ACS 5.2

[Andy Guley]

Currently i am running Cisco ACS 5.2 as a physical appliance.  I would like to run this as a virtual machine.  What would the process to move it to a virtual machine without chaning the name and IP.

Could I just build a new VM as 5.2 backup the current physical machine and restore to the new VM?

Thanks

[nspasov · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can do that. I would build the new instance in VM and then restore the latest backup:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/11522441/backup-configuration-cisco-acs-52

I would recommend doing this during a maintenance window since you will essentially end up with two devices with the same IP on your network and/or for a short while you will have an ACS outage. 

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[Andy Guley]

Thanks for the quick response.  One last question.  Will the new VM have to be the same build as the physical server?  Or can you restore different to different versions?

Thanks

[nspasov]

Hi Andy-

That would depend on the version that you are trying to go to. For instance, if you are planning on going to ACS 5.6 then only backups in ACS 5.4. and 5.5 would work, thus, you would have to do an incremental upgrade. This info is best found in the "release notes" for the particular product:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/net_mgmt/cisco_secure_access_control_system/5-6/release/notes/acs_56_rn.html

It would probably be best if you upgraded your current instance to the latest version, then do the backup, then install in VM and then restore :)

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