Packaged CCE: 2000 Agents Deployment Type upgrade 11.6.1 to 12.0.x

[Ramamoorthy Shanmugam]

Hi All,

As per Cisco Contact Center Enterprise Solution Compatibility Matrix, Release 12.0(x).  PCCE 12.x will support Windows 2016 & SQL 2017.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/icm_enterprise/ucce_compatibility/matrix/rcct_b_112cce-solution-compatibility-matrix.html

We are planning to upgrade PCCE 2K deployment model from 11.6.1 to PCCE 12.0.x.

I can upgrade only to Cisco Packaged CCE 2000 Agents deployment, Release 12.0(1) from Release 11.5(x), or 11.6(x) directly.

What is my doubt is can I upgrade PCCE 2K 11.6.1 to 12.0.x without OS and SQL upgrade with Common Ground Upgrade Process?

The upgrade requires four maintenance windows:

• First maintenance window to shut down services on Side A and upgrade Side A
• Second maintenance window in the middle of the upgrade to cut over from Side B to Side A. You must bring down Side B before you bring up Side A.
• Third maintenance window after you upgrade Side B to synchronize Side A to Side B.
• Fourth maintenance window to upgrade Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM)

Ram.S

[Anusha B R]

Hi,

As you find in the Compatibility Matrix guide, 12.0 version of PCCE is compatible with Windows 2016 and SQL 2017.

Cisco officially support and recommends these versions only. So, its always good to go according to the document.

Regards,
Anusha B R

[Ritesh Desai]

@Ramamoorthy Shanmugam 

Can you please me your experience with PCCE upgrade. Please share your experience so as I take care of some important points that I need to take care. I am planning for v11.5 to v12.5.

[Ramamoorthy Shanmugam]

Hi Ritesh,

Before Please read the release notes, Upgrade guide, Operate and maintenance guide.

Just sharing my notes I hope it will help you to succeed.

Upgrade Unified CCE 12.0(1) Solution With Windows 2016 and SQL 2017 - Common Ground Upgrade Procedure

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/contact-center/unified-contact-center-enterprise-1201/214628-upgrade-unified-cce-12-0-1-solution-wit.html

As per cisco M1 - Finesse, M2 - CUIC, M3 -VVB/CVP/VG TCL file M4 - ICM, M5 - CUCM and Jtapi on Agent PG

We can complete within single or multiple maintenance windows.

Supported upgrade path : 11.5.x to 12.0.x not for 12.5.x

upgrade CUIC from 11.5.x to 12.0.1

upgrade Finesse from 11.5.x to 12.0.1

if you have VVB upgrade to 12.5.1 with latest ES

upgrade CVP Windows to 2016 then CVP 12.0.1 ES 05

Upgrade ICM windows to 2016 and SQL 2017 ( Rogger+AW-HDS) then ICM 12.0.1 with ES 18 & 34

upgrade Finesse 12.0.x to 12.5.1 with finesse-cce.1251.ES03.10000.cop.sgn

upgrade CUIC 12.0.x to 12.5.1 with  cuic.1251.ES04.zip

convert your cucm PAK based license to smart license then

Upgrade CUCM 11.0.x to 12.5.1

Uninstall agent PG jtapi client and install new Jtapi client

convert CVP PAK based license to smart license then upgrade 12.5.x

Install CVP reporting server for fresh installation and restore the Informix database 

convert UCCE licence to smart the upgrade 12.5.x

===

cons

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cuic http not supported - if you have any custom gadget pls change to https with help of your dev team

cvp custom application recompile

push cvp tcl files to VG's

Ram.S

[pradeepbojan]

Hi Ram,

We're put in a similar situation to move our PCCE 2K deployment model v11.6---12.0---12.5---12.6 .  Did you approach succeed and were you able to upgrade successfully to 12.X ?  How did you manage to move from 2k to 4k deployment model ? Need your valuable inputs.

[Ramamoorthy Shanmugam]

Hi Pradeep,

There are no big challenges for v11.6.1 to 12.0.1 then 12.5.1. We followed the Cisco upgrade guide and done for most of the customers to 12.5.1 now.

I also having the same concern one customer want to move from PCCE 2K to 4K. And we have only 2 PCCE + 2 Offline UCS Box.

 Few are telling if there are no additional agents more than 2000 we can split only CUIC, Live data and idS VM’s no need for other VM’s(CUCM SUB3, PG3, AW-HDS3, CUIC3, Finese 3 etc..)

Please refer to the below link and check the Dynamic Agents and Queues Limits

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/pcce/pcce_12_5_1/design/guide/pcce_b_soldg-for-packaged-cce-12_5.pdf

We need to check Cisco for this deployment change. Once I get the update from Cisco I will update!

Ram.S

[pradeepbojan]

Thank you Ram for your prompt response.

Can you review and comment if we are missing any steps ?

We are taking the below Approach,

Moving the existing VMs on both Sides [A and B] from UCS C240M4SX to C240M5SX as M4 hardware is not compatible with 12.x
Move the VMs(using Vmotion) to the targeted new hardware M5 and ensure that it works on current version 11.6

Route all the Production voice traffic to Side B and run the CC on Standalone simplex mode.

Start Side A components upgrade to 12.0---12.5 starting from Windows Server OS to 2016Std and MSSQL Server version to 2017Std.
Followed by upgrade of VOS components M1 - Finesse, M2 - CUIC, M3 -VVB/CVP/VG TCL file M4 - ICM, M5 - CUCM and Jtapi on Agent PG

Bring down all services in Side B PCCE 11.6
Perform UAT on SIDE A and ensure that it works on current version 12.5
Route all the production traffic to SIDE A and run the contact centre on Simplex mode.
Go live with Side A on Version 12.5

Upgrade Side B(Hayes) by repeating all the activities performed for Side A

Perform DB sync between Side A and Side B.

[Ramamoorthy Shanmugam · Accepted solution]

Hi Pradeep,

Your approach is fine. please follow the Hardware Refresh with Common Ground Upgrade process.

RAID for C240 M4SX :  Virtual Drive Info: RAID 5 with 5 (Physical Disks) * 4 (Virtual Drives/Datastores)   and Configure RAID for C240 M5SX : RAID 5 with 6 (Physical Disks) * 4 (Virtual Drives or Datastores)

There is no issue for Datastores and so on. Please refer to the below link with Hardware Refresh with Common Ground Upgrade for 12.x and 12.5.x versions.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/pcce/pcce_12_0_1/installation/Guide/pcce_b_pcce-install-upgrade-12-0.pdf

Ram.S

Regards,

[pradeepbojan]

Thanks Ram. Apart from the Common ground approach, can we build a parallel system either with supported UCS hardware or on                    Vmware cloud [Amazon/Azure] and then restore databases [both SQL and VOS] ? kind of export/import mechanism ? The reason behind asking you is to have zero impact on production environment. Please advise.

[Ramamoorthy Shanmugam]

Hi Pradeep,

You can follow the vmotion option without any Production impact if you wish to use the same Hostname and IP’s

or

If we build a parallel system with different Hostname and IPs. We may face Major challenges for CUIC, CUCM and ICM HDS Data migration.

Please confirm the above points. So that I will share the Offline Data migration steps for CUIC, CUCM, and ICM DB.

Ram.S

[piyush aghera]

It may be possible to upgrade only PCCE from 11.6.1 to 12.0.x without OS and SQL, but that means your environment will not be on Cisco supported platform, which means TAC may decline to work on your issues and ask to upgrade OS and SQL to comply with Cisco recommendations and standards.

[Ramamoorthy Shanmugam]

Hi Piyush,

Thanks for your input. please clarify below points. As per Cisco if i select 4K or 12 K deployment type with 12.o.x  i can go with Windows 2016 & SQL 2017 version . What about existing PCCE 2K 11.6.1 to 12.0.x common upgrade recommendation. 

Ram.S

[Omar Deen]

@Ramamoorthy Shanmugam, for common ground, you'll have to do an over-the-top upgrade for Windows Server and SQL Server. This is a huge mess that Cisco has created essentially forcing all 12 deployments, including those in production, to upgrade SQL and the operating system. If you're on CCE 12 already, you'll need to apply ES18 to perform the OTT upgrade. I highly recommend working with TAC on this.