VCS Control integration with VCS ExpressWay

[Andrea Morici]

Hi All,

I'd to submit the following question to your great experience and knowledge:

we're going to integrate a VCS Control with X7.1 OS on board with a VCS EpressWay with X7.0.1instead.

Is this going to work or will we need anyway to have matching OS/FW versions ?

If the latter, is it possible to downgrade VCS-C OS without the need to have a maintenance/support contract ?

Thanks,

Andrea

[Alok Jaiswal · Accepted solution]

Hi Andrea,

In my view it should work. Only thing you need to take care bugs which might be fixed in x7.1 version.

If you want to downgrade the software of VCS-C to x7.0.1 you will be able to do that since the release key would be same for version of x7 software.

in my view it would be better if you upgrade the Os version on vcs-expressway to x7.1 as the release key would be same and you just need to download the software from cisco site and upgrade the unit.

Thanks

Alok

[Tomonori Taniguchi]

NO, you may deploy VCS Control and VCS Expressway with different software version although we recommend for X7.1 release.

Please note that you need to run same software version if VCS will be clustering.

[Tomonori Taniguchi · Accepted solution]

I mean “Yes”, you may deploy VCS Control and VCS Expressway with different software version although we recommend for X7.1 release.

Please note that you need to run same software version if VCS will be clustering.

[Tomonori Taniguchi]

Regarding to release key, release key will require software upgrade and downgrade between major releases.

Major release is first number after X software version. (i.e X6, X7).

X7.0, X7.0.1, X7.1 use same release key for upgrade/downgrade.

[Andrea Morici]

Thanks guys, you provided some really useful info ;-) !

Appreciated your help !

Take care :-)

Cheers,

Andrea

[Tomonori Taniguchi · Accepted solution]

No problem Andrea.

Since this is good question, let me summarize and also expand a bit more to clarify.

- VCS-C and VCS-E may configure traversal link while VCSs run with different software version

  (i.e. VCS-C run with X7.0.1 and VCS-E run with X7.1)

- VCS-C1 and VCS-C2 (VCS-E as well) may configure neighbor link while VCSs run with different software version

  (i.e. VCS-C1 run with X7.0.1 and VCS-C2 run with X7.1)

- VCS can upgrade/downgrade using same release key within same major software version

  (i.e X7.0, X7.0.1, X7.1)

- VCS require release key for upgrade/downgrade software between major software version

  (i.e X7 <-> X6, X7 <-> X5).

- All VCS must run same software version to clustering (also all feature option keys must match up on all VCSs under cluster configuration excluding non-traversal, traversal, turn license key, if VCSs are running X7.0 or newer version)

- All VCS must run same software version to clustering (also all feature option keys and call license keys must match up on all VCSs under cluster configuration, if VCSs are running X6 or older version)

[Andrea Morici]

Thanks again Tom ! ... I'll make sure to keep this info handy for future reference ;-)

Cheers,

Andrea