Before you begin an upgrade or migration, verify that your current virtual machine (VM) software meets the requirements of the new release.

VMware Upgrade Requirements

If the upgrade requires you to update your VMware, go to Virtual Machine Configuration Tasks.

The following table lists all the phone models that are deprecated for this release of Cisco Unified Communications Manager, along with the Unified CM release where the phone model first became deprecated. For example, a phone model that was first deprecated in Release 11.5(1) is deprecated for all later releases, including all 12.x releases.

If you are upgrading to the current release of Cisco Unified Communications Manager and you have any of these phone models deployed, the phone will not work after the upgrade.

For additional information, refer to Field Notices.

Upgrades that Involve Deprecated Phones

If you are using any of these phones on an earlier release and you want to upgrade to this release, do the following:

1. Confirm whether the phones in your network will be supported in this release.

2. Identify any non-supported phones.

3. For any non-supported phones, power down the phone and disconnect the phone from the network.

4. Provision a supported phone for the phone user. You can use the Migration FX tool to migrate from older model to newer model phones. For details, go to: https://www.unifiedfx.com/products/unifiedfx-migrationfx#endpoint_refresh_tool.

5. Once all the phones in your network are supported by this release, upgrade your system.

Note	Deprecated phones can also be removed after the upgrade. When the administrator logs in to Unified Communications Manager after completing the upgrade, the system displays a warning message notifying the administrator of the deprecated phones.

Licensing

You do not need to purchase a new device license to replace a deprecated phone with a supported phone. The device license becomes available for a new phone when you either remove the deprecated phone from the system, or when you switch to the new Unified Communications Manager version, and the deprecated phone fails to register.

A complete collaboration solution relies on DNS in order to function correctly for a number of services and thus requires a highly available DNS structure in place. If you have a basic IP telephony deployment and do not want to use DNS, you can configure Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service to use IP addresses rather than hostnames to communicate with gateways and endpoint devices.

You must configure the server to use static IP addressing to ensure that the server obtains a fixed IP address. Using a static IP address also ensures that Cisco Unified IP Phones can register with the application when you plug the phones into the network.

Note the following requirements:

• Mixed-mode DNS deployments not supported—Cisco does not support mixed-mode deployments. Both Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service must either use or not use DNS.

• If your deployment uses DNS—Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service should use the same DNS server. If you use different DNS servers between IM and Presence Service and Unified Communications Manager, it is likely to cause abnormal system behavior.

• If your deployment does not use DNS, you will need to edit the following Host Name/IP Address fields:

  • Server—In the Cisco Unified CM Administration Server Configuration window, set IP addresses for your cluster nodes.

  • IM and Presence UC Service—In the Cisco Unified CM Administration UC Service Configuration window, create an IM and Presence UC service that points to the IP address of the IM and Presence database publisher node.

  • CCMCIP Profiles—In the Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Administration CCMCIP Profile Configuration window, point any CCMCIP profiles to the IP address of the host.

• Multinode considerations—If you are using the multinode feature in IM and Presence Service, see the section regarding multinode deployments in the Configuration and Administration of the IM and Presence Service Guide for DNS configuration options.

Use the information in the following table to determine which SFTP server solution to use in your system.

Do not install Unified Communications Manager in a large Class A or Class B subnet that contains a large number of devices. For more information, see Cisco Collaboration System 12.x Solution Reference Network Designs (SRND).

The number of Unified Communications Manager subscriber nodes in a cluster cannot exceed 4 subscriber nodes and 4 standby nodes, for a total of 8 subscribers. The total number of servers in a cluster, including the Unified Communications Manager publisher node, TFTP server, and media servers, cannot exceed 21.

The maximum number of IM and Presence Service nodes in a cluster is 6.

For more information, see "Cisco Collaboration Solutions Design Guidance" at http://www.cisco.com/go/ucsrnd.

If you are using a 24-bit IP subnet mask, ensure that you use the following format:255.255.255.0 . Do not use the format 255.255.255.000 . Although 255.255.255.000 is a valid format, it may cause problems during the upgrade process. We recommend that you change the format before you begin an upgrade to avoid possible problems. You can change the subnet mask by executing the set network ip eth0 <server_IP_address> 255.255.255.0 command.

Other formats are supported for subnet masks and this limitation applies to 24-bit subnet masks only.

Ensure that the device name for the Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator device contains 15 or fewer characters. If the device name contains more than 15 characters for the Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator, the device does not migrate during the upgrade.

This release of Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service supports an export unrestricted (XU) version, in addition to the export restricted (K9) version.

Note	Unrestricted versions of software are intended only for a specific set of customers who do not want various security capabilities; unrestricted versions are not intended for general deployments.

Export unrestricted versions differs from restricted versions as follows:

• Encryption of user payload (information exchange) is not supported.

• External SIP interdomain federation with Microsoft OCS/Lync or AOL is not supported.

• After you install an unrestricted release, you can never upgrade to a restricted version. A fresh install of a restricted version on a system that contains an unrestricted version is also not supported.

• All nodes within a single cluster must be in the same mode. For example, Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service in the same cluster must either all be in unrestricted mode or all be in restricted mode.

• IP Phone security configurations are modified to disable signaling and media encryption (including encryption provided by the VPN phone feature).

Note	Be aware that after you install an unrestricted release, you can never upgrade to a restricted version. You are not allowed to perform a fresh installation of a restricted version on a system that contains an unrestricted version.

For all Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and Command Line Interfaces (CLIs), the Administrator can view the product version (restricted or export unrestricted).

The following table describes the GUI items that are not available for the export unrestricted version ofUnified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service.

If you are using the utils system upgrade CLI command to upgrade IM and Presence Service nodes, you must use the default OS admin account, as opposed to a user with administrator privileges. Otherwise, the upgrade will not have the required privilege level to install essential services, thereby causing the upgrade to fail. You can confirm the account’s privilege level by running the show myself CLI command. The account must have privilege level 4.

Note that this limitation exists for CLI-initiated upgrades of IM and Presence Service only and does not apply to Unified Communications Manager. Also note that this limitation may be fixed for newer ISO files. See your ISO Readme file for details on your specific ISO file. For-up-to date information on this limitation, see CSCvb14399.

If you have Microsoft SQL Server deployed as an external database with the IM and Presence Service and you are upgrading from 11.5(1), 11.5(1)SU1, or 11.5(1)SU2, you must create a new SQL Server database and migrate to the new database. This is required due to enhanced data type support in this release. If you don't migrate your database, schema verification failure will occur on the existing SQL Server database and services that rely on the external database, such as persistent chat, will not start.

After you upgrade your IM and Presence Service, use this procedure to create a new SQL Server database and migrate data to the new database.

Note	This migration is not required for Oracle or PostgreSQL external databases.

Before You Begin

The database migration is dependent on the MSSQL_migrate_script.sql script. Contact Cisco TAC to obtain a copy.

The following IM and Presence Service features are supported by Release 11.5(1)SU5, but are not supported by 12.0(1) or 12.0(1)SU1 releases:

• Encrypted IM Compliance Database

• Persistent Chat Rooms for Cisco Jabber mobile clients

If you have either of these features deployed with Release 11.5(1)SU5, and you upgrade to 12.0(1) or 12.0(1)SU1 you will lose these features.

The following section provide information about the upgrades from 12.0(1) to 12.5(1) that your system must meet, and limitations that apply when you install or upgrade IM and Presence Service.

Note	Please select the Reboot Option as “Reboot to upgraded partition” (switch version “Yes”) instead of default Reboot option as "Do not reboot after upgrade" (switch-version as “No”). Hence, the IM and Presence Service 12.5 will be compatible with the Unified Communications Manager 12.5 version.

Refresh upgrade from Unified Communications Manager 12.0.1. to 12.5 or from Unified Communications Manager previous release upgrade to 12.5 release:

Note	Before upgrading, run the pre-upgrade Upgrade Readiness COP File. The COP file will run a series of tests to check the pre-upgrade health and connectivity of your system. If the COP file highlights issues that need to be addressed, fix them before proceeding with the upgrade.

When you enable the FIPS mode in Unified Communications Manager Release 12.5 SU1, the lower key size IPsec DH groups 1, 2, or 5 are disabled. If you have already configured the IPsec policies with DH groups 1, 2 or 5 and enabled FIPS mode, the upgrade to Unified Communications Manager Release 12.5 SU1 is blocked.

Perform any one of the following procedures before you upgrade to Unified Communications Manager Release 12.5 SU1:

• Delete the previously configured IPsec policies and perform the upgrade. After the upgrade is complete, reconfigure the IPsec policies with DH groups 14–18.

• Install the COP file (latest_version.xxxx.cop.sgn) that supports DH groups 14–18, reconfigure the IPsec policies and then perform an upgrade.

  Note	If you disable the FIPS mode after installing the COP file, the IPsec configuration page does not appear.

  For more information on configuring the IPsec policies, see Cisco Unified Operating System Administration Online Help.

The IM and Presence Service supports intercluster peers to clusters that are running different software versions. To find the interdomain federations that are supported, see the "Intercluster Peering Support" section in the Compatibility Matrix for Cisco Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service.

This release of Unified Communications Manager, Cisco IM and Presence Service, Cisco Emergency Responder, and Cisco Prime Collaboration Deployment contain software patches to address the Meltdown and Spectre microprocessor vulnerabilities.

Before you upgrade to Release 12.5(1) or above, we recommend that you work with your channel partner or account team to use the Cisco Collaboration Sizing Tool to compare your current deployment to an upgraded deployment. If required, change VM resources to ensure that your upgraded deployment provides the best performance.

If you are Direct upgrading or Direct migrating from Release 10.5(2) or 11.0(1) to any later release, an issue exists with older locale installations that causes upgrade and migration failures. This issue exists if any of the following Unified CM combined network locales have been installed:

• cm-locale-combined_network-9.1.2.1100-1

• cm-locale-combined_network-10.5.2.2200-1

• cm-locale-combined_network-11.0.1.1000-1

This issue can also occur if the following Unified CM locales are installed together in the same cluster:

• cm-locale-en_GB-9.1.2.1100-1

• cm-locale-pt_BR-9.1.2.1100-1

• cm-locale-en_GB-10.5.2.2200-1

• cm-locale-pt_BR-10.5.2.2200-1

• cm-locale-en_GB-11.0.1.1000-1

• cm-locale-pt_BR-11.0.1.1000-1

To ensure that your upgrade does not fail, update your Unified Communications Manager and phone locale installation to use a locale that is dated after August 31, 2017 as this issue does not exist for any locale file issued after that date. After you update your locale installation, you can begin the upgrade or migration. For details on the workaround, see https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCuz97687.

An issue exists with refresh upgrades of Unified Communications Manager to specific destination releases. After the timezone data populates, you may see a blue transition screen appear for 30 minutes or more.

If you see this blue screen, DO NOT stop the upgrade, or a kernel panic occurs. The upgrade will continue to run even while the blue screen displays. The blue screen will clear itself after approximately 30 minutes

Affected 'To' Versions

This issue affects refresh upgrades of Unified Communications Manager where the destination version falls within the range in the below table. This range includes SU and ES versions that lay within the range. This issue does not occur for upgrades to older or newer versions that do not fall within the range, or for upgrades of the IM and Presence Service.

For additional details, see CSCvs28202.

Cisco Smart Software Licensing is a new way of thinking about licensing. It adds flexibility to your licensing and simplifies it across the enterprise. It also delivers visibility into your license ownership and consumption.

Cisco Smart Software Licensing helps you to procure, deploy, and manage licenses easily where devices self-register and report license consumption, removing the need for product activation keys (PAK). It pools license entitlements in a single account and allows you to move licenses freely through the network, wherever you need them. It is enabled across Cisco products and managed by a direct cloud-based or mediated deployment model.

The Cisco Smart Software Licensing service registers the product instance, reports license usage, and obtains the necessary authorization from Cisco Smart Software Manager or Cisco Smart Software Manager satellite.

Cisco Smart Software Manager replaces Prime License Manager in Unified Communications Manager Release 12.0(1) and later versions. Cisco Prime License Manager is no longer used as of Release 12.0(1) and no longer appears in the Installed Applications pre-login screen.

If you have enabled the mixed-mode before upgrade and have not registered to Cisco Smart Software Manager or Cisco Smart Software Manager satellite then,

• You see the warning message in the Cisco Unified CM Administration page and Cisco Unified OS Administration page as stated below:

  Caution

  The system is currently running Mixed mode. To continue running Mixed mode, please ensure Smart Licensing registration is completed using the Registration Token received from the Smart/Virtual Account that has Allow export-controlled functionality checked.

• An alert named SmartLicenseExportControlNotAllowed is sent, when the Unified Communications Manager is not registered with the Registration Token.

For details on how to configure Cisco Smart Software Licensing, see the "Smart Software Licensing" chapter, located within the "Configure Initial Parameters for the System" at System Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

For more details on Cisco Smart Software Manager satellite, including the Smart Software Manager satellite Installation Guide, see http://www.cisco.com/go/smartsatellite.

Migration of PLM Licenses to Smart Entitlement

If you are eligible to upgrade to the Smart Licensing version of the product, then you are able to initiate the migration through the License Registration Portal or Cisco Smart Software Manager. You can self-initiate this process by downloading and installing the Smart Licensing version of the software and registering the device to a Smart Account using a Registration Token. The migration of any entitlements tracked by Cisco automatically migrates to the Customers Smart Account. You will also be able to initiate the migration of unused classic PAKs to Smart Accounts for future consumption by products in Smart Mode. This process is available through the License Registration Portal or Cisco Smart Software Manager.

Unified Communications Manager 9.0x and later version of 12.0(1)

• If you are holding an active Cisco Software Support Service (SWSS) contract, then you can convert the classic licenses to smart entitlements through the Cisco Smart Software Manager at https://software.cisco.com/#SmartLicensing-LicenseConversion.

• Two types of Migration are supported:

  • PAK based—Supported for already fulfilled, partially fulfilled and unfilled PAKs

  • Device based

• Partial Conversion supports mixed environment of older and Unified Communications Manager 12.0(1) clusters.

Upgrade to Smart Entitlement

Unified Communications Manager Pre 9.0x (Device based) to 12.0(1)

You may contact Cisco Global Licensing Operations (GLO) for helping with migrating Device-based licenses to Smart Entitlement.

Customer may establish equivalent user-based licensing required by running License Count Utility (LCU). For more details, see http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/upgrade/uct/CUCM_BK_UCT_Admin_Guide/CUCM_BK_UCT_Admin_Guide_chapter_01.html.

From the LCU report, Customer may order respective quantity of Upgrade Licenses through Cisco Commerce Workspace. Beyond this, they would have to buy additional new licenses. For more details, see the Ordering Guide at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/partners/tools/collaboration-ordering-guides.html.

The IM and Presence Service does not require a server license or software version license. However, you must assign users and enable the IM and Presence Service for each assigned user.

Note	With the Jabber for Everyone offer, no end user licenses are required to enable IM and Presence Service functionality. For more information, see Jabber for Everyone Quick Start Guide.

You can assign IM and Presence Service on a per user basis, regardless of the number of clients you associate with each user. When you assign IM and Presence Service to a user, this enables the user to send and receive IMs and availability updates. If users are not enabled for IM and Presence Service, they will not be able to log in to the IM and Presence Service server to view the availability of other users, send or receive IMs, and other users will not see their availability status.

You can enable a user for IM and Presence Service using any of the following options:

• The End User Configuration window in Unified Communications Manager. For more information, see the Administration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

• The Bulk Administration Tool (BAT)

• Assign IM and Presence Service to a feature group template which you can reference from the Quick User/Phone Add window in Unified Communications Manager.

For more information, see the System Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

IM and Presence Service capabilities are included within both User Connect Licensing (UCL) and Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing (CUWL). IM and Presence Service capabilities can also be acquired for users that are not Unified Communications Manager IP Telephony users through the Jabber for Everyone Offer. For more information, see Jabber for Everyone Quick Start Guide.