Upgrading CUCM 8.5.1 to 8.6.2 questions

[NoelNesbitt]

Hi All

I have had a rootle on the forum & support pages and managed to answer some of my questions but if anyone can give me some advice on the following I would be most grateful. I am about to upgrade a CUCM from 8.5.1.13900-5 to 8.6.2.21900-5. And it is my first time doing it.

I have read as much as I can and prepped the CUCM as much as I am able to without anything going drastically wrong but before I commit I have some questions.

•a)      License File. If I am doing an upgrade do I need to re-install/install a new LIC file. According to the system there is a LIC file installed already for “INCREMENT SW_FEATURE cisco 8.0 permanent uncounted”. As we are already on 8.5 on the active partition I am assuming the upgrade will recognise the LIC file already in place and not require a new one – or is my assumption wrong?

•b)       If I do need a new LIC who can I email to get one re-issued? We are not changing the hardware at this time.

•c)       My inactive partion is currently 8.0. If I install 8.6 to this partition will it wipe out the lic file that way?

•d)      How can you tell wether the current software is RESTRICTED or UNRESTRICTED version?

•e)      COP File/Server restart. In the various documents regarding installing the file ciscocm.refresh_upgrade_v1.0.cop.sgn it recommeds restarting the CUCM. Is this a restart of the CallMgr “Service” – a soft restart type thing  or a full reboot of the physical hardware i.e. like a restart via the CLI screen.

Even if it is pointing me in the direction of a doc/web page I have not yet read your advice would be appreciated.

Kind regards

[Gajanan Pande]

Becky,

I can answer queries b,d & e.

B. licensing@cisco.com is the mailer to mail. You can alternatively approach Cisco TAC too.

D. Issue a CLI command " show version active ". If the current version is unrestricted, the output of the above command

would be something similar to as show below:

Active Master Version: 8.5.1.10000-26 Unrestricted

If the output does not include "unrestricted", then the we are using a restricted version which is the normal version.

E. It will be a server restart.

Hope it helps

GP.

Pls rate helpful posts !!

[NoelNesbitt]

Hi GP

Many thanks for the detailed reply.

I have run show version active and the line appears as :

Active Master Version : 8.5.1.13900-5 without the word UNRESTRICTED so I am going to assume I am running  a restricted version of software. (Which is good cos that is what I have downloaded in readiness).

I shall go and practise the server restart when it gets a bit quieter....

thank you for the quick response it is very much appreciated.

Kind regards,

Becky

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Becky,

For A & C ...in both cases your .lic files should be preserved so you should be good to go

Just in case you haven't seen this great info from Ryan;

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-16898

Cheers!

Rob

[NoelNesbitt]

HI Rob

Thank you for the confirmation about the LIC - I was fairly sure it would not wipe it out, but the one time I dont check is the one time I get caught out!

I did spot the post by Ryan and it did answer a few of the questions I had before I posted - just needed some clarity on things. (Like most things the terminology used to describe actions can be more confusing than the actions themselves.)

Have a great weekend

Kind regards,

Becky

[Robert Thomas]

You will be changing Linux version on this install. When you install the Refresh file, the appliance will perform a fresh install of Red Hat 5.X on the inactive partition, the server will go DOWN!! completely, reboot multiple times and will not be accesible during the refresh file install. The upgrade to 8.6 is the same as the other upgrades, no major differences here.

You should have a backup and the install media handy, in case for some reason the refresher were to fail, and you need the appliance to be restored. We have seen an increased number of issues for this upgrade in particular.

[NoelNesbitt]

Hi Robert,

apologies - I did not see your message until after we started the upgrade, but we seem to have had a succesful upgrade but experienced the following:

It took about 2.5 hours in total from the time we commited the upgrade to start until we could log back to the CLI & GUI.

when we could log back in (via Internet Explorer) we could not get the pages in OS Administration Show>Software and Settings>Version to load - but all other pages were fine via IE.  we did do a clear of Internet history, Cookies etc., and still it made no difference.

In the end we accessed CUCM via Firefox and was able to logon and switch versions succesfully.

Thank you all for your help and advice on the upgrade - will be more confident next time!

Kind regards,

Becky

[Marcin Nowacki]

Hi Robert,

There is an information that if you are upgrading on virtual server you should:

Change the Guest Operating System to Red-Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (32-bit). I'm little confused, should it be done before upgrade CUCM or after upgrade and switch version I suppose to power off server and than change this settings ?

Greetings

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi

It's not very clear but theoretically you would want to be have the RHEL5 setting at the time you start running RHEL5.

What I've done is to set a boot delay on the VM options of 15000ms, then you have time to 'catch' the server at the point it waits on the BIOS/Vmware splash screen after running switch-version... then turn it off, make the setting change, and then boot it again.

Also handy for inserting CDs etc as the VMs can often boot up before you get chance to remote mount an ISO.

Aaron

[Marcin Nowacki]

Thanks for info, I'll try it on the lab

[Ibrahim Shaik]

Hi,

Thanks all for your valuable inputs.

We are upgrading our CUCM cluster from 8.5.10000-26 to 8.6.2 version. I have gone through the posts completely and it is very helpful to understand the requirments.

Becky: Can you pl reply with following steps you taken while upgarding the cluster to 8.6.2 version and how much downtime is required before we start.

We have one publisher and two subcriber at location and what procedure to follow while upgradating.

And what about LIC files for upgradation to 8.6.2. it will be preseved or need to order new through UCSS.

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Shaik.