CME to CUCM-BE Migration

[reillyjj]

I started implementing CME systems a few years ago as we opened new branch offices. I now have implemented a CUCM-BE system at our headquarters. I was wondering if it is possible, and if so what the process is, to convert my CME users to CUCM-BE users and my CME systems to SRST gateways connected to my CUCM-BE system.

Thanks

[skilambi]

John

See here under Migrations

http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/partner/WWChannels/technology/ipc/downloads/ordering_guide_for_cisco_unified_comms_mgr_bus_edtn_prod_famly.pdf

Also one question I posed that no one has responded is CUE migrations. From all I have seen including PDI cases CUE cannot be moved to Unity/Uconn. However this OG gives you the impression it will be covered. For the phones it will port over and of course the gateway will be re purposed as SRST

Srini

[reillyjj]

Srini,

Thanks for the quick reply. I forgot to mention that I also have CUE on my CME systems. I wasn't able to access the link you posted. I am an end user, not a partner. I have been trying for months to get this information from my partner with no luck. I appreciate your help.

Regards,

John

[skilambi]

That's a shame, I work for a partner and this information is clearly documented in the OG. CCME phones licenses will convert to DLU at no charge. Work through licensing to show proof of ownership of CCME phone licenses and those will be moved to DLU. The router can be easily reconfigured to become SRST. The only thing is CUE licenses. There is no migration path to move CUE to Uconn/Unity. It has to be repurchased

https://communities.cisco.com/message/62525#62525

Srini

[reillyjj]

Srini,

Once again, thanks for the quick reply. I will go ahead and get started working through licensing. I appreciate your help.

Regards

[skilambi]

John

I had a talk with a Cisco SE. There is some confusion on this. Prior to UCL what I said above applies. However now with UCL the rules have changed. Here are the steps for CME to BE from the OG. So net effect you have to purchase this.

A customer that has 100 7940 phones on Unified CME today with voicemail for all the 100 users supported on the Cisco Unity Express solution can use
the following process to migrate to Unified CMBE 5000 solution.

1) Order MCS7828I5-K9-BE8E Qty 1 – This part number includes HW and base licenses required for Unfiied CMBE 5000 software.Order
UPG-BE5K-ENH qty 100 to migrate the 100 enhanced users
2) Order UPG-BE5K-VMBAS qty 100 to migrate the 100 VM users..
3) Select version, VERSION-8.X
4) Order mandatory UCSS for 100 users UCSS-BE-KENH-3-1 qty 100, UCSS-BE-KVM-3-1 qty 100
5) Send email to licensing@cisco.com to get voicemail and phone licenses generated for the 100 users

Thanks

Srini

[ccbrogdon]

I am going through this process and it has been a complete nightmare. In theory it sounds good but it is not easy at all.

First, when you e-mail licensing, they don't understand what you are asking for, I had one rep send me instructions on how to migrate from UCM 4.x version and another sent me a link to a data sheet on UCM 8.0.  They did not understand the migration was from a completely different system.

A big problem you will find is when they ask you what the Sales Order number is.  When I gave them the SO# the SKUs that are associated with that order are:

- UPG-CMBE-ENH (for me it was 100 users)  is not a licensable part number and they cannot generate a license from it.

- CUCM7-BE-USR  (for me it was qty 220)- they stated there was no PAK associated with the SKU so there's nothing they could do.

They then proceeded to ask to close the case. 

Long story short we had to open two cases and go through four people to get the DLUs. It took three days of e-mails and calls to get the DLUs. We were told at the time we couldn’t migrate v-mail so this doesn’t even include getting licensing for v-mail!

Also, please note that once you get a person from licensing who knows what you are talking about and is willing to issue a license, you will need to prove you are a CME customer. They requested I send the serial numbers (NOT the MAC addresses of the phone). There is no easy way to get this information.  I found a serial finder software program on CNET and had to get the customer collect the info. Also, make sure that you get the serial number info for the phones that aren't plugged in as well or they won't give DLUs for those phones.

Also, they will need the MAC address of the server you are installing it on, so you won't be able to do this process until you have the actual hardware server.

Now I'm trying to handle the second nightmare of getting the services portion for UCSS completed so they can get upgraded to 8.x. I am going to start a separate thread on that one...

Good luck because this process is NOT a smooth one at all.

[skilambi]

Charisse

Great post, good to see some real world feed back. Licensing in general has been a major issue. I have posted on other threads to clean up the VM section. It gives you the impression that CUE can be ported which has never been true. In fact this is not even clearly documented in the CME ordering guide. The entire licensing process needs an overhaul starting with a central licensing portal. Putting partners/customers through this process leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth

Srini

[davethehedgehog]

We're experiencing real pain on this licensing situation. I dont know who Cisco have subcontracted this to, but we've had nothing but constant struggle for the last 12 months with licenses not being issued, the wrong licenses being specced by the config tool misinformation and general misunderstanding by all.

To cap all this off, after 20 UCME deployments we need to start migrating some sites to an existing UCM 7.1 cluster. So we convert the CME licenses to DLU's right? A simple process I've done many many times in the past. Send the UCM cluster details, the original SO for the phones and the SN's of the phones.

The licensing person I was dealing with has just told me that this is now not allowed, and we needed to order some kind of upgrade? So yet again I have a week of pushing our CAM and calling licensing just to get what the customer is completely entitled to and bought into 3 years ago when we started these deployments. This migration is supposed to be happening this Wednesday. It took me a 3 days just to get some kind of response. How am I going to be able to credibly take the next step and convince this customer to go 3+3 on an 8.5 upgrade and UCSS now?

Come on Cisco, this is incredibly frustrating! I've got a customer here I'm having to constantly persuade not to go Lync at the recommendation of their MSFT team, and you're just making my job of selling your solutions even harder. To be honest after 6 years of fighting UCM licensing woes I think I'm finally about to give up and move onto a simpler solution.

[skilambi]

David

There is no question that licensing is a major source of concern and has gotten very convoluted. In the past you could convert CCME to CCM licensing since the price was the same. However now because UCL has a different price structure(since it includes the server component) compared to the CCME paper license, one needs to use 3x3

In fact what is frustating and something that should have been corrected a while back is the CCME ordering guide makes no mention of this but you go the BE ordering guide and you will see the right steps

http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/partner/WWChannels/technology/ipc/downloads/ordering_guide_for_cisco_unified_comms_mgr_bus_edtn_prod_famly.pdf

Section 2.8

Customers can leverage the upgrade part numbers (both ala carte upgrade
as well as the 3x3 upgrade promotion) to migrate phone, user. Software
licenses from Unified CME or CM environments. All migrations require the
purchase of the starter bundle since the media, MCS7828 hardware and base
licenses (24 voice mail ports for Unity Connection messaging component as
well as the base node license for Unified Communication Manager
component) are shipped with the starter bundle.
The starter bundle also includes the first 50 users. So if the customer has
more than 50 users in their current deployment, they need to purchase
additional upgrade users. The upgrade users do not ship with Voicemail and
Phone licenses and therefore would require global licensing operations team
to generate new or rehost licenses.
Please follow the process outline below to get the licenses generated for the
upgrade users.
Once the order is placed, send an email to licensing@cisco.com with the
sales order number of the upgrade order to get the appropriate number of
voicemail as well as phone licenses issued. Please see example below.
A customer that has 100 7940 phones on Unified CME today with voicemail
for all the 100 users supported on the Cisco Unity Express solution can use
the following process to migrate to Unified CMBE 5000 solution.
1) Order MCS7828I5-K9-BE8E Qty 1 – This part number includes HW
and base licenses required for Unfiied CMBE 5000 software.Order
UPG-BE5K-ENH qty 100 to migrate the 100 enhanced users
2) Order UPG-BE5K-VMBAS qty 100 ti migrate the 100 VM users..
3) Select version, VERSION-8.X
4) Order mandatory UCSS for 100 usersUCSS-BE-KENH-3-1 qty 100,
UCSS-BE-KVM-3-1 qty 100
5) Send email to licensing@cisco.com to get voicemail and phone
licenses generated for the 100 users.

Thanks

Srini

[davethehedgehog]

I understand the 3+3 offer, we've used it several times for other customers to upgrade them to 8.0. The issue here is that this is not a UCL customer and never has been. They have a 7.1.3 UCM with DLU's, and a 7.1 UCME with CME licensing. This customer doesnt have a UCL agreement and they dont intend to migrate to one yet. They bought the version 7.1 UCME's with the plan to migrate them, and then the 7.1.3 UCM over a year ago to enable this. There has been a plan to upgrade them using 3+3 to UCL once all remote sites have been migrated onto the 7.1.3 cluster.

The fact of the matter is that if we'd initiated this migration with the same versions only 6 months ago we wouldnt have this problem. The customer isnt ready to upgrade to 8.0 yet, they dont want to. The plan is and always has been to initiate the centralisation and then upgrade to UCL later using the 3+3 scheme.

To be honest, this customer (and its a large one with over 85 sites, we're only a quarter of the way through this deployment) will likely halt the UCM deployment on this and begin their Lync deployment. Once again, we as a partner have been fighting the Cisco corner now for over a year on this since they got Lync in (given to them free by Microsoft by the way as part of their licensing agreement), if we now retrospectively go back and tell this customer they are going to have to pay again to do what was always discussed as an already paid for migration path I can almost guarantee they will halt the deployment of Cisco in favour of Lync.

With a massive player like MSFT coming in agressively with a product like Lync, this isnt really the time to start messing customers about to force them down a licensing scheme they dont want.

[skilambi]

I saw that later that you mention 7.1.3, in that case you shouldn't be charged. The only logic they might have is since 7.1.5 is the shipping version, they have to adhere to that UCL scheme. Once again in situations like this, I would escalate with your local Cisco team and see if they can cover this through discounts

Srini

[davethehedgehog]

We are doing, and thanks for your help and understanding of my frustrations. I really hope that UCSS and UCL will make things simpler in the long run and this is just a brief hiccup whilst everyone gets used to new things.

[t.muhammad]

Hey Srini,

The 3&3 didn't include the CME in the earlier versions did it? Are you saying now it does? From the looks of the OG it does.

Doesn't mention CME here.

http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/sell/technology/ipc/3and3.html

I have to quote a CME upgrade to BE6K.

Thanks

T Muhammad

[skilambi]

Yes that's right you can use CME to move to CUCM using 3x3

https://communities.cisco.com/message/53602#53602

Srini