Prologue: This post is intended as an informative prep document for those planning to upgrade Unity Connection (in an HA setup) from 9.1.2SU2 to 11.5.1SU2 using the OS platform upgrade and not PCD (because reasons…) – your upgrade mileage may vary and likely will. These are notes from my upgrade experience and while many of these steps are universal to the upgrade process, each upgrade is a unique snowflake. Do not use this post as a step by step How to Guide. You will be sorry, and I promise TAC won’t be impressed when you tell them that you followed a process from a blog, even one as awesome as mine.
So let’s get started on this upgrade for Unity Connection 9.1.2SU2 to 11.5.1SU2 – the best document to begin with is the Unity Connection upgrade guide found here. Your best bet is to read it through several times and to not be surprised when you can quote any particular paragraph and page number in your sleep.
Also, reviewing the release notes found here is a must.
Once you’ve read the docs and are starting to put together a plan, here’s some guidance on what that plan should entail:
Licensing. You will need some. Be sure to order your upgrade through PUT and be sure that your licensing server can handle the version of Unity Connection you are going to. You may need to upgrade your license server or add license definitions to your licensing server pull this off.
Installing a .cop file. Installing a .cop file for RSAv3 keys is listed in the upgrade guide. Digging deeper into this, if you are at version 9.1.2SU2 (AKA 9.1.2.12901-3), this build contains the same fix as the .cop file.
To quote the release notes for this .cop file:
If you are already running CUCM release 10.x or higher you already have this fix and do not need to install this Cisco Options Package (COP) file. If you are running an
Engineering Special (ES)or Service Update (SU)that already contains CSCua88701you do not need to install this COP file. CSCua88701 is included in: 8.5.1.17123-1 and higher, 8.6.2.24122-1 and higher, 9.1.2.11018-1 and higher.
I skipped the installation of this .cop file per this information and also receiving no errors for the .cop results of the “run cuc preupgrade test” output run before the upgrade. For more details, check out this document.
Confirm ESXi support. You will want to be sure the ESXi version your virtual machine is on is supported for the version of Unity you want to be on, and that information lives here.
Determine OVA changes. This step requires checking here and comparing these requirements to your current virtual machine.You will likely need to change your virtual machine vNIC to VMXNET 3 as VMXNET3 is required. You may need to engage a little VMware PowerCLI magic to pull this off.* Note, if you need more RAM or hard drive space, TAC says a rebuild of the server is required. I’ve heard rumors of engineers changing the memory but the official stance of support is not to touch that stuffs.
Determine your disaster rebuild strategy(s). I recommend downloading and installing COBRAS, getting it running, and exporting all your data from your voicemail servers. With this data, you can import into a fresh build if it comes to that. You should also be sure to have a good DRS backup, which when restored will have all your settings versus COBRAS which will require you to recreate some settings/features.
For me, the basic flow of the upgrade went something like:
Exported data using COBRAS
Confirmed available space on the common partition, need at least 25 GB – I did not have to change high and low water marks, refer to the guide if you need to.
Confirmed nightly backup
Verified voicemail ports registered pre-upgrade
Confirmed HA and replication status pre-upgrade
Ran “run cuc preupgrade test”
Chose not to use utils iothrottle disable command since 24/7 production environment – if I had used this command, after entering it, a reboot is required, re-enabling it post upgrade would also be another reboot
Installed upgrade to publisher, automatic switch version required
Waited for services to establish
Installed upgrade to subscriber, automatic switch version required
Waited for services to reestablish and replication to be good
Powered off pub, ran VMware PowerCLI commands to change vNIC
Powered on pub, waited for services to reestablish
Powered off sub, ran VMware PowerCLI commands to change vNIC
Power on sub, waited for services to reestablish
Confirmed replication and tested voicemail box, call handlers, and MWI functionality
Confirmed all voicemail ports registered to CUCM cluster
Checked RTMT tool for any system error messages
Tested call handlers; tested MWI and messaging waiting indicators
Emailed licensing@cisco.com with generated license request from license server, Active SWSS/UCSS contract number, and PUT order number. Requested only Unity licenses only be migrated.
While this upgrade completed successfully without any downtime, I did run into several issues whose resolutions aren’t exactly satisfying. If you’ve seen these or have insights into them, please leave a comment, I am sure I’m not the only one who has encountered these and would love to hear if others saw and dealt with them.
After the publisher rebooted when the install completed, the secondary’s web interface was a 404 and would not come back even after a reboot of the secondary. This forced the upgrade to be initiated via CLI for the secondary, but the issue went away in the new version.
Both servers after reboots established voicemail services (voicemail boxes available, call handlers working, etc…) in a matter of 10 – 15 minutes, but watching the RTMT tool, the CM platform services go into a CRITICAL DOWN state for about 30 mins, before eventually settling in an up state. Cisco Unified Serviceability was unreachable during this time, but voicemail services were working. No answer from TAC or forums as to anyone seeing this before and if this is going to cause long term issues.
A red DNS warning shows up in the OS administration and CLI for the servers even though DNS is working fine. Some forums suggest that I may have two entries in DNS forwarding, but that hasn’t panned out to be true. TAC suggests it’s a “cosmetic bug” and that since the functionality is clearly working, not to worry about it – yay?
Had to manually stop and restart replication after the power down/up for vNIC changes, hoping this was an after upgrade fluke, but time will tell.
*If you are looking for some VMware PowerCLI magic for those vNIC changes, I offer this – without support or guarantee, only that these commands did the trick for me.
PowerCLI C:\> Connect-VIServer [esxi IP address]
get-vm “servername”
get-vm “servername” | get-networkadapter
get-vm “servername” | get-networkadapter | set-networkadapter -type “vmxnet3”
Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Filter @{“Name” = “servername”} | %{$_.reload()}
Published 1/8/2018