Finishing an upgrade project after being a while since doing one, I wanted to take the time to share the experience and how easy has Cisco made it into upgrading their software.

It may look a bit disorganized, but you will find few things that I used to refresh my memory on the process, but I found that it was a surprisingly less painful than before. Now, one thing I like to mention is the fact that this is still a Refresh Upgrade because of the change on the REHL version of CUCM, but the Refresh Upgrade COP is not needed, note that the previous version is 9.x.

I only used:
Keys.3.COP fileVMWare COP File

Then modified the .vmx file on VMWare and the settings on the VM

Initiated the Upgrade and everything worked as expected for more details keep reading, you will find the handy note I used to keep sanity in check.

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For the details on the process you can find the following links useful

Links to check:

Virtualization for Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM)

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Virtualization_for_Cisco_Unified_Communications_Manager_%28CUCM%29

Virtualization for Unified CM IM and Presence

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Virtualization_for_Unified_CM_IM_and_Presence

Virtualization for Cisco Unity Connection

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Virtualization_for_Cisco_Unity_Connection

Videos:

Special Thank you to Jaime Valencia AKA: JAVA in the Cisco support community.

Traditional way of upgrading CUCM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml_z4YUgsBw&feature=youtu.be

Prime Collaboration Deployment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd7dvvP103E&feature=youtu.be

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! UPGRADE PROCESS

Add Keys-3 COP file to IMP and CUCM

Add VM-Space Allocation COP file to IMP and CUCM

IMP and CUCM Modifying the VMX file:

SHUTDOWN the VMs

MODIFY to REHL LINUX 6 (64bit)

MODIFY Hard Drive to 110GB (If 2 Hard Drives, modify secondary one)

MODIFY MEMORY (Check Virtualization Links)

DOWNLOAD THE VMX FIle

OPEN in NOTEPAD++ (Prefer notepad++ or in my case TextWrangler for MAC)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Add the following command after [ethernet0.present = “TRUE”] or anywhere else in the .vmx file

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ethernet0.virtualDev = “vmxnet3”

SAVE FILES after the change

VERIFY where the VMs are located [STORAGE]

REMOVE VMs from inventory

RE-ADD the VMs to Inventory [Right Click VMX FILES and select ADD to INVENTORY]

VM ADAPTER should be VMXNET3

LOAD ISO from DATASTORE

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! utils system upgrade initiate

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Select Local CD/DVD

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Begin upgrade (Takes between 3 to 4 Hours)

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About the Author:

Andres Sarmiento, CCIE # 53520 (Collaboration)
With more than 13 years of experience, Andres is specialized in the Unified Communications and Collaboration technologies. Consulted for several companies in South Florida, also Financial Institutions on behalf of Cisco Systems. Andres has been involved in high-profile implementations including Cisco technologies; such as Data Center, UC & Collaboration, Contact Center Express, Routing & Switching, Security and Hosted IPT Service provider infrastructures.

You can follow Andres using Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook

March 16, 2016 at 2:17 am

This is prime upgrade correct? I shouldn’t have an issue upgrading my environment from 9.1.2 CUCM, CUC to 11.X? for Less than 200 per cluster (total of 4 servers). Just load the iso to tftp and wait 3-4 hours per node? Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

asarmiento85
March 17, 2016 at 12:03 am

That is right. However I would load the iso image to the datastore where the servers are located, and start the upgrade from local virtual dvd, that will save you tons of time.