Redundancy in 3CX

[jawad]

Dear All,

I want to have a redundant 3CX system, when ever there is a power down or a system crash, i want that redundant system to take over. Can it be done in 3CX that runs on windows OS, if yes.. Kindly share the details.

Early respoce is appreciated.

Thanks in Advance.!!!!

 

[KerryG]

There is nothing built into 3CX to support this. You could have a second system up and running and do automated backups from the primary system and automated restores to the backup system but you would have to change the IP address of the backup system somehow if the primary system went down.

 

[jawad]

Thanks Kerry!!!! for the information, but can you please tell me how can i have the automated backup and restore programmed is it buit in 3CX or do i need to do something in Windows.!!!

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[LeonidasG_3CX]

You are gonna have to make / run a script for it.

Here's my Working solution for it.
http://www.3cx.com/forums/download/file.php?id=1152
And it's Fully Automated.




You can Change the Program Files Path in the script if you are using 64Bit / 32Bit Machines.
You will have to make a Folder Called 3CXBackups in your C:\ Directory first so all the backups will go there.

 

[KerryG]

Thanks Leonidas, you beat me to it.

 

[LeonidasG_3CX]

Thanks Leonidas, you beat me to it.

I beat you to what?
Do you also have Back Up Script? I'd love to see it if possible

 

[KerryG]

I just have some simple instructions for people at http://www.voipstore.com/automatically-backing-up-your-3cx-system/

 

[LeonidasG_3CX]

Ah nice,

The one i posted above is an a bit more complex version of it.
What it does is that it runs every 1,4,8-Hours - 1Day - 1Week. ( You can input this as you like ) without the need to interact with the Machine.
It also puts dates and Times on every Backup so that you know on what date every backup was taken on.

No need to tediously go to the machine and Having to Backup Manually. Just leave it there Running.

 

[LeonidasG_3CX]

As i said Mat,

The Script i just posted does just that.
You run it once, you input the Time interval to Backup 3CX and it will Make you a Backup non stop on the time interval you gave it.
You just leave it there running and it does everything for you. No need to even touch the PC again.

As i said you need to create the Folder: c:\3CXBackups ONCE and that's it.
All Backups will be placed there and will be Time / Date Incremented.


Here is the Download Link ( again )
http://www.3cx.com/forums/download/file.php?id=1152

 

[jawad]

Thanks for all your suggesstion, But i have a doubt here, when the system crashes how can i make the other system work or i mean redundant.. do i need to send the backup that takes place to the other system manually or is there something better. i want something like whenever the main system goes down i want the other system to take over.

Thanks in advance.

 

[LeonidasG_3CX]

For simple redundancy you can do the following:


Start > Run > services.msc

Select a 3CX Service > Properties > Recovery

First Failure > Restart the Program
Second Failure > Restart the program
Subsequent failures > Restart the program


Your 3CX PhoneSystem wont stop running all of a sudden for no reason unless there's a bug in the system.
And we do not release the PBX with these kind of bugs.

But if you still feel that it could fail, you can just do the above steps i gave you.

 

[LeonidasG_3CX]

Very doable and easy.

How exactly do you want it to behave? Could you explain the Scenario that you want to do in more detail?
I'll get back to you with a new script for Automatic restoring as well.

 

[KerryG]

Restore is done as follows:

3cxbackup.exe restore <backupname.zip>

So the script running on the primary machine is creating backup files and a script on the backup machine is running restore commands.

 

[jawad]

Matt,

Truely said!!!!! i'm looking out what you said.

let me know if you come up with solution on this.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Discovery Technology]

We have setup two virtual servers using Vmotion to sync each server with an auto failover using the VM utilities to achieve this scenario, however it would be nice if an automated restore to a second windows system could be done also.

 

[LeonidasG_3CX]

We have setup two virtual servers using Vmotion to sync each server with an auto failover using the VM utilities to achieve this scenario, however it would be nice if an automated restore to a second windows system could be done also.

I havent tried Vmotion yet, does it also Replicate the IP of the other machine?
If your Main Server goes down, sure you have a second server ready to work, but what about the phones themselves? You would need to manually point them all to the new server right?

 

[netswork]

Vmotion migrates the running state from one physical server to another...it will maintain IP's and MAC addresses. In newer versions of vmware you can have a running replica of an existing virtual machine, it maintains memory state of the active machine in the replica. If the physical ESXI server were to crash or loose power or what ever the replica would take over. It requires Enterprise license of vmware, which is not cheap. But if this was a large enterprise and phones are mission critical it would be a good solution.

 

[eagle2]

Wouldn't be possible a router to switch a failed server to backup one (using some scripts and suitable NAT).
This includes the IP address to which phones register (i.e. 3CX server) -- that address is not changing, port forwarding (for external extensions and providers). Some more expensive systems (like Cisco UCM, Avaya Aura) do this automatically in case of failure of primary server.

Regards

 

[netswork]

If you were using vmware the IP address of the Virtual machine would remain the same. So if you had two vmware servers using high availability and one server crashed, the system would continue running on the other server using the same IP address.

All routers and firewalls would not know anything happened and calls would continue as normal.