Webex Migration

[vhernanvi1]

Hi All,

This summer, we'll be transitioning from our on-premise Call Manager IP system to Webex calling. We'll be using the Cisco PSTN cloud service.

I was hoping you could provide me some suggestions, guidance, or advise to ensure a seamless migration.

All I want to do is plan ahead to minimize disruptions and avoid any unpleasant surprises.

Any input will be greatly appreciated.

[kctrey · Accepted solution]

There is a lot that goes into a migration, so this advice won't cover everything, but there are some basic things to keep in mind:

Whether you use the tools provided by Control Hub to migrate user data or just create everything in Control Hub by hand, do all of the Webex Calling provisioning work in advance. You can purchase some TNs that you can test with or just assign extensions and test with those. The Control Hub tools will allow you to take BAT exports from your UCM to load *some* of the data and can be very helpful. Having everything built, tested and working will same a lot of panic on the night of the migration.

Figure out your plan for migrating phones. You can pre-build the phones into Control Hub so that the licensing is there and even associate them to the right User/Workspace. When you are doing the migration, you can have the UCM push the MPP firmware to the phone and when it comes up on the new firmware, it will already have its provisioning.

As for PSTN, when you submit the port request in Control Hub, you will suggest the port date/time and you will get a firm commitment date (FOC date) back within a few days. As soon as the FOC date is received, the orders will be in an Inactive state in Control Hub, which means they can be assigned to Users/Workspaces. You can start assigning those so that, on the FOC date when the port takes effect, the calls will go to the right place.

Your partner can provide you additional guidance specific to your situation, but these are some general best practices.

[vhernanvi1]

I appreciate your help.

[John Steele]

Few quick things:

• it depends on your size and complexity for one thing.  If you are very large you could consider a third party tool to help, if not maybe use Upgrades and Migrations option in Webex Control with a CUCM tar file (import/export) from CUCM.  If you use the upgrade/migration option clean up your CUCM data the best you can as device pools are mapped to locations and user id's are mapped to email address.  If these are cleaned up it makes it so much easier.  You do not bring over speed dials or secondary lines with this but it's a quick way to move things.  There are few ways to migrate.
• Talk to your losing carrier to give them a heads up and do a test port of numbers to understand the process and see how long it might take.
• If you have any VIPs or power users make sure they see what the new solution will be doing before they migrate.  BLFs and monitoring and some other features are similar but don't work the same way; there also might be an easier way of doing it in Webex that they like better.
• Tell the users they won't get to bring their voicemails or greetings and they need to setup their own speedials again
• Configure Redsky/E911 BEFORE you deploy phones (if in US)
• Reach out to a Cisco partner for help
• Review past presentations from Cisco Live on migrating to Webex