CUCM Migration from CUCM from MCS (7.1.2) to BE6K (11.x)

[znaqvi@intervision.com]

What is the migration strategy of CUCM from MCS (7.1.2) to BE6K (11.x)
   I'm looking for the steps at this point.
   e.g.

   1. Upgrade 7.1.2 to 7.1.5 in MCS
   2. take the backup of 7.1.5 in MCS

   3. Virtualize 7.1.5 into BE6K (I believe it is not supported by Cisco)
   4. Restore 7.1.5 into BE6K

   5. Upgrade to 11.5

Please let me know if anyone has done this and what would be the recommended path?

[Jaime Valencia]

The upgrade and migration guide for your target release contains the recommended upgrade path for several old CUCM releases, have you reviewed that documentation?

[znaqvi@intervision.com]

Below URL only talks about upgrading from version 7.1.3 only:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/upgrade/11_5_1/cucm_b_upgrade-guide-cucm-115/cucm_b_upgrade-guide-cucm-115_chapter_01100.html

[Jaime Valencia]

Correct, you would need to perform a minor upgrade to 7.1.3 or 7.1.5 in order to use PCD, which is the recommended way.

The procedure that you mentioned would be very similar to the Drive to 9 program, in which it was supported to install older releases on ESXi, then upgrade, then restore on a fresh install, however, right now that program does not exist any more as anything below 9.x is EOS/EOL, and there is no direct upgrade path for you to upgrade to 11.5 from 7.x