CUCM BE 8 on VMWare

It has been a while sinced I blogged. Before I start, in case you are wondering how different am I compared to the many sites out there like blindhog.net or sadikhov or even UCCert, well you figure it out.

I just got hold of CUCM BE 8. So I decided to give it a go at installing it.

Guess what! It failed just like the previous version for 7.1.2.It seems that the hardware detection code put in place earlier is also in effect for v8. Darn! So after some trial and errors and some guidance I finally got it working!!! It had been killing me to figure this problem out. Trust me I tried everything there was on the NET. It was like I was pulled closer and closer to the "DARK SIDE" aka smashing my keyboard- where are you Obi Wan Kenobi at my desperate times, I need the FORCE as guidance.

Kinda busy tonight to finish this story. Gonna continue tomorrow. Keep watching same time same website - as I tell you how I tamed this beast. :) Videos and pictures will be coming your way!!!

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Day Two

Ok! Here is the thing. As usual everyone goes about installing the BE with the same specs as CUCM, which is a 80GB SCSI hard disk, 2GB RAM and Red Hat Ent 4 VMWARE config.

Whamm!! That's where we go wrong. The new hardware detection code uses this hardware config you just inserted and compares it against the closest approved list of hardware known to it. Our normal config does not meet any of the approved hardware list for BE to work.

To cut a long story short, so what is the approved config in VMWARE which will allow me to install:
Here is one of them:

RAM = 6GB -> Yes that is huge...I hope you are on a 8GB Machine or be ready to upgrade.
Hard Disk = 200GB / 250GB SCSI - both works  (SCSI only, they stopped IDE from 7.1 onwards)
CPU = 2 vCPU -> yes 2 vCPU vs the normal 1 we usually use. Time to get a i5 or i7 processors people.
VmWare profile = RedHat Ent v4. -> no change here.

Below is the video I recorded, where you will notice towards the end you will be given the option to choose CUCMBE v8 installation option. Previously with the old config this option is always greyed out and you have notice saying that the hardware is not approved for BE installation.