Solved: CUCM 6.1 or 7.0 ?

balasundaram.k_2 · ‎02-11-2009

Hi,

We are planning to buy a CCM solution for our office.

Our account manager is strongly trying to sell us CUCM 7.0.

From our experiences, we are little skeptical about the stability of the new major version releases. We will be conmfortable with v6.1.

The account manager is saying that 7.0 is as stable as 6.1

Is CUCM 7.0 really as stable as 6.1?

Any special feature in 7.0 that we cannot afford to miss?

Any known issues or problems with 7.0?

Your inputs will help us make the right choice.

Thanks,

Bala.

stafford.slater · ‎02-11-2009

Hi Bala,

I have carried out seven CUCM6 deployemts and have just finished installing our first CUCM7 depolyment. We lab tested the CUCM7 for a month to ensure stability and inter-operability.

I would say definetly go for the CUCM7 as it is virtually identical and as stable as six with some nice extra features, you could describe it as 6 with some bug fixes in it.

There is addition of globalized call routing and local route groups which is cool if you have a distributed deployment but not to impressive for a single site deployment. The ability to assigne extension mobility to dev pool also saves time.

Cisco have also released some widgets like click-to-call, phone designer and visual voicemail (first two supported on CUCM6)these work great and the customers enjoy these enhancements as they are 'free'.

The version upgrade cost is also high from 6 to 7 so unless you intend to purchase UCSS/CUWL providing free major release software upgrades you will get hit.

Hope this Helps.

Stafford

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Tommer Catlin · ‎02-11-2009

The SIP stack is much better in CUCM 7.x also. If you plan on using any SIP features, Mobility, etc, 7.x works well. There are a few bugs I have found. I cant get the AC parked calls to work, not a huge deal because technically AC is not supposed to be in 7.0 release anyways. (ARC software) I have an going DND issue where it turns on/off by itself, but I think it's related to something with CUPC and Mobility, not sure yet. (TAC working on it).

Had a SOAP performance issue on the loading. It would not start for some reason. TAC logged into Root and fixed it.

NTP to the Windows server messed up my Subscriber. Had to reload the Subscriber and point my NTP on the pub to an IOS NTP source or external. Im not sure why but the Subscriber would not delete the old NTP sources out even when switched to hardware clock on sub. Odd.

If it's a small deployment of 200 or less, give it a try! I had a few bumps in the road but not really bad.

Anyways, seems good to me, especially for CUPS, MOC integrations.

View solution in original post

stafford.slater · ‎02-11-2009

Hi Bala,

I have carried out seven CUCM6 deployemts and have just finished installing our first CUCM7 depolyment. We lab tested the CUCM7 for a month to ensure stability and inter-operability.

I would say definetly go for the CUCM7 as it is virtually identical and as stable as six with some nice extra features, you could describe it as 6 with some bug fixes in it.

There is addition of globalized call routing and local route groups which is cool if you have a distributed deployment but not to impressive for a single site deployment. The ability to assigne extension mobility to dev pool also saves time.

Cisco have also released some widgets like click-to-call, phone designer and visual voicemail (first two supported on CUCM6)these work great and the customers enjoy these enhancements as they are 'free'.

The version upgrade cost is also high from 6 to 7 so unless you intend to purchase UCSS/CUWL providing free major release software upgrades you will get hit.

Hope this Helps.

Stafford

balasundaram.k_2 · ‎02-11-2009

Hi Stafford,

Thank you very much for the very helpful reply.

We will go CUCM 7.0 then !!!

Many thanks for helping us make the right choice!!!

Cheers,

Bala.

Tommer Catlin · ‎02-11-2009

The SIP stack is much better in CUCM 7.x also. If you plan on using any SIP features, Mobility, etc, 7.x works well. There are a few bugs I have found. I cant get the AC parked calls to work, not a huge deal because technically AC is not supposed to be in 7.0 release anyways. (ARC software) I have an going DND issue where it turns on/off by itself, but I think it's related to something with CUPC and Mobility, not sure yet. (TAC working on it).

Had a SOAP performance issue on the loading. It would not start for some reason. TAC logged into Root and fixed it.

NTP to the Windows server messed up my Subscriber. Had to reload the Subscriber and point my NTP on the pub to an IOS NTP source or external. Im not sure why but the Subscriber would not delete the old NTP sources out even when switched to hardware clock on sub. Odd.

If it's a small deployment of 200 or less, give it a try! I had a few bumps in the road but not really bad.

Anyways, seems good to me, especially for CUPS, MOC integrations.

balasundaram.k_2 · ‎02-11-2009

Hi Tommer,

Thanks a lot for your inputs.

We will then plan to try CCM 7.0 with 250 users on our branch office first.

Special thanks for the mention abt the NTP issue. You saved us many days of troubleshooting :-)

Cheers,

Bala

jcraven · ‎03-25-2009

Thanks all for great posts on this issue. I wanted to add my lesson leared, so hopefully no one wil make the same mistake I did. Many of us had gotten used to CUP Server being thrown in at no charge during the 'unwrap your presence' promo. That promo has been discontinued, and unless you applied ESW/SASU to your CUP server, you won't have a way to get CUP version 7.x. Honsetly, I ordered CM 6.x to 7.x upgrade via PUT, and just assumed CUP 7 would be included. Not so. CUP 6 IS NOT compatible with UCM 7.x - so it's an issue.

balasundaram.k_2 · ‎03-26-2009

Hi Jerry,

Thanks a lot for your inputs.

Your experience will be a good lesson for all of us.

Cheers,

Bala.