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Business Server 2015: Configure high availability and disaster recovery for Persistent Chat Server

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Summary: Read this topic to learn how to configure high availability and disaster recovery for Persistent Chat Server in Skype for Business Server 2015.

Skype for Business Server supports multiple modes of high availability for your Back End Servers, including database mirroring. For more information, see Plan for high availability and disaster recovery in Skype for Business Server 2015.

Note

AlwaysOn Availability Groups are not supported with Persistent Chat Servers.

Before you configure your Persistent Chat deployment for high availability and disaster recovery, be sure you are familiar with the concepts in Plan for high availability and disaster recovery for Persistent Chat Server in Skype for Business Server 2015. The disaster recovery solution for Persistent Chat Server described in these topics is built on a stretched Persistent Chat Server pool. The planning content describes resource requirements, and the stretched pool topology that enables high availability and disaster recovery for Persistent Chat Server, including using SQL Server mirroring for high availability and SQL Server log shipping for disaster recovery.

Use Topology Builder to configure high availability and disaster recovery

Within Topology Builder, perform the following steps to configure high availability and disaster recovery for Persistent Chat Server.

  1. Add the mirror databases and the log shipping secondary database SQL Server stores.

  2. Edit the Persistent Chat Server service properties to:

    a. Enable mirroring for the primary database.

    b. Add the primary mirror SQL Server store.

    c. Enable the SQL Server Log Shipping database.

    d. Add the SQL Server Log Shipping secondary SQL Server store.

    e. Add the SQL Server store mirror for the secondary database.

    f. Publish the topology.

Set up SQL Server log shipping for the Persistent Chat Server primary database

Using SQL Server Management Studio, connect to the Persistent Chat Server secondary Log Shipping database instance, and be sure that SQL Server Agent is running. Then connect to the Persistent Chat primary database instance and perform the following steps:

  1. Right-click the mgc database, and then click Properties.

  2. Under Select a page, click Transaction Log Shipping.

  3. Select the Enable this as a primary database in a log shipping configuration check box.

  4. Under Transaction log backups, click Backup Settings.

  5. In the Network path to the backup folder box, type the network path to the share that you created for the transaction log backup folder.

  6. If the backup folder is located on the primary server, type the local path to the backup folder in the If the backup folder is located on the primary server, type a local path to the folder (example: c:\backup) box. (If the backup folder is not on the primary server, you can leave this box empty.)

    Important

    If the SQL Server service account on your primary server runs under the local system account, you must create your backup folder on the primary server and specify a local path to that folder.

  7. Configure the Delete files older than and Alert if no backup occurs within parameters.

  8. Look at the backup schedule listed in the Schedule box under Backup job. To customize the schedule for your installation, click Schedule, and adjust the SQL Server Agent schedule as required.

  9. Under Compression, select Use the default server setting, and then click OK.

  10. Under Secondary server instances and databases, click Add.

  11. Click Connect and connect to the instance of SQL Server that you have configured as your secondary server.

  12. In the Secondary Database box, select the mgc database from the list.

  13. On the Initialize Secondary database tab, choose the option Yes, generate a full backup of the primary database and restore it into the secondary database (and create the secondary database if it doesn't exist).

  14. On the Copy Files tab, in the Destination folder for copied files box, type the path of the folder into which the transaction logs backups should be copied. This folder is often located on the secondary server.

  15. Note the copy schedule listed in the Schedule box under Copy job. To customize the schedule for your installation, click Schedule, and adjust the SQL Server Agent schedule as required. This schedule should be approximately the same as the backup schedule.

  16. On the Restore tab, under Database state when restoring backups, choose the No recovery mode option.

  17. Under Delay restoring backups at least:, select 0 minutes.

  18. Choose an alert threshold under Alert if no restore occurs within.

  19. Look at the restore schedule listed in the Schedule box under Restore job. To customize the schedule for your installation, click Schedule, adjust the SQL Server Agent schedule as required, and click OK. This schedule should be approximately the same as the backup schedule.

  20. On the Database Properties dialog box, click OK to begin the configuration process.

Set up SQL Server log shipping between the primary mirror and the secondary database

Perform the following steps for log shipping to continue if the primary Persistent Chat database is failed over to its mirror database.

  1. Manually fail over the primary Persistent Chat database to the mirror. This is done by using the Skype for Business Server Management Shell and the Invoke-CsDatabaseFailover cmdlet.

  2. Using the SQL Server Management Studio, connect to the primary Persistent Chat Server mirror instance.

  3. Be sure that the SQL Server Agent is running.

  4. Right-click the mgc database, and then click Properties.

  5. Under Select a page, click Transaction Log Shipping.

  6. Select the Enable this as a primary database in a log shipping configuration check box.

  7. Under Transaction log backups, click Backup Settings.

  8. In the Network path to the backup folder box, type the network path to the share you created for the transaction log backup folder.

  9. If the backup folder is located on the primary server, type the local path to the backup folder in the If the backup folder is located on the primary server, type a local path to the folder box. (If the backup folder is not on the primary server, you can leave this box empty.)

    Important

    If the SQL Server service account on your primary server runs under the local system account, you must create your backup folder on the primary server and specify a local path to that folder.

  10. Configure the Delete files older than and Alert if no backup occurs within parameters.

  11. Look at the backup schedule listed in the Schedule box under Backup job. To customize the schedule for your installation, click Schedule, and adjust the SQL Server Agent schedule, as required.

    Important

    Use the same settings that you used for the primary database.

  12. Under Compression, select Use the default server setting, and click OK.

  13. Under Secondary server instances and databases, click Add.

  14. Click Connect, and connect to the instance of SQL Server that you have configured as your secondary server.

  15. In the Secondary Database box, select the mgc database from the list.

  16. On the Initialize Secondary database tab, select the option No, the secondary database is initialized.

  17. On the Copy Files tab, in Destination folder for copied files, type the path of the folder into which the transaction logs backups should be copied, and click OK. This folder is often located on the secondary server.

  18. Open the Script Configuration drop-down list, and select Script Configuration to New Query Window.

  19. In the new query window, in Database Properties, click OK to begin the configuration process.

  20. Select and run the first half of the query (see step 18) up to the line: -- ****** End: Script to be run at Primary: ******.

    Important

    Manually running this script is necessary because SQL Server Management Studio does not support multiple primary databases in a SQL Server Log Shipping configuration.

  21. Select Cancel to close the Log File shipping configuration panel and to establish a working setup that correctly implements the log file shipping for both the primary and mirrored database (in case of failover).

  22. Manually fail back the primary Persistent Chat database to the primary. This is done by using the Skype for Business Server Management Shell, and the Invoke-CsDatabaseFailover cmdlet.