Best Practices for Disaster Recovery with Messaging Gateway
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Best Practices for Disaster Recovery with Messaging Gateway

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Article ID: 154608

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Updated On:

Products

Messaging Gateway

Issue/Introduction

The specifics of a disaster recovery scenario vary depending on the organizational requirements, how Messaging Gateway (SMG) is being used in the environment, and the hardware / virtual platform in use. In general, SMG recovery is dependent on

  • The ability to restore the system to a factory default state via osrestore
  • The ability if relicense the product if needed
  • The ability to restore data and configuration

Preparing the SMG for disaster recovery is a multi-step process.  Ensure that you have all the licensing and technical components to exactly mirror your previous configuration and administration. Additionally, it is an industry best practice to perform schedule "test runs" of disaster recover procedures to document any gaps or issues with the process.

Resolution

NOTE:  If using virtual machines, snapshots may be used for disaster recovery provided that the snapshot is taken with the virtual machine fully shut down and quiesced. Symantec strongly discourages taking snapshots of a running SMG virtual machine as this may lead to issues with system operation and re-deploying the snapshot.

Preparation and Planning

Gather the following items:
  1. An iso file copy of the exact version of the appliance software that is installed in your environment. You can download the software from the Broadcom Support portal.
  2. A copy of the license file (.slf) that was provided with the purchase of the SMG. Copies of SMG license files may also be obtained from the Broadcom Support portal.
  3. Documentation of the Hostname, IP address, DNS servers, static routes configured for all SMG appliances. This is to ensure that the network configuration details are available for the bootstrap process if an SMG appliance needs to be reinstalled or factory reset. The diagnostics package is also containing the configuration details.
  4. A full backup of the SMG.
    It is recommended that a full backup of the Messaging Gateway Control Center be performed at least weekly and the backup file stored off the Control Center appliance. Please see Scheduling Backups in the Messaging Gateway online help for details. 

Recovery

Recovery procedures are different for different SMG appliance roles. . Scanner only systems are relatively simple and do not require that a backup be used in the recover. Control Center systems, however, require both reinstallation of the SMG software and the restoration of a full backup.

Scanner only

  1. Use the SMG software to install an appliance.
  2. Configure the new appliance with the same Hostname, IP address, DNS servers, static routes from the original appliances during the bootstrap process
  3. Remove the original scanner record from the Control Center Administration > Configuration page
  4. Use the Add Scanner wizard to license the restored scanner host and add it to the Control Center

Note: if scanner specific changes have been made to the network, time/dns, or SMTP configuration, these will need to be re-added by hand as the restored scanner is distinct from the original scanner record in the Control Center.

Control Center

  1. Use the SMG software to install an appliance.
  2. Configure the new appliance with the same Hostname, IP address, DNS servers, static routes from the original appliances during the bootstrap process
  3. Complete the bootstrap process from the Control Center web GUI
  4. Restore the most recent full backup on the new Control Center

Things to remember

  • The backup can only be applied to a machine with the same program version.
  • Backup and restore will not resolve configuration related issues which exist in the backed up configuration.
  • The machine would work best if the same IP and hostname are the same as the original machine.

Additional Information

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