VM Redeployment Question

[Patrick Sparkman]

What would happen if for some reason a customer had to redeploy their virtual VCS or Conductor, will the serial number change and as a result affect any service contracts associated with that serial number?  Is there a process or any steps that one would take to assure a redeployment goes smoothly if one had to completly delete the VM and redeploy for some particular reason?

[Martin Koch · Accepted solution]

Check out:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2170388

Maybe Justin has some more input.

Besides that if you do not get a better answer here, check with your Cisco rep. or the Licensing team

and give us a feedback.

Let me quote the vm guide:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/telepresence/infrastructure/vcs/config_guide/Cisco_VCS_Virtual_Machine_Deployment_Guide_X7-2.pdf

 


After the VCS has been configured it is good practice to backup the VCS configuration using the VCS backup facility, and also to take a VM snapshot (see “Snapshot and restore using VM snapshot”). The snapshot is important, because it can be used to restore a VM should it become damaged – the snapshot will retain the existing license keys. If the VM is re-installed instead of being restored, new license keys would be required. 

 

Licensing 
VCS VMs require licensing in the same way that the appliance VCS units require licensing. 
A VM VCS will be deemed to be a different VCS if it is moved and gets a new serial number. The VM VCS is designed to allow different hardware platforms to be used to get VCS functionality, not to support copy to a new platform. 

[Justin Ferello]

Patrick,

From my testing I found no way to backup the VM-VCS from a full hardware failure.  For example, we only have one VMWare server.  If that VMWare server totally crashes then we are SOL.  Even if I have snapshots, VCS backups or even OVF files of the old VCS.  Kind of scares me personally.

Thanks,

Justin

[Patrick Sparkman]

That's what I was afraid of. Or network admins would prefer a VM deployment, but I'm hesitant on the idea for that you and Martin both confirmed my suspicions. That in fact it could potentially cost more money for additional licenses down the road to recover from a failure if it was severe enough. Or if someone decides to upgrade the VM host.

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[Patrick Sparkman]

Justin - On my last comment to your reply about upgrading a VM host. Would that break the licensing of a VM appliance, as it could be seen as changing hosts?

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[Justin Ferello]

Patrick,

What type of upgrade would you be performing, like a new version of VMWare or hardware change?  Neither should affect the S/N of the VCS.

Thanks,

Justin

[Patrick Sparkman]

It was just an open ended question, trying to think of scenarios that might affect the SN from changing.

Thanks