[cisco-voip] CallManager 5 license for VMWare

[Simon, Bill]

VMware has never been supported.  Cisco's now finally taking a stand and 
enforcing it, so it seems.  Frankly a 7835 is relatively cheap, and a 
very safe investment.  I don't see why someone running their own 
server-based phone system wouldn't have one on hand for the day that one 
of their CallManagers explodes and they need to replace the hardware in 
a hurry.  Those 24/7 hardware replacement contracts are great but 
they're not as fast as anyone would like.

Cisco has never been the "inexpensive" solution, so I always wonder why 
people try to cheap out on Cisco stuff.  But it's the "solid" solution, 
like IBM once was (still is?).  "No one ever got fired for buying 
IBM..." (20 years ago)


Jonathan Charles wrote:
> So, there it is. VMWare is supported by the application (you can 
> install, but cannot activate any services, so you can't do any training 
> on your own). And completely unsupported for testing purposes.
> 
> Here's the funny part.
> 
> I use VMWare to ensure that my backups work (I restore my backup twice a 
> month to a VMWare box running 4.1(3) to make sure the data migrated). 
> Since I can't do that with CallManager 5, and since I cannot install 
> CallManager 5 in my lab (we are not going to buy a dedicated 7835 just 
> for testing and training), I am forced to recommend to all of my 
> customers NOT to install CallManager 5 and to stick with 4.1 and 4.2.
> 
> I would strongly urge Cisco to remedy this situation and provide 
> partners with a two-node, ten-phone 30-day training license for VMWare.