CUCM Migration from 7.1 to 8.X

[Rafael Ochoa]

Hello Everyone,

I have been behind the scenes and have reference many of topics and discussion in the support community. The time has come that I have some questions in regards of a migration from CUCM 7.1 to 8.X.

The project is to migrate our current cluster to 8.5 or 8.6. We do have a c210 with Vmware 4.0 ESXi loaded to play with, our existing servers are on HP servers, which can only be bridge upgraded to 8.X. The publisher is on the oldest hp server and has a heartbeat light on it, which makes me worried of any implications that may happen during an upgrade.

What I would like to do is re-create the publisher, perform a DRS restore, and then upgrade that box up to 8.X. I would like to have this in a test environment and test different sites with the new re-created publisher. The environment that I work in is a school district, which their phones are very important. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Rafael

[Jaime Valencia]

And exactly where do you want advice??

I don't see a question there.

HTH

java

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[Rafael Ochoa]

I'm sorry, one of my main questions is do I need to license the new publisher in order to move to 8 or is the demo license sufficient enough?

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi

Yes, you do need a new license for the new upgraded server.

You can only use the 'demo license' for new installations.

Regards

Aaron Harrison

Principal Engineer at Logicalis UK

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[Rafael Ochoa]

Being that the upgraded server is on vmware, running 7.1.5.33900-10, Cisco probably wouldn't license it since it is not the supported hardware. Is there a work around?

[nikshah]

No workaround to be honest for running an unsupported version on VMWare..

I would perform an upgrade on the publisher on the HP, DRS backup, install VMware supported 8.x perform restore and then ugprade to 8.5/ 8.6

[chris_day]

In place upgrade to 7.1.5, then in place upgrade to 8.6. Server will not run 8.6 but will allow a drs backup that can be restored on your virtual 8.6 server. Also you can move all phones to register with the subscribers and remove subscribers from the publisher after your 7.1.5 upgrade of all servers and before going 8.6 on the pub. This will allow phones to keep working while you upgrade to 8.6. Bring up new 8.6 subs in the vm environment to join after the drs restore and change option 150 and reboot the phones. Gives you a smaller amount of down time.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Rafael Ochoa]

I have a dl380g5 with 4 72gb drives and 8gb of memory, do I need to upgrade the drives to 146GB in order to do a bridge upgrade to 8.6.2?

[abcronin · Accepted solution]

Hi Rafael, did you find out an answer to your question, have also would like to know?

[Rafael Ochoa]

abcronin,

I didn't mean to mark your question as the correct answer. To answer your question I have not received an answer, but according to CISCO documentation it is recommended to upgrade the drives to 146 GB if your moving to CUCM 8.6 for production use on supported hardware. After looking over their matrix for my HP DL380G5 with dual cpu and 72gb drives it is only supported for Bridge Upgrade.

(5) Supported only for "bridged upgrade" to migrate to newer hardware. In a bridged upgrade, you upgrade to the specified Cisco Unified Communications Manager version, make a backup of your software configuration via the Disaster Recovery System utility, reinstall the Cisco Unified Communications Manager version on new hardware, and restore your software configuration from backup. This server is not supported for any other use with Cisco Unified Communications Manager other than this "bridged upgrade" procedure.

[abcronin]

thanks for the reply, I will suggest a migration is done to 146GB drives using a DRS upgrade.

Cheers

Andy

[Rafael Ochoa]

Just wanted to keep everyone updated. I was able to use my dl380 g5 with 4 72gb drives and 8 gb of memory and successfully did a bridge upgrade to 8.6.2