Backup calls from CSCM (Witness) Call Recorder

[ananth_ak]

Hello,

Our witness application runs on Redhat Enterprise Linux v4,

All calls are recorded on the /calls directory

The witness application backups data to DVD at the moment and we are looking to move away from this solution. We are currently taking backups of the postgre database manually as the witness application fails to write this data to the DVD when requested.

Question: Is it possible to use linux tool such as rsync and scp to make a copy of the /calls directory to another server or SAN while calls are not being recorded? (stop witness services)

If this is possible, can we use this data along with the database backup to restore the witness system with all the calls onto a new server in the event of our primary server failing?

Thanks

Regards

Ananth

[jacques]

You might want to talk with Verint, they have an application called Archive manager which does exactly that. It copies all calls to a SAN but you would still need to do a postgres backup.

[reynolds72]

You can try it (and it probably would work) but it isn't supported, the other issue you'll have is that your CSCM licence is hardware based so you'll need a new licence too in the event of a total hardware failure meaning that you'll probably have to get Verint involved anyway.

DVD and CAM are the only supported methods of backup, with CAM (Archive Manager) you also need Viewer which is the SQL 2005 database component where all call data is passed to from CSCM, in the event of a call being archived to SAN/EMC etc the Viewer database is updated with the new location of the call audio. The handy bonus to this is that you can do away with ViewerX on the CSCM for call replay and have a more flexible and secure means to replay your calls as part of the Viewer install is a web based replay client, you also don't have to stick the DVD in when you want to replay an archived call.

As with everything there's a cost associated with all that, typical eh?

[thepfy]

Our Business Partner setup a Sun Storedge Server + Jukebox which backs up the whole server (along with other servers).

[dougy]

Originally Posted by jacques

You might want to talk with Verint, they have an application called Archive manager which does exactly that. It copies all calls to a SAN but you would still need to do a postgres backup.

I have CAM and Viewer, they work well and i'm in the middle of a review of the solution with the aim to upgrade from CSCM/Viewer/CAM 7.7 to 7.8.

Brief summary of Viewer/CAM operations:

Viewer uses central SQL database which contains all call details of calls recorded by recorders.

CAM looks in the SQL DB for audio files to archive from the recorder and puts them into storage of your choice; we're using Netapp filers.

If you need high availability for recorders then you can establish a Active-Standby configuration involving two servers. Operations fail to the standby recorder if the active has any issues.

Dougy.