Merging two CUCM Clusters, different versions and Licensing transfer

[hisham683]

I basically just ran into a situation where two companies merged, each having its own CUCM Cluster. One of them is on version 9.x, the other on 8.x. Right now there is an ICT allowing them to communicate with each other, but eventually the plan is to move users from the 8.x cluster to the 9.x cluster and decom that one.

The customer is wondering about transferring licenses over. Given the different license structure from DLU's to ELM between 8.x and 9.x, has anyone ran into a similar issue? I know its not easy just asking for ELM licenses because TAC will require usage snapshots and what not.

In my mind all I can think of is upgrading the 8.x cluster using PUT to 9.x, and applying the ELM license to the 9.x cluster.

Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

[Manish Gogna]

Hi Hesham,

Yes, upgrading the 8.x cluster to 9.x and transferring the licenses to ELM would be a good option if Licensing team is unable to help with converting DLU based licenses of 8.x to user based ELM.

HTH

Manish

[Terry Cheema]

+5 Manish my friend - hope you are doing good!

Hesham - GLO may be able to convert and move the licenses, you can contact GLO @ licensing@cisco.com and check with them otherwise as Manish has suggested, it may be a good approach to have both the clusters at same versions, not only from licensing point of view but also for migrating users from one cluster to other. If they are on the same version, BAT import/export would be straightforward otherwise migrating users between different versions will be quite a pain due to database differences.

Another thing you may need to look out for is the Security By Default (SBD). Since both the clusters are secure clusters ITL files are involved and you will need to consider that before migrating phones between secure clusters (may need to use the rollback feature) to avoid getting stuck in a bad situation.

Review the below two documents and take this well into account for your migration:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/unified-communications/unified-communications-manager-callmanager/118850-technote-cucm-00.html

https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/68701/communications-manager-security-default-and-itl-operation-and-troubleshooting

-Terry

[Manish Gogna · Accepted solution]

Terry, thanks for the useful tips as usual.

Manish
 

[Aman Soi · Accepted solution]

Hi Sayed,

In addition to what Terry and Manish [+5] has said, if u have got a UCSS /ESW contract , u can place order through PUTand share the txt file from new CUCM 9 to licensing team so as to get license for CUCM 8 users.

In case, if u do not have UCSS contract , then u need to purchase Migration licenses of existing CUCM 8 users along with SWSS  so that in future if u upgrade from 9 to 10 or latest available version so that all users can be migrated smoothly.

regds,

aman

[hisham683]

Great answers! I'll get back to the customer and contact GLO and see what we can do.

Thanks!!