Office Communications Server - Backup (Part 2)

Yesterday, we discussed part 1 of the backup procedure for OCS into your organization. Today we discuss other topics necessary to provide a good backup of your OCS deployment.

Looking at the previous post on step 2 (part 1) the following levels in OCS needs to be backupped.

• Global Level Settings (apply to all computers in the forest structure)
• Pool Level Settings (which configuration settings apply to an invidual Standard Edition Server or Enterprise Edition Servers within the same enterprise-pool)
• Computer Level Settings (machine level settings which are specific to that OCS running machine)

Our own environment

Looking at our own infrastructure we have different OCS components in production. This backup procedure is primarily focused on a Standard Edition server deployment.

• OCS Server Standard Edition in Consolidated Topology (all OCS MCU's on one box) example name: contoso1
• OCS Edge Server Consolidated Topology (all Edge components on one box) example name: contoso2
• OCS Mediation Server (Mediation Server for our Mitel 3300 ICP solution) example name: contoso3
• OCS Mediation Server (Mediation Server for Enterprise Voice users using Interoute One iSIP services) example name: contoso4
• CWA Server (ucwa.e-office.com) - Communicator Web Access Server 2007 example name: contoso5

Attention:

Log on to the server to be backed up, or a separate computer on which Office Communications Server 20007 administrative tools have been installed (such as a management console), with an account that has RTCUniversalReadOnlyAdmins or equivalent user rights, as well as write permissions for the folder to which settings are to be backed up.

Step 4. Which (RTC) databases do I need to backup? Source: Backup / Restoration Guide. In this overview you see exact which databases are present and what kind of data is in it. Also the database locations are specified.

Step 5. OCS Standard Edition uses default file locations on the file system. Attached the complete overview.

Step 6. Which tools do I need to install before creating a backup?

• LCSCmd.exe, used to export settings to the backup location (and to import them, in the event that they must be restored). This tool is available on any computer on which you have installed the Office Communications Server 2007 administrative tools. When having a Standard Edition Server lcscmd is already present.
• Database tool: To backup databases on Standard Edition servers and, to restore the database on any Standard Edition (in the event of loss of data), use SQL Server Management Studio Express in SQL Server 2005 Express Edition.
• File system tool to backup system state and file shares.

Step 7. How to backup my global and pool configuration on contoso1?

Step 7.1 Backup Global and Pool level configurations

At the command prompt, change to the directory containing the LCSCmd.exe tool (by default, <drive>:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007).

lcscmd /config /action:export /level:global,pool /configfile:<drive>:\<path>\<filename>.xml /poolname [name of Standard Edition server, which is used for the pool name]

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007>lcscmd
/config /action:export /level:global,pool /configfile:D:\e-office\21052008\contoso1.xml /poolname:contoso1

Step 7.2 Backup machine level

lcscmd /config /action:export /level:machine /configfile:<drive>:\<path>\<filename>.xml /poolname [name of Standard Edition server, which is used for the pool name]

At the command prompt, change to the directory containing the LCSCmd.exe tool (by default, <drive>:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007).

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007>lcscmd
/config /action:export /level:machine /configfile:D:\e-office\21052008\contoso1_2.xml /poolname:contoso1

After doing the first two steps repeat this for contoso2, contoso3, contoso4 and contoso5. The last one contoso5 is special you can easily export the CWA configuration file to a XML-format. Execute the Export Wizard and follow the steps.

Source: Backup and Restoration Guide OCS.