Upgrade & P2V from 8.5 to 9+ : Upgrade then P2V or vice versa?

[Brett Hanson]

Hi,

We're looking to upgrade our Unified Communications servers and applications (CUCM, CUC, UCCX) from version 8.x and then virtualise them on new VM environment.

Currently the CUCM & CUC reside on an MCS 7825i4 and UCCX on an MCS 7835I3.

All are running 8.0(2) - one of our customers is running 8.5 (we're also looking to do the same for them).

Question is - what are your opinions as to the best order to carry out the work?

Do you recommend to...

1. first upgrade from version 8.x to 9+ in place (on the existing hardware - which I've confirmed has the minimum requirements to run 9+) and then perform the P2V (Physical to Virtual) steps after the upgrade?
2. Or do you recommend carrying out the P2V first, followed by the upgrade from 8.x to 9+ on the new VM?

I was leaning towards option 1.

Has anyone done this and in what order did you do it? Any issues you encountered? Any advice you can offer to avoid those issues or speed up the process too would be great.

Also with respect to installing on one partition and then performing the "switch" - therefore allowing the roll back to 8.x if required - do you know if the same applies to the upgrade to 9+ - ? Or does 9+ handle things differently?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Brett

[barry · Accepted solution]

Hi Brett

The way I do these uppgrades which always seems to work for me.

• Install a virtual CUCM publisher at the exact same version as your current publisher with the same host name and IP address (but place it in an isolation network). Install any additional firmware, locales etc onto the new Pub.
  
• DRS backup of physical PUB and DRS restore onto the virtual one.
  
• After the restore, check the DB to ensure everything looks right.
  
• Upgrade the virtual Pub to your target version.
  
• After the upgrade, rehost / relicense the new server.
  
• Add / install any subscribers that you need.
  

Cutover then becomes simple:

1. Disconnect the physical pub / subs from the network.

2. Change the VMware virtual NICs to be in the production network

Rollback is the same in reverse.

I try not to change the physical Pub at all during upgrades as it makes cutover / rollback much simpler.

In terms of the other question on partitions, yes, the active / inactive stuff still applies, however an upgrade from 8.5 (or older) to 8.6 (or higher) is a "refresh" upgrade which takes MUCH longer - at least 2-3 hours per server. This is another reason why I build and upgrade everything under VMware when the new servers aren't in production. Also note that depending on your server hardware (particularly some MCS 7825 models), a RAID conversion from hardware based to software based is performed when you go to 8.6. This stops you being able to roll back without a complete reinstall.

HTH

Barry Hesk
Intrinsic Network Solutions

[Brett Hanson]

Another question if you have a moment Barry, with resepect to the point "After the restore, check the DB to ensure everything looks right." - how do you do that?

Are you simply talking about checking through the various menus and settings pages to make sure everything looks hunky dory?

Or is there some menu option somewhere that will perform a check?

Thanks in advance.