vcs appliance to virtual migration

[vijendra Saravanamuthu]

hi guys,

 I was hoping someone can shed some light on few questions that I have.

basically we have vcs c and e 8.7.1 on appliance and its time to virtualize it. 

1. I am thinking of migrating the vcs e to virtual first and next week will be vcs c.   virtual E will be same version as vcs c appliance of course. but is it supported to have vcs c on appliance and e on virtual for that one week time.?

2 . also my plan is to backup vcs e and then restore it on vcs e virtual.  I have vcs e installed with same version and diff ip add for now (but I will change it to the same IP during cutover). because it has a different Serial # , cisco has to issue different release key and option keys.  admin guide for backup and restore talks about keeping the same option key and release key , ours has to be different here due to different SN on virtual machine. hope that's not going to casue issue during restore on virtual.

3. this client only has 1 vcs c and vcs e.  there is no cucm. and we have devices registered to vcs c.  when I migrate vcs c to virtual (of course I will keep the same IP), will the devices automatically come register to this new vcs c? some of them are h323 and some are SIP. 

thank you .

vijay

[Patrick Sparkman · Accepted solution]

You can have a virtual appliance run side-by-side with a hardware appliance. You only have to be concerned is if you're running a cluster, in which case each peer must be of the same deployment size and you can only deploy an equal number of peers of -C and -E.
You can do a backup/restore to copy the configuration, any release and option keys will not be valid as the serial numbers won't match, but you'll be provided new ones the virtual VCS.
Endpoint registrations will failover whenever they reach end of their time to live (H323) and Session refresh (SIP) timers, under Configuration > Protocols > H323/SIP.

[Antzs]

I have a Cisco Telepresence VCS (TANDBERG VCS) appliance.  I just checked with my reseller about the migration license from the appliance to a virtual machine.  But was told that the migration license is no longer available.  Is this true?  

They are suggesting for me to get the Cisco Business Edition 6000 instead.

[Debayan Chowdhury]

Hello Antzs



Licenses are option keys can be migrated from appliance to virtual machine.

[Patrick Sparkman]

I just checked Cisco CCW and both part numbers (see Wayne's reply) are still appearing. As long as there are VCS hardware appliances being sold, they should still be selling the VM migration. Check again, and/or check with another reseller, you can also check with your local Cisco Account Team.

[vijendra Saravanamuthu]

I just did this migration a week ago. ordered the parts 3 weeks ago.

[R. Clayton Miller]

I will put this out there just to document the actual migration/configuration process as I just went through this with a partner who was onsite...... did some searching and did not find the migation procedure well documented and felt our way through this.... Install your new virtual VCS .ovas, put initial IPs on them, web to them and install your new release (that you already ordered and received) and option keys before you restore from backup.  If the Advanced Networking option key is not installed on VCS-E when you do the restore it will not restore the config for the 2nd LAN interface because you don't have the advanced networking option key installed.  You will see "ERROR: String valuespace type supplied to a DropDownBox"when you navigate to navigate to "System > Network Interfaces > IP" on virtual VCS-E.

When we saw this error, (after installing the new release and option keys) we had to then restore from backup a second time.  The 2nd LAN interface was then recognized and the error was resolved.

When we completed the 2nd restore, we saw virtual VCS-E maintained our new release/option keys and did not write over the new option keys that were tied to the existing serial.

If you found this thread and have any other situation where you see the error message above, please call TAC.

[Wayne DeNardi]

You will likely need to order from Cisco a "R-VMVCS-C-M-K9-" for your VCS-C and a "R-VMVCS-C-M-K9-" for your VCS-E which will enable the migration from a Hardware to a Virtual - and allows migration of your Option Keys from the hardware serial number to the virtual one.  These should be a $0 cost.