[cisco-voip] Migrate Unity Connection 8.5 Cluster to VMware-then upgrade to 9.1

[Ted Nugent]

Here we go...
This is what the support forum post was eluding to
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/9x/upgrade/guide/9xcucrugx/9xcucrug040.html#wp1052015

and I think this answers my question about adding the sub... nuke it and
readd to the cluster before you rebuild

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/9x/upgrade/guide/9xcucrugx/9xcucrug040.html#wp1087854



On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 6:13 PM, Matthew Ballard <mballard at otis.edu> wrote:

>  AFAIK physical MAC is still used in all scenarios when deploying on
> physical (vs virtual) hardware, certainly in the 8.x train (and I believe
> the 9.x train, although things change when you move to ELM which I can't
> speak to).
>
>
>
> I'm thinking the scenario you read about would be:
>
> 1.       DRS backup publisher.
>
> 2.       Take down publisher and configure network to not allow devices
> to talk to publisher (there may be a time after taking down the publisher
> and bringing up the new one that devices may try to communicate with the
> new one causing problems).
>
> 3.       Install/bring up new publisher on virtual.
>
> 4.       Restore publish.
>
> 5.       Link new publisher with existing subscriber and allow them to
> sync (which is probably where the reference you found previously comes into
> play).
>
> 6.       Remove prior traffic restrictions and make sure things are
> working on the new publisher.
>
> 7.       Repeat process with subscriber (I can't speak as to whether DRS
> would be required or note for the subscriber).
>
>
>
> Hope that helps/makes sense.
>
>
>
> Note I not speaking from experience with this type of situation, but what
> I believe to be a situation that should work/makes sense based on your
> comments.
>
>
>
> I get the issues with hardware, I ended up doing the shadow environment I
> described due to a lack of hardware, but fortunately since I run the
> network here, I didn't need approval to do what I did. J
>
>
>
> Matthew Ballard
>
> Network Manager
>
> Otis College of Art and Design
>
> mballard at otis.edu
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* rotimm at gmail.com [mailto:rotimm at gmail.com] *On Behalf Of *Ted
> Nugent
> *Sent:* Monday, February 24, 2014 3:03 PM
> *To:* Matthew Ballard
> *Cc:* Cisco VoIPoE List
> *Subject:* Re: [cisco-voip] Migrate Unity Connection 8.5 Cluster to
> VMware-then upgrade to 9.1
>
>
>
> Thanks for the feedback Matt
>
> I haven't upgraded anything newer than 8.5 that was on MCS so I was under
> the impression that the licensing MAC was used exclusively on 8.5+ as
> opposed to the MCS MAC, if that assumption is inaccurate, so be it, we will
> just need to rehost, not the end of the world.
>
>
>
> Regarding the loss of messages, this was something that I was concerned
> about however I thought I had read a post on the support forums (trying to
> find it now) where messages from the "subscriber" would be copied to the
> publisher after rebuilding the publisher server from DRS? This is actually
> less of a concern than loosing AAs and Call Tree functionality for the
> duration of the migration but it's definitely a concern.
>
>
>
> I understand that building a test bed is the ideal way of handling this
> but unfortunately finding the hardware to handle this has been a challenge
> and building a shadow network on the customer VM environment has not been
> blessed as of yet.
>
>
>
> Thanks again for your feedback.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 5:50 PM, Matthew Ballard <mballard at otis.edu>
> wrote:
>
> I can't speak to the subscriber part of the restore itself, but had a
> couple comments on this:
>
> 1.       The license MAC will absolutely change.  On physical boxes the
> license MAC is the MAC address of the NIC, on VMware, it is based on a
> bunch of settings, and so you will need to rehost the license.
>
> 2.       Your process will likely create a data problem, as the DRS
> backup will only be accurate as of when you took the backup.  Since you are
> intending system uptime between taking down the publisher and bring the new
> one online, any messages/other changes between when you take it down and
> bring the new one up will be lost.  This is much more of a problem for
> Unity Connection than it is for UCM, as for UCM you mostly need an admin
> freeze on any changes (plus a couple things like mobility), but any data
> lost is minimal and easily fixed.
> For Unity Connection, you will just lose any messages left or greetings
> changed between backup and restore.
>
>
>
> The official way to do what you want with minimal downtime would be to
> build in a separate dev environment with the same IP/other structure, so
> that you can build the new 8.5 VM Servers, and then do a backup and restore
> (bringing down the existing system immediately after the backup with a
> downtime window scheduled).
>
>
>
> I ended up doing a partial method, where I used to firewall to simulate
> the same environment (providing the minimal services needed through a
> double NAT), so that the new servers saw just what they needed from the
> production environment, without conflicting.
>
>
>
> Matthew Ballard
>
> Network Manager
>
> Otis College of Art and Design
>
> mballard at otis.edu
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* cisco-voip [mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net] *On Behalf
> Of *Ted Nugent
> *Sent:* Monday, February 24, 2014 2:34 PM
> *To:* Cisco VoIPoE List
> *Subject:* [cisco-voip] Migrate Unity Connection 8.5 Cluster to
> VMware-then upgrade to 9.1
>
>
>
> I'd like to run this by some of you that might have gone through this
> before or have investigated it.
>
> I'm upgrading a Unity Connection 8.5 cluster (currently on MCS) to 9.1
> on  VMware without a loss of service.
>
> Here's the plan
>
> Take a DRS backup of the system
>
> reorder CUCM RLs so calls hit the subscriber node first (if needed)
>
> take down the publisher node
>
> rebuild the publisher node on VMware using the Cisco OVA
>
> Install the publisher with the same settings (hopefully this won't alter
> the License MAC so we won't need to rehost?)
>
> DRS restore the Publisher only
>
> Take down the Sub
>
> rebuild the Sub node on VMware using the Cisco OVA
>
> Install the Sub with the same settings, joining it to the cluster
>
>
>
> Question: (Assuming we don't need to rehost the licenses etc) is it
> necessary to restore the subscriber from DRS at that point? or will
> replication take over (only self signed certs in use)
>
>
>
> The remaining steps seem fairly straight forward upgrading from 8.5 to 9.1
>
>
>
> screen shots of licensing pages to send to Licensing for 9.x license etc
> for ELM rehost.
>
>
>
> Thoughts? Anything I'm missing, anything way to make it easier?
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions
>
> Ted
>
>
>
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