Beginning with Communication Manager Release 5.0, you can have Legacy or Conventional CDR or Survivable CDR for your system. Both methods provide the identical call accounting information and support the same CDR formats.

In a Legacy CDR environment, Communication Manager generates all CDR records on the active server and then exports the records to a CDR adjunct (using IP links) for further processing. In these systems, the CDR adjunct functions in a listen only mode receiving the records sent by Communication Manager. This type of CDR processing was used exclusively in Communication Manager up through Release 3.X. In a Legacy CDR environment, the system cannot collect CDR records when link between the main, Survivable Remote Server and/or Survivable Core Server and CDR adjunct is down (this is generally the case when a Survivable Remote Server or Survivable Core Server is active). It also requires the IP link between Communication Manager and the CDR adjunct to be up at all times.

Communication Manager 4.x or later introduced a new method of data collection called Survivable CDR. Survivable CDR stores CDR data records on the Communication Manager server’s local hard drive, if required. The CDR adjunct then periodically polls each the Communication Manager server and collects the CDR data files from the servers. Survivable CDR was introduced in Communication Manager Release 4.0 and it was only supported on Survivable Remote Server platforms. Beginning with Communication Manager Release 5.0, Survivable CDR is supported on all Communication Manager platforms, that is, on the mains, Survivable Remote Server and Survivable Core Server. Survivable CDR transfers CDR data in an encrypted manner from the Communication Manager server to the CDR adjunct using the Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). Note that Survivable CDR requires updated CDR adjuncts. CDR records are stored and transferred in batches, rather than one record at a time as with Legacy CDR.