Upgrading from 6.3 to8.x

[Vidmine]

We are in the decision process of upgrading from 6.3 to 8.x.
Moving over to VM's we will keep our gateways and bring them up to the latest version in the upgrade.
In the past I would not upgrade or patch myself due to the complexity and my lack of knowledge.
How has patching and upgrades changed? Is it any more user friendly?

 

[phoneguy55]

Its not any easier IMO. In fact, the docs are now worse so one could make an argument thats its more difficult. My suggestion is to build everything in a lab with 6.3 and do the upgrade to 8 to learn the process. Its very doable, you just need to do it once without any pressure of a production system.

 

[Vidmine]

Thanks, My plan is to let my vendor do the upgrade from 6.3 to 8.
I am wondering about going forward with patches.
Is it more user friendly patching after upgrading to 8 vs the patching process in 6.3

 

[avayaguy23]

My recommendation is setting up a lab with 6.3 and then upgrade to 8. Ensure you are following the compatibility matrix. For instance, AAM 7.1 does not support system/session manager 6.3. Lots of "gotchas" in upgrading and version 8 is still very buggy.

 

[avayaguy23]

Also, if you are setting these up as VMs on your own vmware environment make sure you trust your vmware environment. Another thing to keep in mind is you have to follow the Avaya documentation exactly. You will need to force your VM team to give you dedicated VM resources which they do not normally like doing. It is required for Avaya. You also have to look at supporting VMotion and HA.

 

[phoneguy55]

patching is just as easy in system platform as it is in SDM via SMGR. Its just different.