Upgrading Definity

[nunzeo]

This may be a difficult question to ask on the board but I figured I'd give it a shot. We have an older type of Definity running at a version somewhere below V3. I am a newer techie and have only delt with anything from R6 and up. My question is how hard is it to upgrade a system? I have never upgraded a Definity before. Partner systems I have which are easy as cake. But a Definity scares me. Is it possible to purchase all the necessary upgrade equipment from (lets say Avaya) and do it yourself. I have upgraded plenty of Windows servers and I figured it can't be that hard to upgrade a PBX. Can anyone give me advice?

Thanks, nunzeo.

 

[bwilch]

I believe you would have to be an Authorized Avaya Dealer or buy the licenses from an Authorized Avaya Dealer. If that's the case, it would almost be worth checking with a local Business Partner and check out what their installation costs would be. I believe you have to go with Com Manager which requires a change of a couple of cards. For the "insurance" factor of if something goes wrong, I would rather have a BP do it than do it myself, but that's just me.

Typically someone could dial into your switch, pull 3 or 4 reports and put together the config for the upgrade. They have to look at licensing such as your station ports, trunk ports, which features are turned on etc.

I know this isn't detailed, but hopefully it gives you insight for a start.

 

[mikeydidit]

I too would let Avaya or a Avaya business partner do this upgrade. It is very involved to match the hardware requirements to the software requirements. It is different with every version as well. You may even find that with your system being so out dated that it may be more than your company is willing to spend on this upgrade. And like bwilch stated, their is also the licensing and insurance factor that you should defiantly consider as well.

Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[orypecos]

First thing u need to do is find out what kind of system u have. Do "newterm" from the command line. Depending on the hardware u may have to do a 'forklift upgrade", meaning the cabinet needs to be changed, depending on what u want to upgrade to. Most of the time the cards can be moved to the new cabinet.
As said before, call Avaya sales and have them dial in and do a quote with all the info of what u have and what it is going to take. Then u can figure if u want to do it. While at AVaya, I assisted customers upgrading their own equipment, but don't know the particulars of it.
Part of the question is 'why do u want to upgrade?"
If it is features then what minimun of upgrade will get up what u need. Many upgrades in Definity mean that first u have to upgrade to one level, then upgrade to the next. U can't upgrade directly to the level that u want.

 

[a1bandit]

Using my favorite motto: "It's easy if you know it". Actually if you are going from R6 and earlier to the current release of CM2 then you WILL have problems upgrading. Due to the significant changes from R6 to CM2 in the dialplan the translation fails when you boot from the old flashcard (I believe it said I had a "translation corruption"). You have to do a two step upgrade, getting at least to an R7, before you can go to CM2. Of course, you must have an Rx processor and associated netcon boards (sandwitch boards) that match the hardware requirements for the interum upgrade. There are also possible Bus Terminator and TDM cable issues that need to be looked at on the older releases. In summary, the R6 and earlier upgrades are not as straight forward as a normal upgrade and I'd suggest getting someone that knows what they are doing or working closely with someone to get you through it.

 

[nunzeo]

thanks for all your insight gentleman. the reason i am looking to upgrade is the fact that our system is no longer supported by avaya. and i am looking to get a maintenance agreement with them. the NEWTERM command did not work. all i know is that they system is in one of those large "refrigerator" type cabinets. we have a few spare G3si cabinets that are not being used but the sales person at Avaya said that they could not swap out the hardware to this cabinet during the upgrade. i wanted to save room by using a smaller cabinet. they said that all the translations would have to be configured, is that true? I was just curious on what i should do and I now feel that paying Avaya or a business partner to do something like this would be a better choice. thanks.

 

[bwilch]

Imagine switch the motherboard on a computer system. It's the same type of thought process, since you would be changing the backplane of the system. I would imagine there would be a bit of translations that would have to be made. If switching the cabinet the system resides in. I'm not positive, but pretty sure.

 

[Duaneness]

Check out

http://www.medak.com.

They have occasional upgrade specials, and they have great prices on maintenance.

- Duaneness

 

[bwilch]

If you're looking for a BP to help you out on this, I could see what we could do, if you want, you can drop me an email at bwilch(at)sbcglobal.net and I can see if we can help you any further.

 

[mikeydidit]

There are a couple of other ways to find the software version. When you first login to the switch it will show you the system and software version. Enter the login, then the password. At that point if they are both correct, it will show you this information. The other way is to type in "li con soft" This is list configuration software. That should give you the starting point, which is the current version that you are on.

Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[nunzeo]

I did the "li con soft" and it game me this:

Update file
Date:none
Old VIntage:none
Old Identifier:none
New Identifier:none

Software Vintage:
Memory Resident: G1.1A.a13.10
Tape Resident: G1.1A.a13.10
Patch Identifier:none
Patch State:no patch in memory

it does not give me the software version when i first log into the system.

nunzeo

 

[lopes1211]

Yikes. An old G1. Station and trunk packs are pretty much all you will reuse. The cabinet is trash.

-CL

 

[nunzeo]

yup. they would swap out the tone-clock and processor. do you know if it is possible to move everything to a G3si cabinet? that cabinet is way too big and takes up too much room.

nunzeo

 

[Dustinn3]

You could, but if you're gonna spend that kind of money, and want to save room you could swap everything to a 19" rack with some G650's and one of the new S8xxx's. Depending on how many stations you have and what type, you may have to upgrade to 24 port packs to save some room or if you have tons of 7400's this may not work. Limited to 4 G650's per port network I believe with 14 slots per cabinet. Might be a good time to go IP, they were giving out free universal licensing up to port count with upgrades to the new servers. It might save some money on the cabinets and packs, plus update your phones all at the same time.