Hi Tuck,
Great work so far my friend!
If it were me I would go ahead and build the 6.1(4) Sub.
Get it up and running with the Replication checks etc.
You don't want to leave a large gap in time between upgrading to 8.6
and doing the "Switch-Version" to make it the active partition.
So whenever the 6.1(4) has been properly vetted go ahead
and start down the 8.6 path. There will be Licensing that needs to be
obtained on 8.6 with VM so you will need sufficient time to get that in order.
Customer Impact from New Licensing Procedures
Cisco Unified Communications Manager on Virtualized Servers uses a different licensing model than Cisco Unified Communications Manager on an MCS server. The MAC address of the NIC card is no longer used to associate the license to the server.
Instead, the license gets associated to a license MAC, which is a 12 digit HEX value created by hashing the following parameters that you configure on the server:
•
Time zone
•NTP server 1 (or "none")
•NIC speed (or "auto")
•Hostname
•IP Address (or "dhcp")
•IP Mask (or "dhcp")
•Gateway Address (or "dhcp")
•Primary DNS (or "dhcp")
•SMTP server (or "none")
•Certificate Information (Organization, Unit, Location, State, Country)
The ways to obtain the license MAC are as follows:
•Before installation, use the Answer File Generator (http://www.cisco.com/web/cuc_afg/index.html). When you generate the answer file, you also get the license MAC.
Note If you use this method, ensure that you enter the identical parameter values in the Answer File Generator and the Cisco Unified Communications Manager installation program, or the license will be invalid.
•After installation, navigate to Show > System in Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration.
•After installation, use the CLI command show status.
Obtaining New Licenses
The process to redeem a Product Activation Key (PAK) for licenses at www.cisco.com/go/license is changed for a license MAC. When redeeming a PAK for a license MAC at this URL, you get prompted to select the type of license that you want to obtain:
•A physical MAC address — this is used when Cisco Unified Communications Manager will be installed on an MCS server.
•A license MAC address — this is used when Cisco Unified Communications Manager will be installed on Cisco Unified Communications Manager on Virtualized Servers.
After you make this selection, the generation and installation of the license file follows the same process.
Obtaining Rehosted Licenses When You Change License MAC Parameters
When you change any of the parameters that create the license MAC, the license that you obtained with it becomes invalid. You must request a rehosting of the license to obtain a valid license. The old license continues to work for a 30-day grace period.
To rehost your licenses, you must open a case with the licensing team to obtain a license for your replacement server. Contact the licensing team at licensing@cisco.com.
During the grace period, you can change the settings back to the licensed values to make your original license valid again. If you need more than 30 days of grace period, change your settings back to the licensed values, then change them back to the new values that you want to use. You will get another 30- day grace period.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/virtual/servers.html#wp86411
As for the phone Firmware...once you have determined the
version(s) that 8.6 has set as Device Defaults then you can
start down that road as well. We had about 3,000 phones
that needed Firmware upgrades prior to moving to 7.x
and we did run into some issues with them so don't leave
this part of the migration till the last minute
Cheers!
Rob
