Required VM count for software redundancy will fit on three blade servers per site. CUCM Real Time Monitoring - Trace Collection, Alerts, System Overview. For simplicity, this example will use a pair of Intel Xeon 4114 CPUs (10C/2.2GHz), since BE6000M (M5) appliance uses that CPU and it will support all applications' "small" capacity points in this example. Remember each HyperFlex cluster node runs an HXDP Controller VM. Not supported. Slower CPUs maybe possible, but will only have caveated support. Support for adding virtual hardware resources (similar to moving from a less powerful server to a more powerful server, such as MCS 7825 -> MCS 7845) depends on which resource, and which UC product: Adding vCPU is supported for all apps except Unity Connection, but requires VM to be shutdown first. Always verify with server vendor that the update is compatible with server model's bios/firmware/driver state. a. Right-click the virtual machine that you are upgrading, and choose VM > Edit Settings > CD/DVD drive. via Distributed Resource Scheduler [DRS]), a few applications have caveated support (see here for details); otherwise it is not supported. See also VMware Data Recovery and Copy Virtual Machine. See Cisco network and datacenter Preferred Architectures for best practices on network element selection and configuration. Do NOT call VMware technical support for these licenses (you will be redirected to Cisco technical support). Go back to: Virtualization for Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), VM Configuration Requirements As well as rack mounting / cable management hardware. Required usable space is 664GB. E.g. VMware vCenter Converter All apps and ESXi will boot from this volume. VMware Data Recovery NOTE: support varies by app and version. This setting usually needs to be disabled on an ESXi host running Collaboration app VMs (either new install of ESXi 4.1+, or upgrade from ESXi 4.0 to 4.1+ followed by upgrading VMwareTools in app VMs to 4.1+). Not supported. Cisco Collaboration apps only require vmv4 functionality, so a newer vmv is usually transparent. Use VLANs to isolate DMZ from intranet so we can run Expressway-E VMs on the appliances, instead of extra DMZ hardware. (Usually, the VMware Tools tar file is called linux.iso). See vMotion for what is supported. Assume Xeon 6132 which will support required applications' "medium" capacity point and VM configurations. If the UC app is listed as "Supported with Caveats", then support is as described below: For UC apps, an easier suggested alternative is to just perform manual VM shutdown and migration to the new SAN. VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) For cache, system and boot disks, any option is usually fine. Choose Device Type as Client Device. Not supported. vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) This feature automates patching and updating of VMware vSphere hosts and Guest OS. Single cluster for each application (UCM, CUC, IMP, CER, Expressway). VMware Boot from SAN Symptom: In the document Upgrade and Migration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager and the IM and Presence Service, Release 12.5(1) under the section of Virtual Machine Configuration, in Table 5.Virtual Machine Requirements, Item "VM configuration virtual hardware specifications" you can find the following statement: "Any changes to a VM must align with the OVA configuration. E.g. Minimum required memory is 102GB. VMware vCenter is Otherwise, unless indicated NOT to by a Cisco Collaboration app, customers are free to manually upgrade the vmv to a newer vmv supported by the ESXi version. NOTE: support varies by app and version. Another alternative is manual Virtual Machine shutdown and migration. USA-based, so requires compliance with US FCC Kari's Law / Ray Baum's Act. Here are some example questions: Will Cisco support this? Minimum required memory is ~50GB. CUCM sending CDR/CMR to the external billing server does not incur any additional IOPS. Before reading the best practices below, verify support at Supported Editions and Features of VMware vSphere ESXi, VMware vCenter and VMware vSphere Client. 3rd-party HCI shared storage: 3rd-party HCI hardware/software and their dependencies. To date, Cisco has not discovered any issues with Collaboration apps due to a newer vmv version. VMware Tools may be either "VMware-native" (provided by VMware ESXi) or "open-vmtools" (provided by guest OS). VSA is not really a "feature" but rather a storage product from VMware. Cisco Expressway is supported bare-metal on CE1200 appliance; Cisco Meeting Server is supported bare-metal on CMS 2000 appliance). Supported capacity and co-residency rules for UC must be followed before and after the migration. Plan for quad RAID5 volumes. E.g. E.g. Step 2 Choose the automatic tools update and press OK. Each HyperFlex node will require a HyperFlex Data Platform (HXDP) storage controller VM of 8vcpu, in addition to the application VMs. This page has been updated to reflect compatibility with the latest M5 hardware. Cisco supports only VMWare ESXi virtualisation which makes sense! Also always ensure a DRS backup of the Cisco Collaboration applications is available in case there are issues with the replicated VMs. For example, initial deployment of the OVA and UC application may have been done on ESXi 4.0 update 1. See VMware vCenter Converter for what is supported. Note: ESXi 6.0 only supports VMFS5. Later, a CLI command was created to make the upgrades easier. 7.x of UC apps with VMware vSphere on limited 3rd-party servers), see the following links: Follow UCS DIMM population rules for 12x16GB=192GB (ignore options like Memory Mirroring). 3 To migrate from bare-metal servers (e.g. CUCM licenses are based on the number of TelePresence endpoints and Jabber Video licenses in your VCS environment. 9.1 and higher will support these two-vDisk options: 2x80 GB and 1x80 GB + 1x110GB (where auto-grow COP was used on second vDisk). NOTE: support varies by app and version. Follow UCS DIMM population rules for 2x16GB=32GB (ignore options like Memory Mirroring). Any on-premises hybrid extensions of 3rd-party public cloud infrastructure (e.g. Unified/Packaged Contact Center Enterprise have application-specific co-residency independent of physical CPU. See VMware vCenter Converter for what is supported. For UC apps, an easier suggested alternative is to just perform manual VM shutdown and migration to the new SAN. https://courses.cbt.gg/securityIn this video, Jeremy Cioara covers installing the Cisco Unified Communication . Before reading the best practices below, verify support at Supported Editions and Features of VMware vSphere ESXi, VMware vCenter and VMware vSphere Client. if you have more than 10,000 users in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, you must use the 5,000 user OVA template at a minimum, even if you plan to license less than 5,000 users of IM and Presence. New installs of 9.1 and above must use 1x110 GB vDisk. Not supported. Cisco requirements are to prevent these types of issues from impacting application availability to end-users. fresh install 8.x software on VMware / UC on UCS HCL, latencies, application VM capacity and performance needs). Cisco recommends to power off the VMs before the SAN replication occurs. Specifically for Cisco Unified Attendant Consoles, this means the CUxAC VM must not be doing any Hot Swap or taking any active calls, with no active Directory Synchronization in progress. Redundant physical network access links (e.g. The "storage system" is defined as all hardware and software end-to-end required for the UCM virtual machine's vdisk to be available to the application. Values consistently greater than 20-30ms are frequently performance problems for typical applications. Does not protect vs. faults with the SAN or network hardware. The 1GE deployment models are insufficient to handle application VM vnic and vdisk traffic. Step 5 After installation of the new version of VMware Tools is complete, remove the VMware Tools tar file from the virtual CD/DVD drive. Application ( For Cisco Unified Intelligence Center 11.0 and later enter CLI command utils vmtools refresh. VMware vShield For network, spec sheet indicates C220 M5SX includes 2 x 10Gbase-T Intel x550 embedded (on the motherboard) LOM ports. 2 or 3 Like the BE7000H (M5), we will also spec dual quad-port 1GbE NICs to provide extra links and accommodate typical needs for NIC teaming and/or VLAN trunking. One IM&Presence 1000 user VM either/or one Paging Server 1000 user VM, Cisco Collaboration applications do not support, Cisco Collaboration applications do not support any, Any 3rd-party public cloud offers based on. Caveated Support for VMware CPU Reservations and Distributed Resource Scheduler). See also VMware Data Recovery and Copy Virtual Machine. NOTE: support varies by app and version. For simplicity, this example will use a pair of Intel Xeon 6242 CPUs (16C/2.8 GHz) which will support all applications' "large" capacity points ("medium" for Expressway) in this example. This page has been updated to reflect compatibility with the latest M5 hardware. Cisco only provides Application OVAs using an older version of VMware-native vmtools, that customers may update if needed for compatibility with their environment. Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) UCM, IMP and CUC have caveated support (see Requirements on this page only apply to these software release combinations: Some applications may have application-specific rules that are different. See best practices for Multiple Physical NICs and vNICs. Calling & Messaging E.g. E.g. Including but not limited to: In the popup window choose Interactive Tools Upgrade. For the particular VM mix in this example, could also have used dual Intel Xeon 6126 (12C/2.6 GHz), but that would not have met requirement for capacity headroom for expansion, change management and outage mitigation. 2 or 3 All these uses are supported for UC but note that UC apps like CUCM and UCCX only support a single vNIC with a single IP address. License Comparison - Install Base See the Business Edition 6000/7000 documentation for more details. Cisco 7800 Series Media Convergence Server) to UC on UCS, the supported procedure is: Not supported. VMware Feature Support for Contact Center. Jabber - Create a Softphone Device on CUCM Cisco 319K subscribers Subscribe 167 22K views 2 years ago This is a video tutorial for creating a softphone device on Cisco Unified. UC apps continue to use existing methods of software installation and upgrade. Virtual Appliance Packaging of UC apps Cisco Collaboration applications do not support hypervisors that are not VMware vSphere ESXi (e.g. When deployed on other supported servers, use for publishers, subscribers, standalone TFTP, standalone multicast MOH nodes, ELM or PAWS-M. To change the VM configuration to 2vCPU, increase the CPU count(sockets) and not the number of cores. Physical external devices such as USB drives are not supported. Not supported. VMware Compatibilty Guide (http://www.vmware.com/go/hcl) for the the vSphere ESXi Major/Minor version supported by Cisco Collaboration. If VSA is desired to be used as shared storage for a virtualized Cisco Collaboration deployment, it must meet the storage requirements for UC on UCS Specs-based or 3rd-party Server Specs-based (e.g. Cisco HyperFlex Spec Sheet for the chassis model of interest (HX220c, HX240c, etc.). Always verify with server vendor if a hardware-vendor-specific ESXi image is required. BE7000M (M5) appliance uses Intel Xeon 6132 CPU (14C/2.6GHz). Go back to: Cisco Collaboration Virtualization Click on an application name to view its virtualization support. NOTE: support varies by app and version. Cisco-provided/required OVA files will be for the specific vmv version used when testing the ESXi major/minor version (e.g. If we evenly split the application VMs across three cluster nodes, then we'll need at least 29 physical CPU cores (29C) on each node. vCPU/vRAM increases alone do not increase supported capacity, max density per cluster node or max scale per cluster. Including but not limited to: The ESXi datastore configuration (regardless of storage technology), DAS local storage: motherboard or RAID controller plus the local disks (SAS/SATA HDD, SSD, NVMe, etc. It is important to understand that the UC application is not tied to the version of ESXi it is running on. Applications are sized with redundant VMs. VMware Snapshots From a technical perspective, CUCM 8.6 or higher is allowed on these platforms, but customers must verify that the desired CUCM version meets certification requirements (JITC, etc.). If you are using a Cisco Business Edition 6000/7000 appliance with an embedded virtualization license, then choice and quantity of 3rd-party applications and Cisco non-Collaboration applications are restricted due to licensing. A Cisco Collaboration app will only specify a MAXIMUM maintenance release if there are known incompatibilitites. VMware.com comparison of vSphere editions (available on this web page at time of this writing: General-purpose licenses may be customer-provided instead of purchased from Cisco. UCM 12.5 requires minimum vmv13, vs. older versions vmv8. If your deployment is not experiencing any issues, you are not required to change to 2 vCPU and may remain on 1 vCPU. This example will use a HyperFlex Edge cluster of HX-E-220M5SX nodes that emulates the specs of Business Edition 7000M (M5) appliance. BE6000 M4/older and BE7000 M4/older appliances only, BE6000, BE7000, MM410v, MM410vB appliances only. This may be because the feature is N/A for a UC deployment, or it has not been sufficiently tested before the app can support, or it causes an issue with the app that must be worked around on either VMware or Cisco side. direct from VMware) then ESXi support is provided by the 3rd-party vendor. 3rd-Party VM-based Backup Tools Not supported. If ESXi 6.5, all applications support VMFS5 but only some support VMFS6 (check each application's virtualization page for details). No version downgrades. E.g. a "cold migration" or "host to host migration", is not vMotion and is supported. E.g. Specifically for Cisco Unified Attendant Consoles, this means the CUxAC VM must not be doing any Hot Swap or taking any active calls, with no active Directory Synchronization in progress. VMware Snapshots Under the Advanced section, check the Check and upgrade Tools during power cycling option. VDP in vSphere ESXi 5.1 replaces "VDR" (vSphere Data Recovery / VMware Data Recovery) in prior ESXi releases: see http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2016565. See also VMware Data Recovery and Copy Virtual Machine. 24K max BHCC per cluster OVAs for ESXi 5.x include vmv7 and vmv8). For more information, see http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/comments/cisco_and_vmware_validated_architecture_for_long_distance_vmotion/ and http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns517/ns224/ns836/white_paper_c11-557822.pdf. This section will give a summary support position, but for individual components see Support for Virtualization on the ESXi/UCS Platform. Installing a Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) Server, Version 12.0Get Kevin's FREE Collaboration Mini-Coursehttp://kwtrain.com/6coresys=====. destination server must align with supported co-residency after failover occurs). C220 M5SX chassis will be used for up to 10 hard disk slots, which allows lower-cost HDD to be used (vs. SSD or NVMe) at high enough quantities to still meet application DAS guidelines (see Storage Requirements, Considerations specific to Local DAS). For UC apps, an easier suggested alternative is to just perform manual VM shutdown and migration to the new SAN. Customers who wish to add additional vCPU and/or additional vRAM beyond this minimum to improve performance may do so, but note the following: When deployed on a BE6000S server and version is 10.5(2), capacity is limited to 150 users/ 300 devices and design must follow BE6000S requirements in www.cisco.com/go/ucsrnd. 3rd-Party Physical To Virtual (P2V) Migration Tools BE7000H (M5) appliance uses dual Intel Xeon 6132 CPU (14C/2.6GHz). If mixing capacity points in the same UCM cluster then the scale per cluster and the density per node continue to be limited to that of the. ESXi contains several optimizations for real-time applications and is therefore what Cisco will support. See vMotion for what is supported.Long Distance vMotion is a joint Cisco and VMware validated architecture for using the vMotion feature across data centers. A Cisco Collaboration app will only specify a MAXIMUM maintenance release if there are known incompatibilitites. For a given capacity point (such as the 10K user VM), the virtual hardware specs represent the minimum for that capacity point. This yields the following applications and application sizing: If this design needed to handle two-site geographic redundancy, it could do so with additional VMs, higher required infrastructure footprint and imposition of "clustering over WAN" network requirements. 9.x Older versions used 2x80 GB or other configurations as shown in tables above. Click here to download support of older/non-orderable servers, UCS or 3rd-party Specs-based on Intel Xeon, VM Configuration Requirements Cisco Meeting Server (CMS) has different rules if the virtualized hardware is dedicated to CMS vs. shared with other workloads. Minimum required memory is ~122GB. Customers who wish to add additional vcpu and/or additional vram beyond this minimum to improve performance may do so, but note the following: IOPS and Storage System Performance Requirements. Customers must download and use these OVA template files for initial install, as they cover items such as supported capacity levels and any required OS/VM/SAN "alignment". Cisco Collaboration applications do not support any 3rd-party public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offer. VMware Cloud on Dell EMC VxRail, Amazon AWS Outposts, Microsoft Azure Stack, GKE On-prem and others are not supported). The following applies to any use of vMotion with UC apps: Note that when VMware vCenter is not required and is not used, then VMware vSphere ESXi's default management interface is its free/included VMware vSphere Client (formerly branded VI Client). Also note that enablement of specific VMware vSphere management features may require vCenter and/or a higher feature Edition of vSphere ESXi. Quote Collab tool may be used for assistance with planning applications on virtualized infrastructure. UCM, IMP and CUC have caveated support (see Expect similar peaks as Cisco Unified Communications Manager during backups and upgrades. Ephemeral spikes above application's indicated maximum with tiny duration and tiny frequency are expected, but spikes above the application's indicated maximum that are frequent, sustained and/or high-magnitude indicate a potential problem and are likely contributors to application symptoms. These migrations require backing up the application, reinstalling on a new OVA file, and and restoring the application. VM can be installed on DAS and source/destination physical servers can have different DAS yet still vMotion the VM. VMsafe Where supported, this provides the VM equivalent of migration to a more powerful or less powerful server. License Comparison - Install Base Before reading the best practices below, verify support at Supported Editions and Features of VMware vSphere ESXi, VMware vCenter and VMware vSphere Client. It is very important that the VMware tools version running in the UC application be in sync with the version of ESXi being used. Specifically for Cisco Unified Attendant Consoles, this means the CUxAC VM must not be doing any Hot Swap or taking any active calls, with no active Directory Synchronization in progress. Please note the following caveats: See the documentation for the UC application software or UC appliance software to see what is supported. For VM configurations supporting more than 1,000 users, plan for 160 IOPS during steady-state. (see www.cisco.com/go/ucsrnd for details). Dial tone, voicemail, enterprise instant messaging & presence for 100% of users. Also always ensure a DRS backup of the Cisco Collaboration applications is available in case there are issues with the replicated VMs. * Only supported for deployments of <1K users and <2.5K devices. Multiple Physical NICs and vNICs Follow HX DIMM population rules for 4x32GB=128GB. In the popup window choose Interactive Tools Upgrade. UCM cluster nodes require fixed capacity points with fixed-configuration VMs in the Cisco-provided OVA for UCM. With a particular supported major/minor version (such as ESXi 5.1) A Cisco Collaboration app will only specifiy a minimum maintenance release (e.g. Example uses VIC 1440 mLOM. The system reboots twice. Cisco recommendation is to use the latest Maintenance release supported by the hardware vendor. I.e. Virtualization for Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) CUCM Components: CUCM includes the following main components: - Cisco Unified Communications Manager Publisher (PUB) - Cisco Unified Communications Manager Subscriber (SUB) - Cisco Unified Communication Manager IM & Presence (CUPS) - Cisco Unity Connections (UC) If the UC app is listed as "Supported with Caveats", then support is as described below: Before reading the best practices below, verify support at Supported Editions and Features of VMware vSphere ESXi, VMware vCenter and VMware vSphere Client. VMware Update Manager (VUM) Posted 2:59:29 AM. If the server is Cisco UCS, you may need to use a UCS-specific image for U3 on vmware.com. Application versions will define minimum required vmv. via Distributed Resource Scheduler [DRS]), a few applications have caveated support (see here for details); otherwise it is not supported. For a given capacity point (such as the 10K user VM), the virtual hardware specs represent the minimum for that capacity point. take a software backup Cisco recommendation is to apply the latest patches and updates recommended by VMware and your hardware vendor. E.g. For storage, follow guidelines for local DAS. Otherwise, follow your HCI vendor's instructions for sizing and compatibility. Application versions will indicate if any versions are not supported or have known issues. in a maintenance window, not in production, not processing live traffic. These values are per active VM. VMware Snapshots Changing the VM configuration to 2 vCPU is recommended as a prevention strategy. The following applies to any use of vMotion with UC apps: Note: If the tools do need to be updated, the VM may go through an additional boot cycle to update the tools. Please note the following caveats: Follow your shared storage array vendor's instructions for compatibility. 2.00-2.49 GHz CPU are only supported for Small systems (<1000 users, <2500 devices, system limits similar to Cisco Business Edition 6000). Prior to ESXi 5.1, VM must be installed on shared storage (SAN) and source and destination physical servers must be connected to same SAN. Cisco 7800 Series Media Convergence Server) to UC on UCS, the supported procedure is: via Distributed Resource Scheduler [DRS]), a few applications have caveated support (see here for details); otherwise it is not supported. Destination physical server must not end up with over-subscribed hardware after the migration. Requires SAN storage. "Rogger"). However, using this feature to patch and update the guest OS is only supported by some applications and some versions, this is what is shown on this page when referring to VUM support. This section only clarifies technical support for VMware vSphere ESXi features. Not supported. You can run the HyperFlex Sizer (partner-level access) to doublecheck if HX Edge cluster will accommodate, and add more capacity disks as needed. Hardware components, models and product IDs may have changed since the time of this writing. Not supported. However, using this feature to patch and update the guest OS is only supported by some applications and some versions, this is what is shown on this page when referring to VUM support. NOTE: support varies by app and version. Cisco physical / virtual networking infrastructure is presumed transparent to Collaboration workloads. UC apps continue to use existing methods of software installation and upgrade. Assume Xeon 6126 which will support required applications' "medium" capacity point and VM configurations. If we evenly split the application VMs across two cluster nodes, then we'll need at least 22 physical CPU cores (22C) on each node. For UC apps, an easier suggested alternative is to just perform manual VM shutdown and migration to the new SAN. destination server must align with supported co-residency after failover occurs). * Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Cisco Unified CCE) and CVP only support VMware Snapshots for patching and upgrades during maintenance. HCL, latencies, application VM capacity and performance needs). Plan for dual RAID5 volumes. Otherwise same guidelines as for RAID5. 93-98% of total IO is "sequential writes" with an IO block size of 4 kilobytes. Only application versions 12.x and under are supported. then Cisco will provide support for ESXi. UCM cluster nodes require fixed capacity points with fixed-configuration VMs in the Cisco-provided OVA for UCM. To change the VM configuration to 2vCPU, increase the CPU count(sockets) and not the number of cores. Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) If VSA is desired to be used as shared storage for a virtualized Cisco Collaboration deployment, it must meet the storage requirements for UC on UCS Specs-based or 3rd-party Server Specs-based (e.g. This feature provides integration with 3rd-party backup utilities so that they can non-disruptively backup the OS and application in a Virtual Machine (VM). Prior to ESXi 5.1, VM must be installed on shared storage (SAN) and source and destination physical servers must be connected to same SAN. Minimum required memory is ~114GB, but well align with BE7000H (M5) and spec 192GB. Caveated Support for VMware CPU Reservations and Distributed Resource Scheduler). This example will use a minimum build of 3x SAS 1.2 TB. if you have more than 10,000 users in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, you must use the 5,000 user OVA template at a minimum, even if you plan to license less than 5,000 users of IM and . Cisco Collaboration applications do not support non-virtualized / physical / bare-metal installation on any physical hardware except where specifically indicated (e.g. As a virtual platform we strongly recommend to stick to VMware products as they are successfully passing the hardware checks of the CUCM installation. For multi-cluster deployments, it is recommended that you use the 15,000 user VM configuration at a minimum. This feature provides an automated disaster recovery solution that works on a "site to site" basis, where a "site" comprises physical servers, VMware and SAN storage. The system reboots twice. However, if Storage vMotion must be used, it is only under the following conditions: This feature automates patching and updating of VMware vSphere hosts and Guest OS. NOTE: support varies by app and version. Cisco Unified Communications IM&P consists of up to six servers, including one server that is designated as a publisher. Cisco Collaboration apps only require vmv4 functionality, so a newer vmv is usually transparent. VMware vShield HCL, latencies, application VM capacity and performance needs). HyperFlex Edge is permitted, but only with 10GE deployment models. Unlisted architectures are not supported unless specifically indicated in this policy or by an application. a "cold migration" or "host to host migration", is not vMotion and is supported. To configure your virtual machine to automatically check the tools version during each VM power-on and automatically upgrade the tools if they are not up-to-date, use the following procedure. Not supported. E.g. Requires SAN storage. Used to preserve the state of a VM without copying or creating additional VMs, effectively as a backup/restore or reversion technique.