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VCS-C and VCS-E upgrade to 8.1 from 7.2.2

Sumit Solomon
Level 1
Level 1

Hello Experts,

We are to deploy Jabber through Expressway Edge (MRA) solution and we need to upgrade our current VCS-C and E servers (7.2.2).

We have some old polycoms I wonder if upgrading VCS might break legacy polycoms.

TMS and MCU units don't require upgrading.

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Wayne DeNardi
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

The registration methods registering an endpoint to the VCS has not changed, so, if your endpoints are registering correctly now, they should continue to do so.following the upgrade.

Support for some of the older Polycom devices has been dropped in newer versions of TMS though, so if you're considering upgrading TMS at any stage, you may need to have a close look at the release notes.

Please note that there have been quite a few port changes between X7 and X8, so make sure, before any upgrade, you've had a good read thorough the X8.1.1 release notes and addressed any firewalls for the changed ports.

PS - You should to to X8.1.1 on the VCSes, not just X8.1, as X8.1.1 patches the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability.

Wayne
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View solution in original post

11 Replies 11

Wayne DeNardi
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

The registration methods registering an endpoint to the VCS has not changed, so, if your endpoints are registering correctly now, they should continue to do so.following the upgrade.

Support for some of the older Polycom devices has been dropped in newer versions of TMS though, so if you're considering upgrading TMS at any stage, you may need to have a close look at the release notes.

Please note that there have been quite a few port changes between X7 and X8, so make sure, before any upgrade, you've had a good read thorough the X8.1.1 release notes and addressed any firewalls for the changed ports.

PS - You should to to X8.1.1 on the VCSes, not just X8.1, as X8.1.1 patches the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability.

Wayne
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Wayne
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Thanks Wayne

Hi Wayne,

We are having VCS and VCSE currently running on 7.2, we are planning to upgrade the VCS and VCSE to 8.2.3 version. We also have TMS (13.2.2) and MSE 8510 and video conferencing devices of various vendors and Cisco Jabber, Currently our TMS Agent is running on Legacy Mode.

Please suggest the steps to proceed further for upgrading VCS & VCSE.

In order to upgrade your VCSs to X8 software, you'll need to upgrade your TMS server and migrate to use TMS Provisioning Extention (TMSPE), as TMS Agent Legacy support has been removed starting with VCS X8.1.  Here is the TMSPE 1.2 Deployment Guide with VCS X8 support for more details.

As Patrick has indicated (+ points for that), if you're provisioning, you'll need to upgrade from the legacy Agent mode to TMSPE, and to upgrade your TMS too.

Perhaps it might be worth looking at TMS14.4, TMSPE1.2 and VCS X8.2 if you're going to have to do the whole lot.

Have a look at this thread: https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12200161/tms-144-tmspe-12-and-tmsxe-40-are-now-available-ciscocom

Wayne

Wayne
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Thanks for the valuable suggestions from both of you.. I just want to know what is the impact if we upgrade VCSC, VCSE & TMS.... As both suggested for upgrading of TMS to 14.4... But we have some old Tandberg, Mondopads devices and other vendor video conferencing devices. After upgrading the VCSC and TMS 14.4 does TMS support above devices?
What about Cisco Jabber? Currently we are using Cisco Jabber video for Telepresence 4.5 version... As per VCSC document we can use the Cisco jabber but do we need to do any changes in TMS to use the same setup for Jabber users?

You'd have to look in the TMS 14.x release notes, as I know some support for devices were dropped.  TANDBERG devices should be fine, it's more the 3rd party devices that support is being removed within TMS.

When you say Jabber, I'm assuming you're speaking about Jabber Video for TelePresence.  Just "Jabber" is a CUCM instant message, video, phone client, where as "Jabber Video" is a VCS video only client.  To use Jabber Video with VCS X8,  you'll need to upgrade your TMS and install TMSPE as it's a replacement for TMS Agent Legacy, and the fact that TMS Agent Legacy is no longer supported in the recent versions of TMS 14 and VCS X8.  Because the removed support for TMS Agent Legacy, you'd want to take steps in making sure you migrate your provisioning data before you upgrade either TMS or VCS.

I'd recommend running the latest versions of TMS (14.4.1), TMSPE (1.2), VCS (X8.2) as Wayne has stated.

What I would do is:

  1. Migrate from TMS Agent Legacy to TMSPE 1.0, per the deployment guide (TMSPE 1.0 supports your current TMS and VCS versions).  This will get you setup to upgrade to the later versions of TMS and VCS that don't support the old provisioning method.
  2. Upgrade TMS, TMSPE, and VCS to latest releases, per there deployment guides.

Thanks for your response Patrick...

The latest TMS version is 14.4.1 (not TMS 14.2) as indicated by Patrick's post above.

A lot of the old devices still work with TMS, although support for ancient devices is slowly being removed with each new release.

As per the TMS Release Notes, from TMS 14.2:onwards, there is no longer support for the following 3rd party systems:

  • Sony PCS-Series
  • Polycom Viewstation (1st and 2nd gen)
  • Polycom iPower
  • Polycom ViaVideo
  • VTEL Galaxy
  • Aethra VegaStar
  • Rad ViaIP Gateway
  • Rad ECS GK
  • Vision Series

Further things you might want to consider:

  • For TMS 14.3 or later, there is no longer support for Windows 2003  you will need at least Windows 2008 server for TMS.
  • The old "Tandberg Scheduler" is no longer available from TMS 14.2 onwards - it's been replaced with the new (not so) "Smart Scheduler".

Wayne
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Wayne
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Whoops, totally my bad, good catch. That's what you get when you have multiple release notes open to look at info on when things changed. :)

I've updated my previous post to reflect the correct version number of TMS. 

Excellent response Wayne... This information is valuable for us... Before posting a question here I have gone through the TMS 14.x version release notes but before upgrading I want to check some expert’s comments and responses on up gradation of VCS & TMS.

Thanks again...

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