[cisco-voip] How Many Docs Does it Take to Prep for an Upgrade?

[Lelio Fulgenzi]

I've never made a spreadsheet like yours, but I've done something similar. Typically with compatibility checking. You do have to visit a number of documents and/or links. It's quite frustrating to say the least. 

The process of upgrading is a difficult one to say the least, especially with things like you mention, where gotchas are hidden deep in documents that you may not read front to back. 

My biggest issue is when you skip versions, it's not really clear which documents to read with respect to changes. For example, when I upgraded from 7.1 to 9.1, I found myself printing (eeeek!) a number of documents which had duplicate information, but I wasn't sure on where to look. 

And then there's the issue that each application will have different rules, so CUCM might say only print the latest minor version notes, any SU or a/b/c release will have everything you need. Where Connection or Unity Express might do something different. 

It's not fun to say the least. 

But isn't Prime supposed to make it easy to upgrade now? 


--- 
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A. 
Senior Analyst, Network Infrastructure 
Computing and Communications Services (CCS) 
University of Guelph 

519‐824‐4120 Ext 56354 
lelio at uoguelph.ca 
www.uoguelph.ca/ccs 
Room 037, Animal Science and Nutrition Building 
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Anthony Holloway" <avholloway+cisco-voip at gmail.com> 
To: "Cisco VoIP Group" <cisco-voip at puck.nether.net> 
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2015 2:38:40 PM 
Subject: [cisco-voip] How Many Docs Does it Take to Prep for an Upgrade? 

Does anyone else do this? Gather all of the documentation ahead of time, because inevitably you're going to revisit a document more than once? There are a lot of documents to gather! Anything I could be doing better? Tips? Tricks? 

I create a spreadsheet of all of the pertinent documents I need to review or reference, like in this screenshot. There's over 90 documents in this list. Granted, I don't read them all front to back, but some I do, and for others I need to reference information within them nonetheless. You never know when you might find a small font hidden note in there. 

E.g., From the 8945 Release Notes 

"Release 9.4(2)SR1 can only be upgraded from 9.3(4) and later. Releases prior to 9.3(4) have to be upgraded to 9.3(4) first." 

Source: 8945 9.4(2)SR1 Release Notes 

I actually missed this one recently, and unlike 7900 series phones, they phone will just brick itself and never register. Causing you to walk to every phone and reset power to it, or walk the mac address tables of your layer 2 network and shut/no shut the ports. 



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