Virtualizing Cisco TMS appliance

[Daniel Isham]

We are going to virtualize the TMS appliance to a VM but had a few questions in regards to settings:

1. Are there any things I need to watch out for in regards to using the same IP address?

          We will be changing the name of TMS

2. Do I need to generate a new CSR for a certificate once I install TMS on the new VM?

          I assume yes

3. Should I stop replication on our VCS control and expressway in regards to TMS?

4. Any other TelePresence infrastructure changes I need to perform prior to migrating to the virtual server?

[Patrick Sparkman · Accepted solution]

1. Are there any things I need to watch out for in regards to using the same IP address? 
          We will be changing the name of TMS

Are you changing the FQDN of the TMS server, or do you mean the actual server name is changing?  As long as you don't change the IP/FQDN than you will be fine as far as added systems in TMS.  If you change the server name, you'll want to change it within TMS using TMS Tools.  See the most recent admin guide, as I can't remember the option name.

2. Do I need to generate a new CSR for a certificate once I install TMS on the new VM?
          I assume yes

We use a wildcard certificate, so we're able to upload the same certificate to all of our servers no matter what they are as long as they use our domain.  Depends on your configuration.  Unless I'm understanding this question wrong, I don't manage the certificates for our group, just know enough to get by.

3. Should I stop replication on our VCS control and expressway in regards to TMS?

Probably best.

4. Any other TelePresence infrastructure changes I need to perform prior to migrating to the virtual server?

We migrated our TMS from one VM to another, at the same time adding a second server for redundancy.  As long as you don't change either the IP or FQDN depending on how you have your systems point to TMS, you should be fine.

[Daniel Isham]

Right now the new server that we will install TMS to obviously has a different IP address and FQDN. I am wondering when I restore SQL database to the new server if issues will arrise since the IP and FQDN will be different?

When migrating, when did you shut down the old VM?

[Patrick Sparkman]

We shutdown our first TMS server during our migration after the SQL db was copied to a dedicated SQL server.

1. Shutdown TMS services (server #1)
2. Migrate SQL db
3. Install TMS (server #2) onto new server and point to the SQL db at it's new location.  If you're going to a higher version of TMS during this migration, it will prompt you to upgrade it of course.
4. Add server #1's IP to server #2

Step 4 is so you don't have to worry about the IP and FQDN your old TMS was using and those set on the added systems.  To the added systems, they won't know anything has changed, a TMS server is a TMS server to them.

There are a few discussions in the forums covering TMS migrations.  For instance here is a Cisco document from the forums, https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-26056, that also outlines the steps and things to do in more detail.  It's all basically the same overall process, it's really pretty straight forward actually.

[Martin Koch · Accepted solution]

some thoughts.

define "virtualize"

Do you plan to move the complete server incl. os over to a new host or do you plan to move over the data and do a fresh install?

I would not keep the old 2003 and go the fresh install route (new 2008r2 install).

You can follow this document:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-26056

You should also check about the licensing, the official Cisco comment is that you will need to

purchase a 80A (software based tms) license and transfer your 80B (appliance based) options to it.

There are some forum posts here about your topic, please use the search to find more!

Please remember to rate helpful responses and identify helpful or correct answers.

[Patrick Sparkman]

5+ Martin. Forgot about the serial number change as well as associated option keys when you virtualize the appliance. Additional things to take into consideration prior to a migration from appliance to VM.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Daniel Isham]

We plan to do the following:

Back up TMSPE

Remove appliance from domain

Shutdown appliance server

Power on virtual server

Assign same IP and hostname of old appliance to new one and add to domain

Install TMS on new server with MSSQL Express

Restore TMSPE backup database

Install TMSPE and choose pre-installed database

Looks like we need to order the license software kit for the "release key". Also have been told that I need to RMA the appliance just to be able to rehost the option keys

[Daniel Hoffman]

Where can I find the specs for the external SQL server that are specific to TMS (db disk and memory requirements)? I expect I'll need to follow MSFT sizing guidelines, but there will be dependencies on TMS requirements. Please forgive if this is a rookie question. Thanks!

[Patrick Sparkman]

You can find specifics regarding the TMS SQL db in the installation guide linked below on p6.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/telepresence/infrastructure/tms/install_guide/Cisco_TMS_install_guide_14-3.pdf