How do you back up servers before an upgrade?

[James Hawkins]

Hi,

I have had some less than great experiences in upgrading MCS CUCM 6 and 7 systems to CUCM 10.5 caused by bugs, locale files etc.

These upgrades have included moving from MCS to UCS servers and so have not been time sensitive and I was able to work out the issues.

I now have a customer who wants to go from CUCM 8.6, Unity Connection 8.6 and UCCX 8.5 to the same systems running 10.5 running on the same UCS C series servers.

There are a total of 7 servers to upgrade and the UCCX CAD/CSD upgrades to roll out and we have a 48 hour window to complete this.

If everything works ok this should be enough time but if things do not go so well we would have to revert.

Cisco are pretty adamant that VMware snapshots will not work - see link below - and I am looking at ways that  I could roll back if everything goes to hell.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/voice-unified-communications/unified-communications-manager-callmanager/116459-technote-product-00.html

I would of course take the normal DRS backups and have all the media needed to rebuild the servers to hand but I want to think about other options that may be quicker. The options I can think of are:

• VMware snapshots - the concept looks ideal but Cisco do not seem to like them - does anyone use them? Could I use them if I powered off the servers first?
• Power off servers and copy files to alternate storage - this would give me a backup but would take a long time (and big chunk of the change window)
• Use a VMware backup solution such as Veam - from what I have read these rely on snapshots?

I would welcome any feedback on these ideas. I know the official Cisco line is that only DRS is supported but restoring the systems by rebuilding and restoring would be very difficult in the time available.

Thanks

[Jaime Valencia]

It kinda supported, and I've used it in my lab for upgrade testisng, and anything I think might break my server, you can just copy it

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

Which is effectively, just copying all the files as you mentioned

[James Hawkins]

Thanks Jaime

I am a bit concerned about how long the files will take to copy off the servers.

I have lots of space left in the data stores so I might install virtual Windows 7 PCs on the UCS servers and then copy the UC servers to them. The traffic will stay on the server and not hit the network.

[Jaime Valencia]

Then why not simply copy the VM?? If you have space to spare, you can just leave them there in case something happens and avoid spinning up a new VM for just that purpose

[James Hawkins]

That is probably what I will do.

I am still wondering whether shutting down the servers and doing a snapshot before bringing them back up and installing the upgrade would be viable?

The snapshot would take less time than copying the files and would be quicker to revert.

After the upgrade has been running for a few days I would delete the snapshots.

[Jaime Valencia]

That we definitely do not support and I haven't done that in my lab, so I really can't tell if it will work as expected or if anything will happen to them. I find it safer to simply clone the VM and leave it there if something happens.

[Ayodeji Okanlawon]

Excellent stuff from Jamie and Gordon (+5).

James please keep us updated on how this goes.

[Gordon Ross]

Cisco are pretty adamant that VMware snapshots will not work

No, Cisco just say they don't support UC VMs having snapshots. That's totally different to snapshots not working on UC VMs.

I've taken snapshots before upgrades just in case things go wrong (I power off the VM before taking the snapshot). Just make sure you delete the snapshots before you call TAC with an issue ;-)

GTG

[James Hawkins]

Thanks Gordon,

I think some time in the lab would be a good idea.