Contents

Best Practices

Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Best Practices

The following is a list of best practices that you should refer to when configuring and maintaining your Cisco WebEx Meetings Server system:

  • Power your virtual machine hosts using UPS to minimize power interruptions. Repeated power failures can damage host systems and virtual machines.
  • Make sure you always put your system into maintenance mode before shutting down a guest operating system.
  • For scheduled events and other situations that require a system shutdown, make sure you gracefully shut down your virtual machines by shutting down the guest operating system.
  • The system is designed to repair itself when necessary and rebooting can interrupt this process. We do not recommend that you reboot your system to fix it. If your system is in an unhealthy state, contact the Cisco TAC. Power off your system only when instructed to do so or during scheduled events such as data center maintenance.
  • Configure network redundancy to minimize network failures. Refer to "Adding a High Availability System" in the Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Administration Guide for more information.
  • Configure NIC teaming on your system. NIC teaming improves performance and provides redundancy in the event of a NIC failure.
  • If your organization has expertise in managing a storage area network (SAN), we recommend SAN over direct attached storage (DAS). SANs can be more reliable than local disk arrays. Refer to the Cisco WebEx Meetings Server System Requirements for more information on SAN storage requirements.
  • Using snapshots on your virtual machines can impair system performance in ways that affect user experience even when the system is otherwise lightly loaded.
  • If your system is having problems, make sure you check your VMware VCenter environment to determine if conditions in VCenter or the network are causing the problem.
  • Configure high availability to increase the probability that your system can continue to operate if a failure occurs.
  • If you have a high-availability system and your secondary system fails, you can repair it by removing the existing secondary system (refer to "Removing a High Availability System" in your Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Administration Guide) and adding a new secondary system (refer to "Adding a High Availability System" in your Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Administration Guide). If the primary system on a high-availability system fails, you cannot repair it using this procedure. We recommend that you restore your primary system using the disaster recovery procedure and then add a new secondary system. Until you add a new secondary system your deployment will be operating without full redundancy. This procedure helps prevent unplanned outages if any of your secondary virtual machines fails. Refer to "Using the Disaster Recovery Feature" in the Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Administration Guide for more information.
  • Provision a network file system (NFS) and make sure that it has enough storage capacity to store regular automatic backups of your database and meeting recordings.
  • Since your system only keeps the latest system backup on the NFS and removes previous ones every day, we recommend that you keep several recent backups on other media.
  • Use your dashboard to monitor the health status of the NFS, CPU, and storage. Ensure that dashboard alarms for storage and CPU are enabled.
  • If you plan to use directory integration, refer to the Configuring Directory Integration section in the "Managing Users" chapter of the Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Configuration Guide for more information.
  • When using Cisco WebEx Meetings Server, the related SIP trunk on CUCM in the Call Manager interface should have the Media Termination Point Required check box deselected on the Trunk Configuration page. See Configuring a SIP Trunk on a Load Balance Point and Configuring a SIP Trunk for an Application Point for more details.
Best Practices

Best Practices

Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Best Practices

The following is a list of best practices that you should refer to when configuring and maintaining your Cisco WebEx Meetings Server system:

  • Power your virtual machine hosts using UPS to minimize power interruptions. Repeated power failures can damage host systems and virtual machines.
  • Make sure you always put your system into maintenance mode before shutting down a guest operating system.
  • For scheduled events and other situations that require a system shutdown, make sure you gracefully shut down your virtual machines by shutting down the guest operating system.
  • The system is designed to repair itself when necessary and rebooting can interrupt this process. We do not recommend that you reboot your system to fix it. If your system is in an unhealthy state, contact the Cisco TAC. Power off your system only when instructed to do so or during scheduled events such as data center maintenance.
  • Configure network redundancy to minimize network failures. Refer to "Adding a High Availability System" in the Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Administration Guide for more information.
  • Configure NIC teaming on your system. NIC teaming improves performance and provides redundancy in the event of a NIC failure.
  • If your organization has expertise in managing a storage area network (SAN), we recommend SAN over direct attached storage (DAS). SANs can be more reliable than local disk arrays. Refer to the Cisco WebEx Meetings Server System Requirements for more information on SAN storage requirements.
  • Using snapshots on your virtual machines can impair system performance in ways that affect user experience even when the system is otherwise lightly loaded.
  • If your system is having problems, make sure you check your VMware VCenter environment to determine if conditions in VCenter or the network are causing the problem.
  • Configure high availability to increase the probability that your system can continue to operate if a failure occurs.
  • If you have a high-availability system and your secondary system fails, you can repair it by removing the existing secondary system (refer to "Removing a High Availability System" in your Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Administration Guide) and adding a new secondary system (refer to "Adding a High Availability System" in your Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Administration Guide). If the primary system on a high-availability system fails, you cannot repair it using this procedure. We recommend that you restore your primary system using the disaster recovery procedure and then add a new secondary system. Until you add a new secondary system your deployment will be operating without full redundancy. This procedure helps prevent unplanned outages if any of your secondary virtual machines fails. Refer to "Using the Disaster Recovery Feature" in the Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Administration Guide for more information.
  • Provision a network file system (NFS) and make sure that it has enough storage capacity to store regular automatic backups of your database and meeting recordings.
  • Since your system only keeps the latest system backup on the NFS and removes previous ones every day, we recommend that you keep several recent backups on other media.
  • Use your dashboard to monitor the health status of the NFS, CPU, and storage. Ensure that dashboard alarms for storage and CPU are enabled.
  • If you plan to use directory integration, refer to the Configuring Directory Integration section in the "Managing Users" chapter of the Cisco WebEx Meetings Server Configuration Guide for more information.
  • When using Cisco WebEx Meetings Server, the related SIP trunk on CUCM in the Call Manager interface should have the Media Termination Point Required check box deselected on the Trunk Configuration page. See Configuring a SIP Trunk on a Load Balance Point and Configuring a SIP Trunk for an Application Point for more details.