CUCM 12.5 to 15 Upgrade/Migration VMware

[mumbles202]

Currently I have a 2 node CUCM 12.5 cluster running on ESXi 6.5 that I'm looking to get to version 15.  Based on the v15 upgrade guide this is possible, but CUCM v15 isn't supported on ESXi 6.5, or at least not tested.  Is the best option to try to do a fresh install of v15 on a 8.0 ESXi cluster using the data-import utility?  Or would it be better to get ESXi to 6.7, then upgrade the cluster to 14, migrate to the 8.0 ESXi environment and then upgrade again to v15? 

Would these be the only supported ways to upgrade (other than PCD)?

[Vaijanath Sonvane]

Hi @mumbles202,

If your existing CUCM OVA meets the CUCM 15 requirements then the best approach is to first upgrade ESXi to version 7.0U3 or higher and then perform CUCM upgrade.  Both CUCM version 12.5(1) SU2+ and 15 are supported 7.0U3 or higher. Please see below URL for Supported Major/Minor VMware ESXi Versions. The mentioned versions are minimum supported Release of each:

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/uc_system/virtualization/virtualization-cisco-unified-communications-manager.html

[Nithin Eluvathingal]

For CUCM 15, the minimum supported releases are 7.0 U3 and 8.0 U1. Therefore, you must be on one of these versions when upgrading to version 15.

CUCM 12.5 does support 7.0 U3, so you can upgrade VMware and then upgrade the CUCM to 15.

My recommendation would be to migrate the CUCM to a new OVA of 15 using PCD, as this automates almost all the processes. However, if you choose the fresh install with data export option, you’ll need to manually export the data for all the nodes and iDuring the installation of each node, you’ll need to point to the SFTP were the data has been exported.