GRHA AES with Lync

[avayaguy23]

We are in the process of moving from an AES HA same subnet setup to a GRHA AES 7.1.3 with two separate data centers/subnets. Does anyone have any experience in configuring this kind of setup with Microsoft Lync 2013? Can you point me to any relevant documentation? If you want to do GRHA AES do you have to extend out our extend your network out over layer 2?

 

[kyle555]

No experience setting that up.

What AES are you on now?

Are you sure it's AES HA and not something else like MPHA on System Platform 6.3? MPHA was a System Platform feature and kinda almost sorta like the way CM does duplex - where the second server has the machine/vm/app ready to hit the ground running if the first server dies. It was being done at a System Platform level and needed a crossover cable between the two boxes, so no special AES licensing required.

I just looked up the offer definition for AES 8.0, and GRHA is supported in software only environments. But GRHA always had a cost and license associated with it. Avaya's always been a little more uptight with CTI and call center stuff as it pertains to licensing. So, suppose you're using AES Unified Desktop licenses - the ones that are only for Avaya UC apps and are included when you buy Aura Core licenses. Say you bought 1000 Aura Core users - you get your 1000 CM stations, 1000 mailboxes, and 1000 AES Unified Desktop licenses too. Your real net cost for AES is technically $0 because you paid for the entitlement elsewhere within your Aura users.

Say you wanted to make that AES GRHA now. It's not ($0)x2, it's $0+ whatever that entitlement will cost you. Maybe your use case can be presented in such a way that your partner can haggle it down. As in, avayaguy is just doing some UC users and not using 1000s of TSAPI/DMCC for 3rd party stuff. What's the worst that can happen if avayaguy goes split brain ESS mode and has 2 CMs and 2 AES's? It's not like he's getting a double down on millions of dollars of licensing.

Also, sidenote worth mentioning - AES 8.0 supports VMware fault tolerance. Haven't seen that in any Avaya VM yet. That's the equivalent of how MPHA worked in System Platform - so, one 2 servers in your cluster, both have the CPU/RAM carved out for the AES VM and if server 2 doesn't see the AES VM running, server 2 lets it's instance of the VM hit the ground running to take over without a reboot or anything. Downside is any VM you do that with must be running with resources doubled-down on two physical servers but for AES being such a small footprint, it's a no brainer to do AES in VMware FT if you got it.

https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100180913

Allows the AE Services VM in each datacenter to be in different networks or subnets
where the static address of each server is used. GRHA is also supported where both AE
Services servers share a single virtual IP address in the same subnet as both AE Services
servers.