CUCM 8.6 to 10.5 Upgrade

[de1denta]

Hi All,

I'm planning to upgrade CUCM 8.6 to 10.5. We currently have 7500 OVAs using 2 x 80GB vdisks. The requirments for 10.5 says that we need to expand the disks to 110GB.

I have read the pre upgrade tasks on how to do this by installing the ciscocm.vmware-disk-size-reallocation-1.0.cop, shutting down the VM and then increasing the disk to 110GB in VMWare. What I'm not sure about is if I have to increase both disks or just one?

Can someone please advise.

Thank you

[Terry Cheema]

Yes correct you will need 1x110GB vdisk for 10.5.

Here's the readme:

http://www.cisco.com/web/software/283088407/112975/cucm.ova.README.txt

CUCM 7500 user node:
	Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) configuration that
	supports up to 7500 users per node.
	Details:
	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (64-bit)
	CPU: 2 vCPU with 3600 MHz reservation
	Memory: 6 GB with 6 GB reservation
	Disk: 1 - 110 GB disk with pre-aligned disk partitions

The upgrade guide says to expand the second one:

Ref:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/upgrade/10_0_1/CUCM_BK_U4214F9D_00_upgrade-guide-cucm-100/CUCM_BK_U4214F9D_00_upgrade-guide-cucm-100_chapter_011.html#CUCM_TK_C9AFC8CC_00

To increase the vDisk space, edit the disk size using vDisk. If the virtual machine has two disks, expand the second one.

The new space is automatically added to the common partition when you restart the virtual machine.

-Terry

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[de1denta]

Hi Terry,

Thank you for the prompt response. I have re-read the guide and agree that its saying to expand only the second disk. However, I was doing some further research since I posted my question and I found the following support threads that suggests that this is not supported for the 7500 OVA but I cant find any other Cisco docs that mentions this

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12400916/cucm-upgrade-questions

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12313756/cucm-862-upgrade-cucm-105

In the last post the following is mentioned

"I intended to upgrade all the servers as the PUB but Cisco engineer recommended to recreate the VMs as for the OVA 7500 users the requirements is 1 x vdisk of 110 MB and the 2 x vdisks of 80MB might not be supported"

Have you come across this before?

Appreciate your assitance

[Ayodeji Okanlawon]

According to the read-me 10.5 ova, you must not resize the disk

Here is an excerpt from the read me..

Upgrades from previous release:
 1) Power off the VM.
 2) Modify the RAM, CPU, reservations, and OS based on the changes listed above via the vmware-viclient. Note, do not attempt to change the number of disks or disk size.
 3) Modify the Network Adapter.  See “Modifying the Network Adapter” section.
 4) Save the changes
 5) Power back on the VM

I have confirmed this also with a Cisco engineer and the only supported option is to take a DRS after you complete your upgrade, then do a new install with a 10.5 7500 OVA and then do a restore.

[de1denta]

Hi,

Thanks for the response. I wouldnt have thought of looking at 10.5 OVA read-me and thought that modifying the VM settings as listed in the pre-upgrade tasks would have been adequate.

After looking at more support threads I can see that I'm not the only one who has been confused by this.

Ok, I have 3 CUCM servers in my cluster. Is the best approach to upgrade the current CUCM pub to 10.5, take a DRS backup and then shut all of the servers down. Rebuild the pub, restore DRS and then rebuild the remaining subs?

Thank you for the assitance

[Ayodeji Okanlawon]

The recommended approach is to upgrade the whole cluster to 10.5, then take a DRS backup. Next deploy new OVA, install cucm10.5 on new OVA then do a restore.

[de1denta]

Ok so once I have upgraded the whole cluster, I shut everything down. Rebuild all 3 VMs from fresh using the new OVAs as if it was a fresh cluster and then restore DRS?

My maintenance window is quite tight so the above will obviously take a considerable amount of time unless I build the new cluster in an isolated enviroment before hand. Will there be any issues with upgrading the current cluster and leaving the VMs with 80GB disks and then completing the restore on to the new cluster with the new OVAs a week later pehaps?

I really appreicate the advise.

[Terry Cheema]

Yes if you were to rebuild then its the correct process you upgrade, take a DRS, shut down and install new VMs and restore from DRS. Rebuilding will need a bit of planning as you will need to enter the identical platform configuration (specially the security password for DRS to work).

To leave it on 80 GB disk may not be an issue - but I think your best bet is to open a TAC case and re-confirm all the details. As per my previous post I remember doing an upgrade from 8.x to 9.1 - where its ova readme stated its required to have 1x110GB vdisk but TAC confirmed they will support CUCMv9.1 with 80GB disk and I never had any problems with that.

Here's a similar thread on v9.1 but again reconfirm with TAC to be on safe side:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/11895136/cucm-upgrade-862-911

-Terry

[Terry Cheema]

The situation here appears to be a bit confusing. The upgrade guide says to modify and resize the disk and readme clearly says as per Deji's post to not do so.

Its more of a migration than an upgrade, if you need to install a new VM and DRS. I recall running into similar situation but with older version I think it was an upgrade to 9.1 although the read me said you need 1x110GB - it was not recommended to modify the disk size. However TAC confirmed upgrade will be fully supported with 80GB disks.

Anyhow, you can follow Deji's recommendation to not modify the vdisk (as from memory has been the case with previous releases too) but you can also open a TAC case, and confirm if you need to reinstall 10.5 (which appears to be the case) as I have found response from TAC sometimes vary person to person.

And please do update up how you go.

-Terry