Can we restore a DRS Backup of CUCM 11.5 on a new CUCM 12.5.1?

[Meddane]

Can we restore a DRS Backup of CUCM 11.5 on a new CUCM 12.5.1 and vice versa from  CUCM 12.5.1 to CUCM 11.5 ?

[Ammar Saood]

@Roger Kallberg @Nithin Eluvathingal @Meddane 

Last week I did migration of 11.5 to 12.5SU5 using PCD 14. It worked flawlessly.

When I was writing the options, I was only providing basic elements. There are many deep down details such as PCD version, Field notices, Copfiles, NTP Stratum requirements, minimum ESXi VMware licenses & versions, creating bootable ISO, etc. which is too much to go into.

Your mileage may vary, but I personally never pick options that have Caveats such as Live vMotion while system is powered On or Offline VM migration because for UC apps, vDisk generally are around 160GBs and it takes approx 5 to 7 hours on normal network to transfer those files. I prefer PCD, DRS restore, fresh install with data export etc. and these days fresh installs take only about 2 hours on new hardware.

If you are on 11.5 please read this Fatal Bug CSCvq17528.

Field Notice: FN - 70379 - Unified Communications Collaboration Platform(s) - Reboot of Node Results in Fatal Error - Software Upgrade Recommended – Cisco

For smooth migration from 11.5, I used these COP files on each node.

ciscocm.enable-sha512sum-2021-signing-key-v1.0.cop.sgn

ciscocm.CSCvq17528_vmtools_initramfs_v1.3.cop.sgn

ciscocm.preUpgradeCheck-00028.cop.sha512

These cop files do not  require a restart.

[Roger Kallberg]

As you wrote mileage might vary. We often do vmotion of VMs between hosts in the same vcenter cluster and that typically works well and does not take more than 10-15 minutes maximum.

[Ammar Saood]

Just curious, when you do vMotion migrations, do you do it on shared storage or DAS or SAN ? 

Did you power Off VMs ? or was it hot migration between hosts?

What is your storage and Network setup between vCenter and Esxi hosts? 

Thanks,

[Roger Kallberg]

Its online vmotion. We use fibre channel SAN storage. The network is VMware distributed switch and the connection from the hosts goes via Nexus switches.

This is typically done during off peak hours.

[Nithin Eluvathingal]

Explaining complete upgrade/migrations process is beyond the scope of this community.

Upgrade and migrations guide has covered  detailed information how to upgrade and migrate.

Release note and read me notes are also important when upgrading/migrating.

when using PCD you have to refer the PCD admin  guides.

I have a an ongoing migration now at my Customer  site  using PCD from 10.5 to 12.5.
Last week I have migrated from 10.x to 12.5 on same hardware using PCD. Since I had enough resources available on my server I tried this option instead of going for an upgrade.

Read the guides and do some home work and you can plan the migrations by yourself.  

Another thing we all skipped to mention was the VMware compatibility. 

I recommend to involve a partner who is good voice to assist  you on upgrading.

[Meddane]

Thks