Elementary Question - Backing up Call Manager??

[willjwill]

I am tasked with finding a way to backup the Cisco Call Manager we are looking at purchasing. How do you currently backup the data from Call Manager? Do I use backup software like Veritas or is their another method?

Sorry if this is an elementary question, this type of work does not fall under my day to day.

Thanks,
jwill

 

[jerake75]

CallManager comes with its own backup software called BARS (Backup and Restore System). It only runs on the publisher CCM; I don't believe it's recommended to run anything else, but I'm pretty sure other people have attempted to.

I've used BARS to both backup and restore; it restores the database, not a server image or anything like that. I was no huge fan of BARS when it first came out - it had issues - but now I think they've worked out most of the kinks. The latest version is 4.0.6sr1.

TMH

 

[willjwill]

Thanks for the heads up. How often do you use BARS? Is it recommended to back this up on a daily basis?

The only issue I see is that we like to backup all of our data to our backup server over night. In the past we have just used one backup application. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has used another backup application/software besides BARS to backup the database.

Thanks Again!
jwill

 

[jerake75]

You can definitely back up your data every night. It's got a built-in scheduler; you can pick and choose what days and what time every night you want it to back up. You can also point the backup to a network drive.

I also like to back up our CCM data every night, since changes are made on a daily basis. So, I have mine set to back up every night at 2:00 AM, and I point it to a shared drive on our backup data storage server. Also, with BARS you can save the last 2 (or however many you specify) backup files, which saved my behind during my last upgrade.

We also have a Veritas backup server, but it's not supported on CCM, otherwise I'd think they'd have me use it. I know with BARS, the only drawback that the other network guys see is that it's not a full image; in order to use BARS to restore, you have to rebuild the software starting with the OS image, then CCM, and then restore the database using BARS.

Also, this is a common misconception - and I've even heard this from TAC - that you can use BARS to backup your database, upgrade your server to a newer version, and restore the pre-upgrade, backed-up database to a newer version of CCM. That is the ultimate falsehood (I have tried this, gives you a database mismatch error). You can only use BARS to restore to the same version of CCM that you backed up your database in.

TMH

TMH

 

[jerake75]

Here's a link to the admin guide for BARS (says 4.0.2, but they haven't published a new guide since); I think it has screen shots in it.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products..._installation_guide_book09186a00801e8b9a.html

TMH