VCS X8.2

[Wayne DeNardi]

I notice software version X8.2 has been released - this looks like good news for those of us wanting mixed environments of X7/X8, and those with firewalls they can't easily manage.  The important wording from the release notes:

RTP and RTCP media demultiplexing ports

In Small/Medium systems, 1 pair of RTP and RTCP media demultiplexing ports are used. These can now either be explicitly specified (Configuration > Traversal > Ports) or they can be allocated from the start of the general range of traversal media ports.

In previous X8 releases they were always allocated from the start of the traversal media ports range.

In Large systems, 6 pairs of RTP and RTCP media demultiplexing ports are used. These are still always allocated from the start of the traversal media ports range.

After upgrading to X8.2, all existing traversal media port configurations / firewall requirements are maintained.

I haven't had a chance to test yet, but this all sounds promising.

Wayne
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</wayne

[Nick Halbert-Lillyman]

It certainly does sound promising... I'll be interested to hear people's results as I'm also in a position where I don't control some of our external traversal client zones.

[Wayne DeNardi]

We may be in a position to trial this later this week or next week - we're bringing a new VCS-Control on line so are currently planning on trying it as X8.2 - and downgrading it to X7.2.3 if it doesn't work.

Wayne
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[Paul Richardson]

That sounds like an improvement from X8.1.  Look forward to reading your findings with the new VCS-C.

Cheers, Paul R.

[Danny Meyer]

looks like in X8.2 the H323 bug CSCuo82382 is still not fixed?

Any feedback from Cisco when this will be the case?

Danny

[Wayne DeNardi]

Hi Paul,

We did get the new VCS-Control up and running with X8.2.  We had to modify the ports used via the GUI to be compatible with the old X7.2.3 ports, but once this had been done, it all worked nicely.

We're now considering the upgrade of our other VCS devices in a controlled manner to X8.2 to bring them all up to a consistent level - then we may look at changing the ports used across the board to the newer X8 settings to make future installations easier.

Wayne
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[Paul Richardson]

Hi Wayne,

I have a client who wishes to upgrade their VCS-e from X7.2.3 to X8, so I will upgrade it and their VCS-c at the same time to X8.2.  I will also ensure that the port allocations stay the same initially.  At a later date I will be adding 1 x VCS-c and 1 x VCS-e and creating a Control cluster and an Expressway cluster.  The new h/w was delivered with  X8.1 installed, so the plan is to upgrade them to X8.2 and then change the ports on the "old boxes" to the X8 standard.

Cheers, Paul R.

[Wayne DeNardi]

Hi Paul,

The previous issue with X8.1 was that Cisco insisted that both ends of a traversal needed to be the same version.  This is no longer the case with X8.2, so you no longer have to do both at the same time.  This gives you some flexibility in upgrading your E's and C's.  An upgrade will keep the ports the same as the version you're currently using, you can then manually update them at a later date as required, or do them at the same time, it's up to you and how you need to do your environment.  In my case, I have access to some, but not to others, so can only do parts of the whole.

Wayne
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[Nick Halbert-Lillyman]

Hi Wayne,

I'm interested to see exactly which ports you had to change?  I upgraded one of my VCS-E to VCS-C pairs (i.e. one where I control the whole path, just in case) to 8.2 and I couldn't see any port differences from 7.2...

[Wayne DeNardi]

Hi Nick,

For an upgrade, as you've seen, all ports stay the same.

In this case, ours wasn't an upgrade, but a new VCS, so by default, it had the X8 ports configured so we had to change them to the X7 ports.

Wayne
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[Nick Halbert-Lillyman · Accepted solution]

Thanks Wayne, that's a big help... having browser issues so can't rate your post though :P