UC Applications Upgrade to 10.5

[Hasan Abdullah]

I am now designing an upgrade process. We want to upgrade several UC application:

1. CUCM
- 3 clusters (A,B,C), each cluster serving different office region.
A - 5 CUCM VM
B - 5 CUCM VM
C - 5 CUCM VM
- version 8.6.2

2. UNITY CONNECTION
A - 2 UN CXN VM
B - 2 UN CXN VN
C - 2 UN CXN VM
- version 8.6.2

3. PRESENCE
A - 1 CUP VM
- version 8.6.4

4. UCCX
A - 2 UCCX VM
B - 2 UCCX VM
C - 2 UCCX VM
- version 8.5.1

5. Server
4 x UCS-C210-M1 server
3 x UCS-C220-M3 server

6. gateway
Voice gateway and SRST router spread out on 170 branches. mainly 28xx and 29xx. minimum IOS is 15.1(4)

What is the best way to do upgrade? The best way that I can think of is to upgrade per zones (per cluster) by creating a new isolated cluster, then we switched over from the old to the new, detailed steps :

- IP Phone Firmware upgrade using local server for bigger office.
- DRS backup from the existing applications (8.5.x)
- Creating a new environment on the existing server, because of resource limitation (CPU, RAM, Hard drive), we can only do it 1 cluster at a time (If we can find new servers, then we will install it there)
- the new environment will have a same IP address as previous, but different VLAN so it won't be connected to other environment.
- Upload existing data from DRS
- upgrade to 10.5 (all applications)
- turn off the old applications
- switch the new applications VLAN to the same VLAN as existing, put it on the production network.
- restart the Phone on the branch (we will do it per branch area, 1 by 5 branch at a time, most of the branches have 10 phones except some of the bigger branch)

With this method, we can reduce the risk of failure on the production environment. Any feedback?

Thanks,

[Manish Gogna]

Hi Hasan,

If you are looking at creating  isolated clusters for each zone, then prime Collaboration deployment 10.5 will actually be a good option in this scenario. Please check the details here

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/pcdadmin/10_5_1/CUCM_BK_U35347D2_00_pcd-administration-guide-1051/CUCM_BK_U35347D2_00_ucmap-administration-guide-1051_chapter_010.html#CUCM_TP_M7AF10F2_00

Please note that Cisco Prime Collaboration Deployment is not compatible with all license types of VMware vSphere ESXi, as some of these licenses do not enable required VMware APIs.

The following are compatible with Cisco Prime Collaboration Deployment:

• Cisco UC Virtualization Foundation (appears as “Foundation Edition” in vSphere Client)
• VMware vSphere Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, or Enterprise Plus Edition
• Evaluation mode license

Upgrading phone firmware prior to the upgrade, opening a proactive case with licensing team , taking DRS backup prior to upgrade are a few other points that will save time and minimize any impact in case of upgrade related issues.

HTH

Manish

[Hasan Abdullah]

Hi Manish, 

Thanks for the time answering. I cannot use PCD since the server where we want to install the new upgraded applications is on our office. we cannot bring it to client's so the plan is to create the new environment in LAB. then when everything is ready, we will switchover on clien'ts server.

When I do switch over, existing server will have PUB(old), Sub1(old)m and Sub2(old). Plan :

- create new environment, configure, take DRS backup

- switch off the old cluster, then boot up the new one. 

- Switch off Pub(old), install 10.5 Pub(new), do DRS

- Switch off Sub1(old), all phones will swing to Sub2(old)

- Install 10.5 SUb1(new), syncing with PUB

- switch off Sub2(old), all phones will swing to Sub1(new)

- install 10.5 Sub2(new), syncing with PUB

Anything that I miss? Can it be done?

Thanks,

Hasan

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