Migrating from Local Gateway to Cloud or Cisco PSTN

[TONY SMITH]

Hi,

We very much at the pilot stage at the moment, using a local gateway and our on-premise CUCM to route certain DDIs to Webex. However we will be moving to some cloud PSTN connection at some stage, and want to make sure I understand the process before we build too much configuration and find we have to rip it all out and start again.

Is there any documentation covering migration from one type of provision to another?  As far as I can see we have the following limitations ..

(1) A location can only have one PSTN connection type, and this can't be selected in advance.  For example I can't say that it will have Cisco Calling if it's not in place right now.  

(2) A number is assigned to a location, and can't apparently be moved.

(3) I can't assign a Calling licence to a user without assigning a number

Any guidance on best practice would be appreciated.  Once we reach the stage of porting numbers we have to be confident it's going to work right away, so ideally we'd have Webex in service using the local gateway, but sitting ready for when the calls start to come in via the cloud.

Thanks,

[Vaijanath Sonvane]

I understand your pain. Some of the things in Webex Calling are not customizable and it is painful during migration. I had to delete entire configuration because I had configured PSTN numbers in Control Hub before starting porting process (this was stressful as I had cutover in two weeks). But this was case when I was using only Cisco Calling Plan.

Below are the limitations that I have found so far:

1. You won't be able to move Users from one location to another. You need to delete the users and re-create it.
2. Softkeys are hard coded and it is not possible to customize
3. It is not possible to reboot all phones at once. Phones can be rebooted one at a time.
4. For Auto Attendant greetings, the default timeout value 10 seconds and it is not customizable. After timeout, call re-routing option is not available. By default the call re-directs to operator extension. The workaround is to use one of the menu option with "Transfer to Operator" and choose the extension when you want to transfer the calls. 
5. Call Waiting supports up to 4 calls. It is not possible to customize this setting.

[TONY SMITH]

Thanks.  I've made a little progress, to be honest mostly by trial and error since many of the steps are simply not covered in any documentation that I've seen.  We started off with a test location for the local gateway integration with CUCM, and put some pilot users into that location. 

Change a user's location is painful, presumably Cisco do not realise that staff relocate.  The only way I found was to remove the user's Calling licence, which in turn un-assigns their number.  Then delete the number and add it back into the new location.  Then finally assign  the licence and add the number.

If you enable the licence and assign only an extension, not a real number, you can't make that change.  The licence can't be removed until the user has a real number assigned.

Your comment about changing the PSTN type for a location is concerning, the migration document absolutely relies on being able to do so, page 58

"At date of the cut over PSTN access for all locations in Webex Calling needs to be set to the Cloud Connected PSTN provider and inbound and outbound connectivity should be verified."

Life would be so much easier if a location can have more than one PSTN type so the new Cloud or Cisco calling could be enabled in parallel with the existing gateway, like you would do for a number port within CUCM.

[Vaijanath Sonvane]

Hi @TONY SMITH,

Thank you for posting these great questions and let me see if I can help you to answer your questions:

Is there any documentation covering migration from one type of provision to another?
Below document is specifically written for migration from CUCM to Webex Calling. This will be helpful to you to understand the migration process:
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/solutions/PA/mcp/DEPLOYMENT_CALLING_Unified_CM_to_Webex_Calling.pdf 

1. A location can only have one PSTN connection type, and this can't be selected in advance. For example I can't say that it will have Cisco Calling if it's not in place right now.
- Yes, Location has only one PSTN connection type at a time. You can change PSTN connection type from Local GW to Cloud PSTN or vice versa.  Please note (this is based on my experience), when I selected Cisco Calling Plan and tried to change the connection type to another, I did not get the option to change connection type. I had to delete the location, this means deleting all the configuration associated with this location (which is so painful), and recreate it with correct connection type. This is only happening when I select Cisco Calling Plan and trying to change to something else later. Maybe opening a case with Cisco might help but I haven't tried. Test your scenarios before you make further progress on your pilot.

2. A number is assigned to a location, and can't apparently be moved.
- If you are using Premise PSTN (Local GW), then you can delete numbers at any time and assign it to any other location. But if you are using Cisco Calling Plan and you want to move numbers from one location to another then you need to open case with Cisco by sending email to pstn-support@cisco.com or from portal at:

https://ibpm.cisco.com/webex/hub/login/app/web-ex-calling-ops/nf7M-ppYsfj5orr2Qj7LJQsBbpZaInTR*/!STANDARD 
For CCCP, I haven't experienced it.

3. I can't assign a Calling license to a user without assigning a number
- Yes, it is not possible to assign Calling license without assigning a number. In this case, you don't need to assign 10-digit telephone number. You can assign extension and it will work.