7.6 or total CM change out

[buthead]

Hello team,
I've been reading some of the threads regarding upgrades. Here's my "tale of woe". Option 81 at 5.5. 600 analog and 600 digital. 20-30 IP sets. Octel Serenade VM.(old but bulletproof). I would like to upgrade to Aura messaging and 7.6. Then in the near future change out 12 PRI's to SIP. A few Avaya partners I've chatted with are pointing me in a total CM swap out. A CM upgrade would involve a minimum of 2 probably 3 G450's and associated cards. Also, I can't deal with 24 gateways for analog. Worst case would be to change digital to IP and "slave" the existing analog IPE to the CM. Anybody done this or have any thoughts/recommondations? Thanks in advance.
Buthead

 

[GHTROUT]

Why do you need to do anything at all? The only thing I see at risk is that Octel system.

~~
Gene at GHTROUT.com

 

[buthead]

You're are 100% correct Gene. My original plan was to do the VM and 7.6. That would by me about 5 more years and I could see what the "landscape" looks like at that time. I could also implement SIP trunking later on. TY

 

[KCFLHRC]

The 7.6 VxWorks upgrade on the Pentium 4's is very straight forward. You will probably need new Signal Servers because what you have on the 5.5 is probably not supported. If doing SIP you should probably migrate to System/Session Manager, another 2 servers along with your new Signal Servers. Aura Messaging is SIP Based, another server, and works OK, I prefer Call Pilot. Good thing is you have a redundant switch, you can upgrade one side and have your new signal servers prebuilt and everything deployed prior to upgrade night, fairly easy upgrade.

 

[scotthdiv]

A total CM swap out seems a bit much. I'd go to 7.6 and AAM and include SMGR/SM. If I'm not mistaken, there was a Upgrade with a Collaboration Pack that included heavy discounts which would give you a CM with System and Session Manager almost for nothing. Not sure if that promo is still active or not, but we had a number of customers that took advantage of it. You could then at least test out the CM and see if that's the direction you want to go in the future. If it was, you could migrate people over at your leisure.