Migration & Upgrade CUCM/CUC/UCCX

[Trujin]

Hi,

I need to migrate and upgrade CUCM/CUC/UCCX, it is my first migration and I am confused about what is the best way to do it.

host: UCS C220 M3S to UCS C240 M5SX

versions: 10.5 to 11.5

CUCM: upgrade and migrate with the PCD. I do not see any problems here.

CUC / UCCX: first problem, from what I have read you can not migrate with the PCD. I have thought about creating the virtual machine in the new host and install the same version that is in the old host (10.5), to make a backup with the DRS and do the restore in the new one to finally make the upgrade with the PCD but here the second problem is that I read that my hardware is not compatible with the old version (10.5) so can I do the migration and upgrade in an isolated environment to put it into production when finished?

[Jaime Valencia · Accepted solution]

For CUC you can use COBRAS, for the most part, running on unsupported HW or unsupported ESXi just for a while for the purposes of an upgrade or a migration is not really a problem, and you can go ahead with your plan of DRS.

[Trujin]

Thank you for the quick response.

The difference between using COBRAS or DRS depends only on what you want to export or is there something else?

[Jaime Valencia]

Correct, read the COBRAS help for a complete explanation of what is exported and what is NOT exported.

[TONY SMITH]

"the second problem is that I read that my hardware is not compatible with the old version (10.5)"
Can you clarify that? You're currently running virtualised so why would the new hardware be incompatible? If that is really the case then can you not upgrade on the old host then copy the VM to the new one? Personally I dislike COBRAS, there are some things it doesn't copy (like passwords if I remember rightly).

[Trujin]

I saw on this page: 

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/uc_system/virtualization/virtualization-cisco-unity-connection.html

see that for my new host says it is not compatible with older versions than 11.5

I think copying VMs is not supported by Cisco or you have to be careful with the ESXi versions between the old and new host and you have to change the MAC and I'm not sure if all of this is easy to do.

[TONY SMITH]

I see what you mean, although it does seem contrary to common sense.  On your new host is the processor compliant with either Specs Based "Full UC Performance" or "Restricted UC Performance"?    I would be interested in the reason behind the stated incompatibility.  

Copying VM files appears to be supported on a quick check, unless you've found some detail indicating it's not supported in your particular scenario.

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/uc_system/virtualization/virtualization-software-requirements.html#VMwareFeature_UC