Virtualize then upgrade BE5k

[jgolden]

We purchased our system, and it has been rarely upgraded.  I am taking ownership of this system and attempting to get us up and stable.  The hardware is failing on the physical servers and I want to move it to our robust virtual infrastructure.

I have been all over the Cisco site, and read there a couple hundred pages so far, but can't seem to piece together the right information to do this properly.  What I think I have down so far as a process:

1. Need to virtualize our BE5k server.  What I am not sure about is does this mean I now need a Call Manager, Unity and Presence server? Should I virtualize the Publisher or should I create a subscriber first, and then make it the publisher node and then dump the physical hardware.  I have tried creating a new subscriber vm for several days now to no avail, and I am stuck there.

2. Upgrade the virtualized servers to the latest version I am allowed as it is not under support any more.  It appears that our license allows us to upgrade to 9.1 since we own BE5K.   I found documentation for this and don't really need direction here.

Any help, even pointing to proper documentation would be a great help!

[Jaime Valencia · Accepted solution]

1 Not possible, the 5K is NOT meant to be virtualized, it can ONLY run on MCS 7816/7828

Now you're talking about a PUB and SUB, which is also impossible if this is really a 5K, as that was a one box solution with no PUB and SUB.

The only options we support on virtualization, are 6K and 7K.

I suggest you try to find out what you really have, as the options, will vary greatly depending on that answer.

[jgolden]

Thanks Jaime,

I was told by a Cisco Vendor that it could be done.  I thought he might be wrong, because I was following all the instructions I could find and it would not work!

Although not the answer I would like, at least I know at this point and I can focus my efforts on fixing the hardware issue to make it stable for now.

[Jaime Valencia]

I'm afraid he got you wrong info, the only way to get out of a 5K, into any other platform, is via BAT. We recommend you upgrade to (at least) 8.0(2a) which was the first release to be supported on virtualization, right now, ideally, you should go to 8.6(2) or 9.1(2), install the same version over ESXi, and then it'd be just a matter of doing the BAT export on MCS, and import on UCS. You can certainly BAT export from your version, but the amount of data you can export is probably going to be less than what you'd get in more recent releases, and you'd also need to manually format the files so they're compliant with the format required for whatever your target version is.

[jgolden]

Thanks Jaime again!

I am a little confused though.  We do have 8.6(2) installed on our server.  Does that change anything?  Are you saying that we can virtualize if we have that version of call manager?

We purchased BE5K, and upgraded it.  My understanding is that BE5K is a package deal with CallManager and Unity on one server, and we have presence on another.  It appears we can upgrade Call manager, etc.. all the way up to 9.1, but some of that is not supported on the hardware that was sold to us.  The documentation states that I can get a license that would allow me to virtualize the Unity part, but the Call Manager would still get installed on the hardware.

Let me know I don't seem to be grasping something.

Also if you have any links on troubleshooting and fixing the hardware raid issues that would be awesome.

Thanks again!

[Jaime Valencia]

Correct, 5K is a one box solution with CUCM and CUC running on the same box, and sharing many things.

Your CUCM version can be virtualized, but I'm talking about the CUCM version, the 5K offering as I explained, cannot. Co-res means a whole different thing when talking VMWare.

You would need to install a standalone CUCM install on ESXi, and use BAT to migrate the info, there's no other way to get the data of a 5K into a standalone CUCM.

For CUC, you can use COBRAS.

But on a 6K, 7K, or an other virtualization model, every app has to be on their own dedicated virtual machine.

[jgolden]

Just to clarify.  When we refer to BE5K which is what we bought.  Are we referring to certain versions of CUCM, CUC on the physical hardware?

I thought we are still running BE5k, even though we updated to version 8.6.2 of CUCM.

So to create the standalone CUCM I would use any IP,  settings etc... because it will all be overwritten with exporting and importing the settings using BAT?

Last question, that would move CUCM, but I would still need to setup a new Unity server as well correct?

Thanks for all your answers, you have been very helpful!

[Jaime Valencia]

Yes, 5K is an MCS 7816/7828 which has CUCM/CUC in the same server, no matter the version, that's irrelevant.

I suggest you take a look at BAT Export/import to see exactly what BAT will use from your config.

Yes, you need a brand new install of CUC, as I already mentioned, you can use COBRAS to move the info.