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Upgrading Cisco Call Manager 8.5 to 10.0.1

By David Alberico posted 10-31-2014 11:56

  
We just went through an update from Cisco Call-Manager (CUCM) 8.5 to 10.0.1. So wanted to post up some details and things to consider if you are moving this route.

1. Licensing

Before doing anything meet with your dealer and/or Cisco rep about licensing. Cisco no longer uses DLU's so migrating to the new model can get confusing. For us, we run a "hotel" style deployment where a user/device profile is separate from the device and with ext. mobility they can login to any device, 90% of our devices are 9971's. In the new model since these are video phones they use an "enhanced" license, and the user uses a basic license. We decided to go with CUWL pro licensing, so with that licensing in place the device and the user was using 2. This is still being worked out by cisco. I suggest meeting with your deal and/or cisco as I said earlier to make sure things fit. I would suggest the uplynx reporting tool.

http://www.uplinx.com/downloads.htm

This will give you a detailed license report. Also remember that FXS and analog ports do take a license.

2. Deployment

We have an Active/Active DataCenter pair where certain vlan's are stretched, others routed. We went from having a couple subscribers in the regional offices to just one subscriber in one datacenter and the publisher in the other, we have 635 users with 1135 devices, we put both on new C-210 M3 server, so plenty of call processing power. With 10.x we will use 2 SIP gateways and do away with the PRI's, and that will be active/active between 2 gateways in 2 datacenters.

2a. Deployment VMware/Server/ I/O

As you may know Call manager 10.x runs as a virtual machine. Cisco's requirements for Call manager are very strict on the type of server, especially processor, it is best to have a dealer or cisco SE look at the server you are going to use. Also it is very important to have a good understanding of the I/O on your SAN, the I/O requirements are more temperamental, so if you have a write lantecy spike > 24ms, then you can spike the call manager node processor or even crash the call manager node. We used Cisco b200 M2 blades for sometime but went with a rack mount C-210 server with 4x 500GB drives on a RAID 10, so far is has been flawless. If you are looking at a Cisco UC C-210 bundle then check the power supply, they only come with 1. I recommend 2 and it slides right in. I have had luck running a call manger node on Dell hardware but for support we decided to keep things like for like on cisco branding hardware.

3. Upgrading

even if you are thinking of changing your deployment, keep the publisher node the same, shut all of your subscribers so everything registers to the publisher. Run a DRS backup, clone your machine, upgrade it to 10, then run another DRS backup, even if it looks right, spin up a new instance of call manager and run a DRS restore, I feel this fresh install helped the deployment a lot, there are some RTMT alerts we now no longer get as a result, so I recommend this course as it has worked well, then from here deploy new subscribers based on your network, don't forget to change your resource groups so everything registers to the subsriber(s)

4. 10.0.1 vs 10.5

Our UC integrator that was helping us with caveats along the way had a difficult time on 10.5, I'm not sure why but 10.0.1 was in the line before going to 10.5. 10.5 is pretty new, so right now we are running 10.0.1 and it is very stable and so far very happy with the current deployment with PRI's. RTMT is right on as it wasn't in 8.5 and it is solid

5. CDR for billing

Don't forget your new subsribers need the CDR agent enabled. Also if you reset the publisher and it runs the CDR repository then you need to cycle servies, this was a new caveat in 10.0.1.

6. Device firmware

Check your device firmware compared to what comes on 10.x. I recommend a separate window to update devices compared to the upgrade

7. "Phone not registered"

We found that before the upgrade we had 850 phones registered to call manager, after we were down 5, but we had 40 or so that were stuck on not registering. It seems the trust between CUCM and the device was corrupt and the only way to fix was to reset the security settings on the phone, this is inevitable with the upgrade so plan accordingly. after the upgrade and the phone resets we have 967 phones registered. 

8. Included in CUWL pro

Expressway ( not VCS), is included as a $0 cost item, make sure it is on your order form for CUWL licensing, and the order needs to be done 2 times for a DR set. this is a virtual pair, you then get option keys to spin it up. If you are behind a firewall (which who isn't?) you will also need the advanced licensing key for static NAT, I'm attempting to do it as per the below document...

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-1/Cisco-Expressway-Basic-Configuration-Deployment-Guide-X8-1.pdf

More to come on expressway for VPNless Jabber

9. CWMS

Webex on prem is included, for us it replaces 2 other softwares. This comes with CUWL pro licensing.

10. Jabber / UC integration for Lync

 I have setup jabber 10.5 and UC integration for Lync, my hats off to cisco for integrating the benefits of jabber but keep IM and presence via Lync through your local desktop. With 10.x cisco unifies everything so your Audio and video endpoints run through call manager. So Jabber registers as a softphone, or it can be used for remote call control, make sure you setup up CUPS (comes with CUWL pro). This is both voice and video. So far testing has been positive.
 
11. Unity connection

Unity connection comes with the CUWL pro licensing. It works well, ties into jabber. I still feel exchange UM is better, so it you are using exchange UM then that is the better platform. Don't forgot to modify exchange UM for your new 10.0 deployment if you change it.

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