files that you no longer need in order to conserve disk space.
Configuring Circular Logging in Exchange
You can configure logging in one of two ways: either the existing logs are overwritten when hard disk space runs low, or the existing logs are never overwritten.
Exchange stores data in databases and stores the most current transactions in the Edb.log file. When the Edb.lg file reaches 5 MB in size, Exchange checks to see if the oldest transactions in the file have been committed to the database. If they have been, the old transactions are overwritten with new transactions, preventing the total size of the log files from growing beyond 25 to 30 MB in size. Exchange will not, however, overwrite any transactions that have not been committed to the database. This process is referred to as circular logging. When circular logging is enabled, full backups of Exchange are always required. If you do not plan to do full backups every time you back up the system, turn off circular logging to have more flexibility with your backup schedule.
When circular logging is disabled, and the Edb.lg file reaches 5 MB in size, Exchange creates a new log file of the same name, and renames the inactive file. The number of log files increases as more transactions are logged, and the system continues to create new log files until a backup is completed. If you disable circular logging, we recommend that you set a backup schedule to do full backups periodically, and incremental backups at all other times.
After you back up the message store by using Exchange-aware backup software, the backup software clears the transaction logs. At this point, the backup reflects the current state of the message store, so the transaction logs are no longer required to restore the message store. (Transaction logs are cleared after some types of backups but not all. For more information, refer to the documentation for your backup application.)
Caution
If you decide to disable circular logging, confirm that scheduled incremental and full backups continue to run and that they do not fail or stop working for any reason. If backups are not done, the transaction logs can cause the hard disk to fill up, which in turn causes Exchange to stop working, and subsequently can cause Cisco Unity to stop working.
We strongly recommend that you do the following:
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