Upgrade UC applications to 9.X

[joeharb]

We are working on upgrading our UC infrastructure to 9.X on UCS.  We currenlty have legacy MCS appliances and are running 7.1(3)b for cccm and 7.1(2) for connection.  Everything I have read about upgrading connection specifically states version 7.1(3) as the version to get to for upgrading.  I was planning on getting both ccm and connection to 7.1(5) and then starting the upgrade.

Since the MCS servers aren't supported for 9.X we are expecting that we will have to install both connection and ccm on the the ucs @ and get it the to exact version that the MCS servers are running..do a DRS restore to the new servers.  Once the new servers are running 7.X with the data imported, perform an upgrade to 9.X.  I have also read that it would be better to get an DRS from the new 9.X server and then do a fresh install and restore, is this true?

Also when we are building the 7.X server on the UCS can I use the ova for 9.X?  I know I can install this with the same hostname and ip (in a blackhole vlan), but what is the best way to deal with dns and ntp requirements?

Should I stick with 7.1(3) or can I go to 7.1(5) for both ccm and connection prior to upgrade?   The main reason I am considering the 7.1(5) is that we have 8945 phones that waiting to be deployed, they would be supported under that version and could be deployed now as opposed to after the full upgrade process.  We have UCCX which in a different "beast".

Thanks and I appreicate any advise/recomendations...

Joe

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Joe

It really looks like you've done your homework here! Nice work.

For CUCM

You are in the perfect postion to leverage the Drive to 9 "Jump" upgrade

from 7.1.3 to 9.1.2 This is a new simplified upgrade process that

is detailed by Amit here. They do require that you have NTP and DNS configured

in the lab/deadnet to accomplish these steps.

https://supportforums.cisco.com/community/netpro/collaboration-voice-video/ip-telephony/blog/2013/05/20/drive-to-9

And more specifically in the attachment below from Vijay.

Cheers!

Rob

Attachments:

• Drive_to_Nine_Jump_upgrade_versions_4.1.3-7.1.5_to_9.1.2[2].pdf (2.2 MB)     Preview

"Why do the best things always disappear " 

- The Band

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Joe,

I also watched a good seminar from Cisco that had some really helpful tips

for the Drive to 9 can you see if link gets you there

http://tools.cisco.com/gems/cust/customerQA.do?METHOD=E&LANGUAGE_ID=E&SEMINAR_CODE=S18835&PRIORITY_CODE=000250393

Cheers!

Rob

"Why do the best things always disappear " 

- The Band

[joeharb]

Rob,

Thanks for the information...we are a partner and I will be using those resources for assistance .  The document doesn't really cover much about Untiy Connection, since this is "live" data, is the process still the same?  We have several items to address before the actual upgrade, ie fixed MOH, attendant console features....etc.  We were wanting to start with Connection since it has no dependency on CCM version.  I have looked through the drive for 9 and it appears that we can upgrade ccm to 7.1(5) (to utilize the 8945's) then do the jump upgrade to 9.X.  We currently have 3 servers in our cluster, I assume it would be best acutally build out the entire cluster or do we only need to worry about getting the publisher in the lab enviroment?

Thanks again for the info provided.

Joe

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Joe,

You're lucky to be a "Partner" .....that must be nice to have that access.

I wish I could give you some good tips for Unity Connection but I haven't done

or researched that upgrade too much at all so maybe someone else may jump

in

It is recommended to build the whole cluster (see attached). In regards to one other

question from your first post, you must get to 9.1.2 then do a DRS backup......rebuild

with the proper 9.x OVA then DRS restore to avoid the dreaded unaligned partition issue.

Also, make sure to use the v1.3 Refresh.cop as it overcomes CSCuj10105 (upgrades prohibited)

Cheers!

Rob

"Why do the best things always disappear " 

- The Band

[joeharb]

Thanks again for your responses, hopefully someone with Unity Connection experience will chime in as well. 

One other question for you, if you are integrated with AD via LDAP, do you have to continue to have this connectivity in the "sandbox" during your migration of data?  I would expect we could NAT the sandbox from the rest of the network and stil have connectivity to DNS and other servers.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Joe

[Jaime Valencia]

Review the documentation for D29, most of your questions are already addressed there

https://communities.cisco.com/community/partner/collaboration/migration?view=overview

The D29 jump upgrade doc explains which OVA to use, the necessary and mandatory steps (including the last DRS), and requirements for jump upgrade (including a whole recreation of the production environment in the lab for this purpose).

As for CUC, the CUC upgrade guides are what you need to review, basically, two options, either you just use COBRAS to migrate the info from one version to the other, or upgrade to (at least) 8.X release, when virtualization support started, to then DRS from MCS to UCS.

HTH

java

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