Upgrade from CCM 4.1.3 to CUCM 8 options.

[joveroc]

I'm looking at doing this upgrade in about a month and was wondering what my best option was.  Current setup:

CCM 4.1.3 in pub/sub on MCS 7835s

two 3745 h323 gateways

~500 devices

New hardware in test setup:

CUCM 8 on the IBM appliance 2gb ram in pub/sub

proper licensing and SKU for upgrades

Now I read that there is no direct upgrade from 4x to 8x you have to go to CUCM 6 or 7 first.  Is that an in place upgrade on the 7835 or a migration type upgrade to my spare appliance?

Is it possible to use BAT from 4.1.3 and export the phones and user data and import it into CUCM 8?  That seems like the cleanest/easiest solution if that is possible at all.  I know the databases are different but don't know if anyone has had any success modifying the data to work for an import into CUCM 8?  I would not be that difficult to replicate the dial plan and other data.

[Jeffrey Ness]

You can do the 7.1 migration to the new box (still running DMA on Windows which if you don't have DMA installed will require a reboot to install Informix) and then upgrade from 7.1 to 8.0 or 8.5 on the new hardware and switching versions.

From my migration from 4.2(3b) -> 7.1(5)SU3 -> 8.5(1)SU1 Cisco had recommended rebuilding (via using 2 screens one for the 4.x and one for the 8.5 system) and not migrating, but it wasn't feasible in my environment as there is way too much customization at the phone level. There is no good built in way to export 4.x data, but the SQL database is accessible so you would be able to pull the data out and manipulate it into the 8.x import format (or use BAT).

[joveroc]

Got further into this w/ TAC.  They gave me the path 4.1.3 > 7.1.5 > 8.5.1.  She explained that I need to get all of my servers up on 8.5.1 in a single cluster with the new hardware being additional subscribers, when the database copies make the new IBM appliances the new Pub/Sub and kill the old HP 7835 servers.

I am trying to save myself some time by upgrading the IBM appliances to 8.5.1 ahead of time and set them up as subscribers but it seems like I cannot get by without setting them up in their own cluster first.  Which means I will end up with two seperate 8.5.1 cluseters in the end.  Is this ideal?  Do you join the clusters at this point?  Or can you do a DRS backup on the upgraded 4.1.3 system once its on 8.5.1 and restore it to the IBM appliance.  I am confused on this part.

Maybe I can't save myself this time and have to do this install once the 4.1.3 migration is done and join it to that cluster.

[Jeffrey Ness]

You need to understand the "upgrade" from 4.x to higher versions is a reformat process as the OS changes from Windows to Linux. If you have new IBM servers you are building ahead of time using the DMA process and restoring the DMA onto the new hardware those servers will become you publisher and subscriber. Once you do your cutover to the new hardware if you want to reuse the old hardware as additional subscribers you can just load 8.5(1) on them and join them the upgraded cluster. Also of note, only the publisher needs to go through the step upgrade process if you have more than 1 new server you are moving to as the new subscriber server can be installed at 8.5 and joined to the migration subscriber.

[joveroc]

I understand that, isn't the DMA only used from 4.1.3 > 7.1.5?  At that point it is linux and wouldn't need the DMA anymore? 

I guess I should have stated that the path for my new hardware is 8.0.3 > 8.5.1 via upgrade dvd.  I don't have fresh installs of 7.1.5 to dump the DMA data from the old hardware to.

[Jeffrey Ness]

Correct, 7.1(5) is the last version supporting a DMA restore. You need to use PUT to order 7.1(5) media to be able to do the migration from 4.x. After that point the upgrades can be done as in place upgrades via 8.5(1) DVD and then install any subscribers and then install the SU.

If you aren't able to get 7.1(5) media you will need to rebuild it on 8.x as if it was an entire fresh system.

[joveroc]

Sounds like I won't be saving any time building these ahead of time.  I wonder why that was not suggested by TAC.  Is upgrading the 4.1.3 cluster all the way to 8.5.1 and then installing 8.0.3 > 8.5.1 to the cluster as subscribers viable?  She told me over the phone that I could change the publisher at that point.

[Jeffrey Ness]

I'm not sure I understand your question. If you are configuring a fresh CUCM instance at 8.0(3) and then upgrading it to 8.5(1) on new hardware I don't know why you wouldn't just build it on the latest version. If you are doing that then any old servers you want to reuse as subscribers can just be installed at the new final version after you have cutover the phones from the old publisher to the newly prepared one (its a separate cluster.) Typically you build the new hardware offline in a build network (or a VRF) as you would keep the publisher IP the same and just unplug the old 4.x one and plug in the new 8.x one and let the phones register with the new cluster (preparing identical phone loads versions on both clusters will minimize some of the upgrade time.)

HTH

[joveroc]

If I did it that way I do not know how to get the data off of the old cluster onto the new cluster.

[dakeller · Accepted solution]

Chris,

To recap your request, you want to upgrade from 4.1(3) to 8.5(1) and use new hardware for the 8.5(1) cluster and you would like to migrate the existing data. 

If you want to preserve the existing data from the 4.1(3) cluster, you must DMA export the data, build your cluster as a 7.1(5b) cluster, then upgrade to 8.5(1).  The sticky part of this is that your servers of choice must be supported for the 8.5(1) and the 7.1(5b) clusters.  As stated earlier, there is no way to DMA export and import from 4.x to 8.x.  Also, you cannot DRS backup and restore between versions. 

BAT is an alternative, but 4.x versions of BAT export are limited and you would lose a lot in the process (like dial plan, route patterns, xlates, services, etc). 

So what I would recommend is to DMA backup your 4.1(3) cluster.  On a lab network, build out your 7.1(5b) cluster in full using the DMA migration.  Upgrade the cluster to 8.1(5).  Verify that you licensing has been applied (SW Features, NODES and PHONES).  Upgrade your 4.1(3) cluster phone firmware versions to match the 8.5(1) (this can be done earlier if you wish).  Then decommission your 4.1(3) servers and bring up your 8.5(1) servers.  

As always, make sure you follow the upgrade instructions for the version you are installing.

Thanks,

Dan Keller

Technical Marketing Engineer, IPCBU

[joveroc]

This worked well.  The total upgrade ended up taking quite a while.  The DMA and migration to 7.5.1 was pretty much flawless.  7.5.1 > 8.5.1 however took a long time.  For those of you making the migration soon.  Just have patience.  I was staring at the CLI for about 3 hours at one point before it did anything.  Some issues I had:

Licensing - the DMA created license file from my 4.1 system did not work with my new hardware because the license was homed to my 4.1 hardware.  This put me in a license violation.  A quick call to Cisco and they re-issued the license to me after I provided the new MAC address.

User passwords & PINs - I don't remember seeing this in the help documents but you have to reissue blanket passwords and PINs for all users.

Call transfer/Call FWD - These functions were not working after the upgrade.  TAC informed me that CUCM is a little more restrictive with call search spaces.  It turned out that settings for call forward all on the lines were set to <none> which worked in 4.1 but not in 8.5.  This also broke some simple CTI route points I had setup to forward to voice mail.  The bulk admin update tool proved very useful here to update all of the lines with the correct CSS.

DHCP - I did not have very good luck using the CUCM DHCP options.  Ended up setting it up on a router and it worked. 

Call manager fallback - The install wizard and DMA did not configure any of the services on the subscriber for me.  Everything was deactivated so failover was not working.  I had to enable the CM Service on the subscriber for this to work (it works much faster than 4.1)

Good luck and thanks for the help Dan and Jeff.

[Sharif Alkatib]

Thanks for the heads-up Chris and thank you to Daniel on providing those steps. Going to try it tonight and will let you guys know how it goes.

-Sharif

[martindickinson]

Hello Chris,

When you upgraded to 7.1.5, was this built on a UC220 - VMware?

If not could you let me know which type of server you built it on. Many thanks.

Cheers.

[joveroc]

Hello Martin,

I had ordered the 7.1.5 media and created a 7.1.5 cluster on the IBM appliances, I did not use VMware.  I then used the DMA to restore the data from my 4.1.3 cluster onto the new 7.1.5 cluster then upgraded to 8.5.  Hope this answers your question.

[martindickinson]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for info. Do you have a document on how to add DMA to new server 7.1.5. (I have tried but it says SFTP has no valid file). Cheers in advance.