Upgrade from CS1K to Avaya Aura

[dabble]

Just wondering if anyone has upgraded their CS1K systems (from 7.6) to Avaya Aura?
Did you do an RFP / RFQ?
Was it painful?

Thanks.

 

[KCFLHRC]

I have only done upgrades through 7.6, which I hear will be the last release. I can only assume that it will be like anything with Avaya, PAINFUL.

 

[RLSbutton]

So first of all, it's good to hear you are sticking with the CS1K hardware and considering upgrading to the Aura instead of completely ripping and replacing your equipment. So many people are doing that these days and it's definitely not an environmentally friendly route to go.

Have you heard about the UCx1000 from E-MetroTel? You can keep all of your existing hardware, but you don't have to deal with the painful headaches you are speaking of.

As you no longer have to use the M1/CS1000 terminal, you would use the GUI web based interface as opposed to lines of code.

Just an option, I am quite happy with my upgrade. If Avaya allows you a seamless integration between your current phones and the Aura platform, then obviously it can't be a bad route to go.


Joseph Sus Jr. Nortel Enthusiast

http://www.joetheucxguy.com

 

[dabble]

Thanks for your reply. Haven't heard of EMetroTel.

I'm pretty sure they (being management) want to keep the existing infrastructure of the CS1000 but who knows! There was even some talk about replacing all our CS1000's (we have 7) with IP office. I was under the impression that IP office was for small organizations - we have upwards of 2000 TN's over about 25 sites with mini carrier remotes, i9150's, SRG's.

With Avaya Aura, I am really confused about the differences between Session Manager vs. System Manager and all the gateways we seem to need. And confused about what can or can't be virtualized (I'm old school - I like jumper wire and punchdowns).

I'm doing lots of searching online and trying to figure it all out.

We will probably have to go to RFP as well with AVAYA being the manufacturer and then getting a local vendor for installation / configuration / maintenance.

Oh joy! Two more years until retirement!

 

[KCFLHRC]

System Manager is the the GUI basically for Session Manager. Kind of like the interface for all components including the CS1K Elements. Session Manager is your SIP Gateway. Once Session Manager is configured you could unplug System Manager if you wanted and Session Manager will continue to work. If you are doing H323 you will have to convert to SIP or keep NRS also, but that solution is not Avaya supported but it does work. The IP Office Server Edition is Large enough for your needs, but you would have to convert all of your Nortel IP phones to SIP. And if you had digital Nortel phones they would have to be changed out. So, like I said earlier, if it says Avaya, it will be painful. Their support is horrible.

 

[fataldata]

If you have physical servers each one of them will be running an instance of System Manager over which the VM's for Communication Mgr, Aura Messaging etc... are installed. You would log into the System Manager IP if you wanted to change license files for instance. Last I heard everything but CMS was capable of being virtualized which was the direction my last job was going, however if you virtualize Avaya requires dedicating processor and memory resources for it to be supported so in essence this negates the benefits of virtualization if you are trying to use one VSphere for multiple applications. When I pressed some of my vendors they mentioned that locations that virtualized usually dedicated a complete vm system for the phones alone.

As for Gateways, you only need them if you want a survivable site (LSP) or you need TDM resources for trunking, digital or analog lines.

I worked on Avaya for 15 years from G3r to Aura 6.0 on S8700's and trying to learn Nortel Meridian Option 81c v3.0 has been challenging for me, not being able to change set types with out removing the tn first, having to learn all the 4 letter abbreviations for the cli and not being able to backspace in the cli are driving me up the wall. Ahh well we have to learn sometime, rant over.

 

[madwok]

Hi,

We are slowly migrating our cs1k over aura (virtual vpod environment).
We first built our sip tie trunk between cs1k and session mgr and migrated cs1k dn over by creating cdp using dsc steering codes and aar on aura cm side. It is not fun but manageable and it gives us time to move in our own pace. We all know that cs1k is a dead end (no flame, plz) and like it or not, adapt or be left behind. Honestly, avaya is more user friendly to administer than cs1k ( even with element manager front end, imho. Both has good and weak part but for avaya is more open, at least on the 3 rd party intergration.

My 2 cents

 

[TDunne]

Hi,
I'm not sure if this post will be deemed inappropriate, but I think it's relevant for anyone planning or in the throes of an upgrade/migrate from legacy Nortel or CS1000 systems to Aura and Communication Manager. Particularly if it's a migration over months or years. We have tried help users migrate by further developing our MACs software, PhoneMaster (originally for Meridian and CS1000 systems), to allow you to continue to manage existing Nortel or CS1000 and your new CM all through the same interface. It can even help with the telephone set migration, where you can copy selected telephones from the source telephone system to the target telephone system, preserving extension numbers and names,and using a user-defined Transformation Profile to map features and keys from the source system to equivalent features and keys on the target system. You can migrate a single telephone, a group or all telephones. But the big advantage is the fact it's the same interface, so a minimal learning curve. Anyway, I hope this may be helpful.