Upgrade CUCM from 5.X to VM 8.5

[Amer rajai Sha'er]

Hello,

I have a case i would like to take as much information as i can.

I have a customer who already deployed a CUCM 5.X , they want to upgrade the CUCM to version 8.5 using UCS servers and VMWare.

I can't think of anyway to upgrade it since i can't install 5.X on VMWare on the UCS server.

Does anyone have a idea how to do the upgrade ?

Amer

[Brad Martin]

You'll need to get to 7.1.3 before you jump to 8.5. Cisco supports a bridge upgrade on UCS from 7.1.3 (or

greater) to 8.x.

[Amer rajai Sha'er]

But how to jump from 5.X to 7.1 , is it common upgrade or backup and restore ?

and what about the license.

Amer

[Brad Martin]

If your hardware is supported, it should be a direct upgrade from 5.x to 7.1.3.

[Brad Martin]

Sorry, I forgot to add that you will need to go to Cisco licensing for the proper (7.x & 8.x) version license.

[Amer rajai Sha'er]

This is unclear for me.

I already know that upgradin CUCM from 5.X to 7.1 is supported and i had already did it before .

I have two problems :

1- i only have software feature license for 8.X

2- how am i going to migrate my software to Virtual Machine ?

Amer

[Brad Martin]

You will need to request a software version license for version 7. Depending on your upgrade window, you may be able to do it without it but the callmanager service won't start.

Once you are at 7.1.3 you can install 7.1.3 on the UCS hardware just for the purposes of upgrading to 8.x (bridge upgrade). When you have 7.1.3 installed on UCS you can restore a backup from your current cm. After that it's a direct upgrade to 8.5.

There is good documentation on the bridge upgrades in Cisco documentation.

[mynewlogin]

Amer, now I have the same task.

I'd made upgrade of CallManager from 5.2.3 to 7.1.3b on old physical HP servers.

Than I'd made upgrade of  CallManager from 7.1.3b to 8.0.2 on old physical HP servers.

Than I installed new CallManager cluster 8.0.2 on UCS c210m2 servers under ESXi 4.0 update 1.

Than I did DRS backup on old cluster and restore to new cluster.

Finally I made upgrade of new Call Manager cluster to 8.5(1) version.

But now I havethe next problem.

Time to time on of virtual machines have 100 % CPU and Network load and than it dosn't answer to ping request and I see kernel punik error on the console.

I see errors in callmanager application log:

CCM_CALLMANAGER-CALLMANAGER-2-MaxCallsReached : Maximum calls of simultaneous calls in this node has been reached  Description [Int]

Explanation   The maximum number of simultaneous connections  in a Unified CM node has been reached. This is an internally-set value  and when it is exceeded, Unified CM starts throttling calls to keep the  number of calls below the internal threshold.

Recommended Action   In the Real-Time Monitoring Tool, check  the CallsActive counter in the Cisco CallManager object for an unusually  high number of calls. Internal mechanisms will attempt to correct this  condition. If this alarm continues to occur, collect existing SDL and  CCM trace files and check to be sure that CM Services trace collection  in Cisco Unified CM Serviceability is set to Detailed level.
Error Message

Didn't you have such problems?

[Amer rajai Sha'er]

Hello,

The hardware didn't arrive yet so i didn't start , when i posted i was just planning.

But let me ask you one thing , how did you upgrade on the same hardware to 7 then to 8 without a license ? from where did you get the license if you order 8.5 ?

Amer

[mynewlogin]

You can just go to cisco.com/go/license

and check the link for obtaining evaluation licenses.

There you can generate on your MAC 2-months evaluation license.

[mynewlogin]

Amer, do you have any experience in runnin CallManager in virtual environment?

May be you know some special things or tricks...

[Lisandro Quinteros]

I am having nearly the same situation I got a cluster of 10 servers on 5.1 and have to upgrato to 8.5 I will have 7 on UCS and 3 on hardware...

Its possible to just upgrade the publisher in hardware to 8.5 passing to 7.1 between..make a backup with the publisher in 8.5 and then just make a fresh install of 8.5 on vm with this backup???

mynewlogin i got something like that.. cpu usage got really high so i decied to reinstall and waiting to know what should I do..

Thanks.

[m.barghouthi]

Dear

i have the same issues

can you please explain the steps of upgrade CUCM From 5.1.3 to 8.0.3.10, on Vmware Workstation 7.1.0 to get backup. then go to physical server and do fresh instalation then restore backup.

and what is the problem faced on Vmware.

thanks