Recommended order to shutdown CUCM, CUC, and CCX Clusters

[ITJamesP]

We are planning to update our ESXi that hosts are Voice VMs. Our goal is to gracefully shut down CUCM Publisher and Subscriber 1, CUC publisher, and CCX publisher in order to failover to the DR side so we can update ESXi server on premise. Once we update ESXi we would then power on the on-premises voice VMs and shutdown the Voice VMs on the DR side to update DR ESXi server. In what order should the CUCM, CUC, and CCX clusters be gracefully shutdown and powered back on?
Call Manager System version: 11.5.1.21900-40

CUCM: Publisher, Subscriber 1, Subscriber 2(Disaster Recovery node)
CUC:  Pub and a Sub(DR)
CCX : Pub and a Sub(DR)

[Roger Kallberg · Accepted solution]

It doesn’t really matter all that much what order you shut down servers. For starting them up I recommend that the publishers are started first.

[TechLvr]

I agree with Roger. It does not matter what order you shutdown the VMs in this case. 

One quick note I wanted to add is since you are running CUCM version 11.5, don't upgrade your ESXi beyond version 6.7.

Refer to the link below for a list of supported ESXi versions for CUCM 11.5
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/uc_system/virtualization/virtualization-cisco-unified-communications-manager.html 

[ITJamesP]

Thanks

[Nithin Eluvathingal]

There is no specific order. you can shutdown as you wish.

Regarding the vmware upgrades for UC

Supported Versions, Patches and Updates of VMware vSphere ESXi

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ESXi Major/Minor Versions, Maintenance Versions and Patches/Updates Cisco Collaboration apps will explicitly indicate which Major/Minor versions they support (e.g. ESXi 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, 5.5). There is no "or later" ... unlisted versions are not tested/supported. With a particular supported major/minor version (such as ESXi 5.1)... A Cisco Collaboration app will only specifiy a minimum maintenance release (e.g. 5.1 U1) if required by its guest OS or for hardware compatibility. A Cisco Collaboration app will only specify a MAXIMUM maintenance release if there are known incompatibilitites. To date this has never been the case, so if the hardware vendor supports it, it is allowed even if unlisted. Cisco recommendation is to use the latest Maintenance release supported by the hardware vendor. Cisco Collaboration apps do not prescribe or proscribe individual ESXi patches and updates. Cisco recommendation is to apply the latest patches and updates recommended by VMware and your hardware vendor. The following links can be used to determine if an individual Maintenance Release or patch "can" or "should" be deployed: VMware Compatibilty Guide (http://www.vmware.com/go/hcl)  for the the vSphere ESXi Major/Minor version supported by Cisco Collaboration. Server Vendor's hardware compatiblity information for the vSphere ESXi Major/Minor version required by Cisco Collaboration. E.g. for Cisco UCS, see the Server Compatiblity documents at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/products/ps10477/prod_technical_reference_list.html. Always verify with server vendor if a hardware-vendor-specific ESXi image is required. E.g. you want to upgrade from 5.0 to 5.0 U3. If the server is Cisco UCS, you may need to use a UCS-specific image for U3 on vmware.com. Always verify with server vendor that the update is compatible with server model's bios/firmware/driver state. E.g. 5.0 U3 on UCS C220 M3 SFF, check the UCS interop matrix to see if any updates required before U3 will work on that hardware. Before applying a VMware upgrade or update to a host, always verify compatibility with each Cisco Collaboration app (At a Glance table at http://www.cisco.com/go/virtualized-collaboration.)

2.12.0.0

[ITJamesP]

Thanks.

[ITJamesP]

Thank you all for the helpful feedback.