Specifications

ShoreTel Server Configuration Communications
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ShoreTel 14 Maintenance Guide 35
Call control is provided by Headquarters and distributed voice servers even if full network connectivity
is unavailable. However, calls to unreachable endpoints cannot be made, and call detail recording
requires Headquarters server communication. To add reliability to your remote server, consider using
redundant network paths to the Headquarters server.
The following sections provide more detail on the communications, services, and applications.
Configuration Communications
ShoreTel system processes use Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) objects to share information
from the configuration database among themselves and to write configuration information to the
database. Static configuration parameters are written to the database by ShoreTel Director, and
system components access the database to read/write current state information. User configuration
options are written to the database from Communicator, the telephone interface (voice mail options),
Communicator for Web, and Communicator for Mac. ShoreTel Director is accessed via a web browser.
The service ShoreTel-ZIN, running on the Headquarters server, manages these COM communications
for all services. There is a single writable instance of the ShoreTel database on the Headquarters
server, even if distributed databases are created on distributed voice servers.
Each ShoreTel service on a distributed server caches a copy of the configuration database in internal
data structures. When a distributed server loses connection to the Headquarters server, changes
made to the Headquarters configuration database are no longer received by the distributed server.
However, services continue to function with the most recent configuration data until connectivity is
restored. When the connection is restored, the distributed server automatically receives and
incorporates any changes made to the Headquarters database during the outage.
If a distributed server restarts without a connection to the Headquarters database, then ShoreTel
services are started but are not functional. When the network connection is restored, the configuration
is retrieved and again cached by each service and services become functional.
ShoreTel client applications, such as Communicator, use Client Application Server (CAS) for data
handling. CAS communicates with ShoreTel clients via HTTP. ShoreTel Director accesses the
configuration database though IIS.
You can use the Component Service Manager to view COM objects installed by the ShoreTel software.
Component Service Manager is located in the Administrative Tools folder available from the Windows
Start menu.
Do not change any permission or security settings for ShoreTel components.
Features accessible from the voice mail phone interface that require write access to the database,
such as Extension Assignment and Call Handling Mode changes, are not supported during an outage
unless a local distributed database instance is in use.
Figure 10 on page 36 shows how ShoreTel services use Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) to
access the configuration database, and thus maintain the system status.