[cisco-voip] Upgrade Methods

Eric Butcher Eric.Butcher at cdw.com
Fri Mar 2 21:34:22 EST 2012


The one piece of advice I can give you that applies in all cases is to be mindful of your phone firmware.  When upgrading, or in events where you have to roll back, its nice if you already have the new version's default firmware loads installed on your old cluster, or you hard code the firmware (even if temporarily) running on your old cluster into the device firmware load so that it doesn't upgrade phones after CUCM version upgrades.

By the look of your cluster, you probably have thousands of phones, the need for incredibly high uptime, or both.  I find it is best to worry about firmware upgrades one device pool at a time either before the upgrade, or after the upgrade.  Upgrading the CUCM version and then testing is troublesome enough without that :)



Eric Butcher

Cisco Unified Communications Engineer
CDW Professional Services

11711 N Meridian, Ste 225

Carmel, IN  46032
( 317.569.4282 – Single Number Reach
* eric.butcher at cdw.com<mailto:eric.butcher at cdw.com>

http://www.cdw.com/



From: Frank Arrasmith <frank.arrasmith at gmail.com<mailto:frank.arrasmith at gmail.com>>
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2012 16:22:22 -0800
To: cisco-voip <cisco-voip at puck.nether.net<mailto:cisco-voip at puck.nether.net>>
Subject: [cisco-voip] Upgrade Methods

Hey all,
  I have a quick question about best practices/tips during system upgrade, particularly on the Linux appliance models.  My previous experience with upgrades has been primarily in a  lab, which have always gone fine, However, in my new enterprise, we have an 8 server cluster(pub,5 subs, 2 tftp)  running 7.1.5, with critical uptime requirements.  Other than recommended procedures from the Cisco Upgrade guides, what other practices or additional procedures do you employ to ensure a smooth upgrade, and/or to speed the process along?

1. Do you upgrade all in one shot, long maintenance window?  Install, Reboot , Test?
2. Do you do spread out the install over a few days?  Install over a few maintenance windows utilizing inactive partitions, then schedule restart and testing for another maintenance window?  how long of a time period is it acceptable to spread out?
3. Other then basic call testing, and ensuring that appropriate services are started/running( we distribute service between the subs), what other checks do you include?


Thanks in advance.

Frank Arrasmith



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