CUCM upgrade 8.0.3->8.5.1 and conversion from MCS to UCS

[dean_perry]

I am preparing for an upgrade and P2V  conversion of all UC  applications(CUCM-8.03, UC-7.1.5.3., UCCX-8.0.2.1 , MP-6.0.6,  CER8.0.1.).

We are currently running  on MCS7800 series servers that would be unsupported as per the matrix if  upgraded to 8.5(1). I now have in house UCS 5108/FI6248 and our C210's are  otw. My original plan was  to P2V all applications and get them up on VM running current code and let  them "burn in" so to speak before doing the upgrades to 8.5(1). The  thought being that if all went south I would still have the physical box  intact w/ NIC disabled that could be brought  up within a few minutes. I also assume that the upgrade itself would be  much faster on the VM vs on  the old hardware we have.

I also remember some problems that we had when  upgrading to 8.0.3 during install on our MCS servers that halted the  install upon hardware inspection.

We  were able to work around it after a few hours on the phone w/ TAC but I would rather avoid all  that if possible. In the directions for a bridge upgrade it recommends  doing the upgrade on the old HW  then DRS backup once it  reboots to the new (unusable) CUCM.  Then use that backup to import(restore) into a newly installed ver of CUCM running on the VM.

It just seems it would be easier to do a DRS backup, p2v the current  versions and then upgrade once its in virtual environment. Are there any  pro's/con's to doing a bridged upgrade vs a p2v then standard upgrade?

Thanks for any info.

Dean

[Jaime Valencia · Accepted solution]

The con is that unless the versions you're running on right now are supported on a VM Cisco won't support your deployment. For most apps the only supported way is to perform an upgrade on physical HW up to the minimum releases for each product that is supported on VM, then do the DRS backup on MCS and restore on UCS.

HTH

java

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[dean_perry]

Javalenc,

Thanks for your quick response and you are correct about the support. I am still concerned with running into the same issues we had on our previous upgrade as far as cisco "supporting" the hardware but the upgrade software being unable to actually "do" the upgrade due to the hardware conflicts on the MCS's.

Hypothectically, I guess I could DRS the current versions, restore to the VM's and upgrade in a non-production enviroment keeping the MCS's up and running. When the VM's are sucessfully upgraded just change the IP's/lic and cut over to the fully supported 8.5 VM's. This understanding the any changes made to the MCS config during that time would have to be redone on the VM.

Is there a grace period on the licensing? I assume my current licensing will be valid until I actually "install" the new licenses reflecting the VM MACs?

[Jaime Valencia]

VMs licences are based on a license MAC which is a hash from about 10-12 values you configure in the server.

You can either reach licensing once you've done the install or there is a page on which you type in the info you're going to use in the server to get the License MAC in advance. Be careful that if you mistype anything between what you used in the page and what you use in the server the MAC will change.

Either way, once you want to rehost licenses just reach licensing@cisco.com with the new MAC and your old licenses so they can do this for you.

HTH

java

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