Upgrade Unity 4.2(1) to 8.x with new OS and Hardware

[jpstephens]

We currently have Unity 4.2(1) installed with unified messaging on a Windows 2000 Server and aging hardware. We are looking to do an upgrade to Unity 8.x on new hardware with Windows 2003 Server. What is the least painful way to do this when looking at DiRT vs COBRAS?

Thanks in advance!

[David Hailey]

My money is on COBRAS and I've weighed in on this topic on more threads than I can remember.  I've also performed multiple upgrades of this type and I think you save quite a bit of time with COBRAS particularly when you are installing new hardware as well.  Here is an example thread with more detail:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3170635#3170635

Hailey

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[e.huntley]

Would you recommend the same route on reinstalling on the same server.

Here is my situation.

1.  Unity 4.2 on Windows 2000.  Unified Messaging

2.  I need to get to Unity 8 on Windows 2003 on the same server.

3.  So I have to wipe the box, install OS 2003 and Unity (to whatever version), then do either DiRT on Cobras depending on the mechanism.

So my main questions were.

1. Can I use Cobras in this scenario and install 8 directly and then import the Cobras data.

2. When/if I build the server as 8.0, I have my Unity 4.x licenses and an 8.0 upgrade license.  Will that allow everything to start up on a fresh install of 8.x

3. Since I am using the same server, am  I going to run into any issues with either Cobras or DiRT where it won't import accounts because they "already exist" because of the pointers in AD.

Thanks in advance

[David Hailey]

If you're using pre-existing equipment, I'd go the DiRT route. However, in order to do the DiRT restore - you need to install Unity back to the same exact version (including ES) as it was (i.e., 4.2 whatever). So, you'd wipe the server and reinstall OS. Then reinstall Unity 4.2 and then DiRT restore. From there, you'd need to check whether you can upgrade directly to Unity 8 from 4.2 or if you need to first go to an interim version of 5.x or 7.x. Your licensing sounds OK.

When you're working within the same AD domain, you need to use GSM to clean up the server references associated with users homed to an existing server. When you use new servers and go the COBRAS route, this doesn't pose a problem because you can easily set up the digital networking between the 2 systems and move forward with your migration. So, if you use DiRT and retain the same server name and etc then this shouldn't apply to you because your server associations would remain the same. (This refers to your 3rd question).

Hailey

[jpstephens]

Unfortunately digitial networking is not compatible between 4.2 and 8.x, which rules out GSM as GSM requires digital networking. I'm in a position now of using COBRAS to back everything up, using bulk delete in Unity 4.2 to delete subscribers and doing COBRAS restore on Unity 8 to bring them back in.