Upgtade from CUCM 4.x to 8.x

[ritsonr]

Guys, i've read about the upgrade path from 4 to 8 but in my situation the hardware isn't coming with... We want to move from a stand alone version 4 platform to a virtualized version 8 platform. We were going to build the new platform as a new cluster, trunk between them and migrate users over but now i look at licensing this is starting to look very complicated indeed... not to mention expensive. But to do a multi hop upgrade would involve me upgrading from 4.2(3) to 6.1(2) using the DMA which is fine (hardware permitting) and then onto 8 but thats when the hardware changes obviously...

Does anyone have any advice on the best method to move from 4 to 8? Can it be done between stand alone and virtualized easily?

Cheers,

Richard.

[d.hillman]

The process isn't very difficult, just a bit time consuming.  DMA will handle the migration to 6.x or 7.x for you; then upgrade and disaster recovery to new platform, as you pointed out hardware dependent. You could also disaster recovery then perform upgrade if that works.

Licensing, assuming you have UCSS, will not be an expensive process as the licenses will be converted in the DMA process to DLUs.

BTW.  It might have been the way I read your post, but you don't trunk between two boxes in the same cluster.

Take care,

DH

[James Hawkins]

Given the number of dial plan features changes (Local Route Groups, E.164 dialling etc) and other features (particularly LDAP sysnc) I normally recommend that customers implement a new cluster and use BAT to export/import data.

If you can demonstrate to the Cisco Licensing team that you have purchased the required upgrades (normally by supplying PO numbers) they will normally issue the required UC 8.x licenses. You can then link the CCM4 and CUCM8 clusters together and migrate in stages.

[d.hillman]

I would only consider BAT if you have a VERY simple CUCM deployment.  Think of all the things you will be unable to BAT from the old system.

[ritsonr]

Sorry, thought you used DMA to get from windows based to linux based, not between 6 and 7 etc?

Yeah i think new cluster is the way forward as it will let us do this in a staged approach, the CUCM deployment is pretty simple so BAT should be ok but we do have IPCCx etc which would also need to migrate to the new platform and version. It all seems to have a better chance of succeeding if we do this bit by bit...

Thanks for the advice guys, much appreciated.

Rich

[d.hillman]

Just to be clear, DMA is only used only to get from 4.x to 6.x or from 4.x to 7.x.

The IPCC upgrade path is also a multi-hop upgrade from 3.x or 4.x to 8.x.  You have similar choices there as well, upgrade or rebuild from scratch.  Depending on complexity and desire to keep historical data a recommendation can be made. 

Good luck on your upgrades.

/DH

[ritsonr]

Ok, so i think what i'm going to do (for CUCM) is:

1. Take the PUB running version 4 and pull one of it's drives.
2. Step Upgrade this PUB to 6 then to 8 which i know is unsupported.
3. Get the license file from the new version 8 PUB.
4. Roll back the PUB to version 4 using the drive.
5. Install version 8 fresh on my VM blade and drop the upgrade license on there.
6. Trunk the nice clean version 8 platform to the existing (pretty messy) version 4 production platform.
7. Deploy a nice best practice design to the version 8 and move sites and users over one at a time.

For IPCCx at the moment as i understand it version 8 wont co-reside on the same hardware (in a different vm obviously) as a CUCM so i would have to put it on a new bit of hardware But i am hearing that near future version of IPCCx might be ok with being on the same server? Does anyone know anything about this?

[d.hillman]

First, if it isn't supported I wouldn't get near it.  Second, why upgrade the existing CUCM if you have no plans to use it?  For a contingency if the new install doesn't go well?

I'm a fan of application per box, less dependencies to worry about.

[kbrinker]

Rich,

I am planning for a similar upgrade.  Could you please provide an update as to how your migration went and the steps you took?Any problems come up you can warn me about?

Thanx,

Karl

[ritsonr]

Hi Karl,

This was a while ago now and we didn't actually end up doing it that way. We built up a brand new version 7 cluster and just ran an ICT between the two systems.

Hope you're migration goes/has gone well.

Rich