Tandberg / Cisco 6000 MXP Conundrum

[peter.nevai]

All righty then,

I get more and more of these inquiries lately.

A customer has a 6000 MXP and they are enquiring about features , options and software upgrades. No I contacted Partner Help Center, and TAC asking a simple question. "Can you please tell me what options (multi-site, High Resolution option, etc) and software revision the unit originally shipped with"? Well since the unit is no longer under warranty, or under contract they cannot open a case with licensing to be able to just provide me with this basic information. NOTE I can go log into Polycom and pull up the complete history of a product by serial number even though it was sold back in 2005 without any hassle. Cisco Take Note!

Anyway what I need to know is what the latest software revision can the unit be upgraded to. It is a

TANDBERG CISCO TELEPRESENCE 6000MXP TTC6-08 REV2 CTS-INTP6000-K9 Serial Number 25A05184

It would have been nice to know what options it was licensed with but heck I'll settle on the latest SW version that this thing can support. The thing is that if I remember correctly it all depends upon a license key. Meaning I cannot update the SW without supplying a license key to activate it, which Cisco can not provide because they no longer offer support for the product and without the license key I cannot upgrade the software. Anyone have any Ideas?

[peter.nevai]

FYI, Cisco can no longer provide any license upgrade keys for the 6000 MXP. It does not matter if you reference the security advisory or not. Their system cannot generate a license key without a current support contract, which they no longer provide as the 6000 MXPP is EOL and EOS (end of life and end of support) So you download the latest releases and try the upgrade, if you are then asked to activate the upgrade using a license key the you are SOL.

They should make this clear on their support site and especially clear in the security advisory.

cisco-sa-20140605-openssl

The above is straight from Cisco TAC.

[Patrick Sparkman]

Hello Peter -

I saw your post in the other thread I'm in regarding upgrading MXP codecs.  Thanks for the information regarding TACs response and ability to provide release keys.  Did they indicate if they would make some kind of notice or information within the security advisories?

[peter.nevai]

No they did not, He told me that support for these units is sort of self serve now and wished me good luck.

[Anthony Thomson]

This is surprising, considering I got some upgrades due to security advisories as recently as 5-6 weeks ago.  I would suggest that this may actually be a case of 'not all TAC agents are created equally'.  I'd be tempted to try again at a different time of day (to get a different TAC center) and hope for a different response.

[Jens Didriksen]

That's rubbish since the 6000MXP doesn't become obsolete until May 31st 2018. Suggest you try again and if receive the same reply, ask to speak to the supervisor/team leader - or as suggested by Anthony below, try at another time to get a different TAC location.

Here's the EOL/EOS notice: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/collaboration-endpoints/telepresence-system-integrator-mxp-series/end_of_life_notice_c51-720884.pdf

/jens

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[peter.nevai]

I was directed to the forum by Cisco TAC. As we are Cisco Preferred Partners I first tried Global Technical Support via my our partner tools. They forwarded me to Cisco TAC and I was told that they could no help with the device history. So then I tried opening a TAC case myself online using my service request tool. That tool declined to let me open a case without a service agreement number. Finally I tried calling TAC directly and after a while sitting on hold I was told that they could not generate a license key for me if I needed it. Anyway this encounter is reminiscent of the denial by Cisco that there is a security hole in the software that runs on the C series codecs. Alt least later than TC6.0

[Jens Didriksen]

You need to escalate this - or, as has been suggested by others, see if you can get to a different TAC center. We're UTC+10, so opening a TAC case during our morning puts us into a specific center where we hardly ever have problems getting things resolved.

/jens

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[Wayne DeNardi]

As Jens mentioned, the time of day is often critical in getting a good response.

My timezone is UTC +9:30 - I prefer logging my issues after around 11:00am local time as they will then go to the India TAC (who are much more helpful and generally work hours closer to my work day) rather than in the early morning where they go to Mexico and I don't get as good a response, or late evening when they go to EMEA where the time difference makes working on an issue impracticable.

Wayne
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[Wayne DeNardi]

As per your other question in this thread: 6000mxp-codec-software-upgrade, you should try contacting the TAC again.  What you've been told is incorrect.

Wayne
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[Patrick McCarthy]

That unit shipped with the Multisite key and the 1.5M BW key. There was no high resolution key, just a 6 MB key which would make the multisite up to six sites, as it is it is four. 

The 6000 MXP is not end of support yet, so a release key can indeed be generated for it, but the automated system won't do it due to a lack of a contract. You can contact your local sales team for that customer, they should have the ability to do this at their discretion. The latest code for that is F9.3.3

[Patrick Sparkman · Accepted solution]

To find out what features and license keys the MXP shipped with, you can look up the codec serial number using the Cisco Licensing Portal > Get Other Licenses > TelePresence License to Resend.

The latest software is F9.3.3, if you're already running F9.x you can upgrade without the need of a release key, however if you're running F8.x or below, you'd require a release key.

[Ferry]

I also have this this problem,...more or less,..

only my unit is still at F6, this is the original version from 2008.

This is the version 2 years before the merger Tandberg and Cisco, no way to integrate it with CUCM.

Did anyone do an hardware upgrade on the unit (Standard with decoder inside and camera on top)

Just replacing the decoder with a newer version would be a great option, but the datasheets are vaguely on the subject.

I see some referennces to an C40 or C60..

I rather not have to replace all the cabling and hardware for a complete new unit.

[Wayne DeNardi]

You should be able to get a software upgrade to F9.3.x through the Cisco TAC for the 6000 as they don't go completely end of support until 31 May 2018.  Just make sure you reference cisco-sa-20140605-openssl in your request and you should be able to get a release key and a copy of the new software. 

[Ferry]

Thanks Wayne for the quick response.