CUCM upgrade from 7.1.5bSU3 to 8.5.1

[kbeelwar]

Hello,

I have MCS servers as follows:

I have UCS C210 servers where I have installed VMware ESXi and want to use this vmware 8.5.1 as new cucm.

The issue is I see my current hardware on MCS does not support upgrade due to memory/HDD requirement. I am suggested to temporarily use mcs to upgrade to 8.5 and take backup.Install vmware 8.5.1 and restore. This approach sounds ok except I am worried my install may not work making my mcs cucm production enviroment go down.

Has anyone got better recommendation? Do you think the above method will work?I just have 15 hours of downtime where i need to get the servers up.

Pls help!!

Thanks

Kads

Product	Current   Hardware	Memory/Disk	Supported	Recommendations
US   CM-osi-cm10	MCS7825H3-K9-CMB1 Platform     Type 7825H3	Memory: 2048 MB Disk Size: 152587 MB	Yes	Upgrade   to 4 GB Memory is strongly recommended. Disk Size is ok, no upgrade   is necessary
US   CM-osi-cm11	MCS-7825-H2-IPC1  Platform     Type 7825H2	Memory: 2048 MB Disk Size: 76293 MB	Yes	Upgrade   to 4 GB Memory is strongly recommended. Upgrade   to 160GB Disk Size is strongly recommended
US   CM-osi-cm12	MCS-7825-H2-IPC1 Platform     Type 7825H2	Memory: 2048 MB Disk Size: 76293 MB	Yes	Upgrade   to 4 GB Memory is strongly recommended. Upgrade   to 160GB Disk Size is strongly recommended.
APAC   CM-osi-cm20	MCS-7825-I4  Platform     Type 7825I4	Memory: 2048 MB Disk Size: 238GB		Upgrade   to 4 GB Memory is strongly recommended. Disk Size is ok, no upgrade   is necessary
APAC   CM-osi-cm21	7825H2 Platform Type 7825H2	Memory: 2 GB Disk Size: 80 GB		Upgrade   to 4 GB Memory is strongly recommended. Upgrade   to 160GB Disk Size is strongly recommended.
EMEA   CM-osi-cm30	7825H2 Platform Type 7825H2	Memory: 2 GB Disk Size: 160 GB		Upgrade   to 4 GB Memory is strongly recommended. Disk Size is ok, no upgrade   is necessary
EMEA   CM-osi-cm31	7825I Platform Type 7825H2	Memory: 2 GB Disk Size: 80 GB		Upgrade   to 4 GB Memory is strongly recommended. Upgrade   to 160GB Disk Size is strongly recommended.

[Gordon Ross]

I'm slightly confused with what you're wanting to do. Are you saying you want to migrate all seven servers to CUCM 8.5 - all running under VMWare ? (I hope you don't want to run all seven CUCM instances on the same VMWare box...)

Or that you want to use VMWare as a staging area to allow you to install CUCM 8.5 on your MCS servers ? (In which case, I can't see the point of this. Why not just upgrade the RAM/HDs & do a normal upgrade ?)

On a slightly related note: 15 hours to do a straight software upgrade on 7-node CUCM cluster is doable. Memory upgrade should be trivial, in terms of time. Replacing the HDs will add considerably to the time element. Without knowing more details of your cluster setup, it's hard to say whether you could do it or not. (e.g. Are your backup subscribers actively used for things ?)

[kbeelwar]

Hello Gordon,

1. There are 3 seperate clusters comprising of 3,2,2 servers in every region.

2. MCS servers do not have memory nor HDD capacity so I was hoping to migrate from mcs to  vmware servers with plans as such for every region

UCS1 : UCCX 8.5

            CUCM 8.5 Publisher

UCS2 : CUCM 8.5 Subscriber

3. I have 15 hours of downtime for every cluster to migrate from mcs to vmware which I believe is very doable, just wanted a confirmation if my planning is ok.

4. Have you seen any issues with running whole cluster on vmware?

Hope this answers your queries and thank you for helping me with this.

Kads

[Gordon Ross · Accepted solution]

If you've got three separate clusters, 15 hours per cluster should be plenty of time.

I've not run a live cluster entirely under VMWare - but CUCM is supported under VMWare (with various caveats)

All I would say, is that you're not going to want to run all the nodes of a cluster on the same VMWare box (unless you *really* understand the pros and cons of this - e.g. no more hardware resliancy)

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/virtual/servers.html

and

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Unified_Communications_VMware_Requirements

are probably good places to browse.

GTG

[bvanturn]

For this you can do a bridge upgrade. This will allow you to perform the upgrade. However once upgraded, the software will only allow you to take a backup which you can then use for a restore on your UCS platform.

More info on bridge upgrades in the Operating System Administration Guide.