UCCX upgrade from 9.x to 10.x - vNIC settings change

[LibinBenedict]

We are planning to upgrade our UCCX server from 9.0(2)SU3 to 10.6(1)SU2. We have gone through the Cisco recommendation to change the vNIC settings from flexible to VMXNET3. Our current settings are Network adapter: flexible and MAC address: Automatic. The Cisco recommendation is at this link: Modifying vNIC Settings.

Here are my queries:

1. Will the MAC address get changed when we change the Network adapter from flexible to VMXNET3?

2. If yes, does it have any sort of impact in terms of License or network connectivity? As far as I know License MAC and the MAC address tied to the vNIC are different.

Kindly provide your valuable advise.

Regards,

Libin Benedict

[Deepak Rawat · Accepted solution]

1. Will the MAC address get changed when we change the Network adapter from flexible to VMXNET3?

Answer: The License MAC to which the UCCX licenses are tied to will not get changed because of this.

2. If yes, does it have any sort of impact in terms of License or network connectivity? As far as I know License MAC and the MAC address tied to the vNIC are different.

Answer: Your understanding is correct that License MAC and MAC address tied to the vNIC are two different things and there will not be any impact whatsoever in terms of licensing or network connectivity.

However, to be on the safer side you can still capture the current License MAC by running show status command from primary UCCX CLI before making this change and match the same after the change is done. For any unforeseen issue related to licensing if caused due to this (though it should not) then also don't worry as you will still get 30 days to get the licenses rehosted and system will keep working in the meantime

Regards

Deepak

[LibinBenedict]

Hi Deepak,

Thanks for your quick response as always. I am now clear about the license MAC part.

For question 1, I am looking at whether the vNIC adapter MAC address (automatic) will get changed when we move from flexible to VMXNET3 and will it have any impact.

Kindly advise.

Regards,

Libin Benedict

[Deepak Rawat]

If vNIC adapter is set to Automatic (dynamic) then the vNIC adpater MAC address will/should change. However, it will still not have any impact from a functionality point of view on UCCX. The relevance of vNIC becomes all the more important for few UC apps such as CM wherein the licensing is handled by PLM and requires the licenses to be rehosted if vNIC is set to automatic and hence MAC gets changed when the adapter type is set from flexible to VMXNET3

Regards

Deepak

[LibinBenedict]

Hi Deepak,

Thanks for your response.

Will the license MAC get changed for CUCM when we change the vNIC type?

For CUCM, after the upgrade to CUCM and License manager (we are upgrading from ELM to PLM), we need to generate a license request from PLM and share with Cisco, correct?

I hope we can just generate a license request from PLM and Cisco can rehost the licenses even if the MAC address (license MAC or vNIC MAC) gets changed after the adapter type change.

Regards,

Libin Benedict

[Deepak Rawat]

Libin, you are correct that Cisco Licensing Team will be able to provide the rehosted license file and you will get a 60 days to sort all this out so nothing to worry about.

Regards

Deepak

[LibinBenedict]

Hi Deepak,

Thank you. I will try and let you know the results.

Regards,

Libin Benedict

[LibinBenedict]

Hi Deepak,

We have successfully upgraded UCCX and updated the vNIC settings to VMXNET3 by editing the .vmx file. The MAC address did not change.

Thanks a lot for your advice.

Regards,

Libin Benedict

[Deepak Rawat]

Glad that the upgrade was successful Libin and thanks for updating the forum and marking the Correct Answer.

Regards

Deepak

[selvakumar475]

Hi, 

Our PUB UCCX 10.5 vNic is configured as Flexible.So can we remove the old vnic from Vmware hardware properities and add new vNic with type VMXNET3.Then assign same IP address ,gateway and DNS again in new vNIC through CLI.

Will it work?Any issue on this approach?

Our vmware team is suggesting this option,they not like to modify vmx file.