CM R7.1.2 - from scratch

[corre44]

Hello,
We haven't had much contact with R7.x yet.
So far most of our customers have been doing fine with 6.3 but that's now about to change.
Hence we decided to give R7.x a try on our lab but we can't quite understand how it all works.
Right now we're not interested in ESXi, AWS or KVM. All we want is to install a R7.x system based on AVP instead of the former VSP and with CM, CMM and US all manager from our laptop which is running SDM client.
Our hardware is a G430, an S8300D and an MM710B.
So far we were able to install AVP on the S8300D and we can reach it on the 192.168.13.6 using SDM client.
But now we're trying to install CM's OVA but it says the system is lacking the US vm installed...
So now we tried to first install the US vm using it's OVA but we ended up with an error message stating:
"Error Code-CONNECTION_NOT_ESTABLISHED:: The VM was started but a network connection could not be established to it, this may indicate a network issue between this system and the VM or the VM may not have deployed successfully. Please check the network configuration and the VM status from its management interface if connection can be made."

Also we're trying to find documentation on how the whole system is deployed (first AVP, then US, then CM, etc) but we can't find anything on the documentation.
CM's documentation is just about CM and doesn't refer to the other vm's you need to have.
AVP's documentation is also just about AVP's installation and it doesn't cover CM/US installation.
The R6.x was integrated, it mentioned the installation of VSP and then it mentioned the installation of the system platform templates.

Could anyone shed some light on this subject, please?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers

[corre44]

Hi. Thanks for your reply.
I also thought the S8300D wouldn't have enough resources and wouldn't be in the compliance list of servers.
But that's not what you can find in this manual...

https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/101038459

Thanks.

Cheers

[mcgin15]

Have you tried using the CM 7.1.2 iso instead of the ova?

[corre44]

No, I've only tried the OVA.
Why would I try the ISO? I mean, for starters, is there even an ISO? I thought CM 7.0 was only available as OVA appliance for either AVP, VMware ESXi, KVM or AWS.
Never seen any reference to any ISO for CM 7...
Cheers

[mcgin15]

You are right. I guess i'm living in system platform days. Just a thought, have you upgraded the gateway firmware? I doubt that is the problem but you never know.

[corre44]

Yep. My G430 is running g430_sw_39_5_0.bin.
And I have tried with g430_sw_38_18_0.bin too but to no avail. :-(
Cheers

[corre44]

Sorry for the double-post but I (still?) can't edit my posts.
What puzzles me the most is that Avaya is usually very strong with the documentation and with R7.x to me it seems to me that there's a lot of stuff simply missing or very badly explained.
For instance, most of the documentation just focuses on the HP/DELL common servers and provides very little explaining on the S8300D/E.

Can't find any information on how the whole system should be installed. Like AVP first, then US, then CM, then other apps or something like that.

AVP installation on the S8300D/E is completely blind folded. The documentation doesn't provide any information on how to control through telnet/ssh/web how AVP's installation is going on in the background. It seems like it either works in 30 minutes or if you can't ping 192.168.13.6 on the services port of the S8300D/E after 30 minutes, something went wrong but you don't know what that was.

This just doesn't seem like what Avaya usually provides us with Aura products...

Cheers

[hurdk]

I have had no issues installing 7.1.2 on an 8300D. Once the AVP is installed and you accept the license. you can deploy the utility server. I would upgrade the US before deploying the CM but that's just me. Keep in mind once you install the AVP 7.1.2 you will now be in license error mode and have to install the license for AVP to continue. If you are looking to avoid this then I would install the 7.0 and all the OVA's then upgrade the AVP to 7.1.2. Again, you will need to license it or it will keep hitting you with popups about the license.

If anyone has gotten around that do share......I am only talking about lab environment for testing...

[lecle4]

utility server needs to be the first VM deployed on any AVP host..

[corre44]

I have had no issues installing 7.1.2 on an 8300D. Once the AVP is installed and you accept the license. you can deploy the utility server. I would upgrade the US before deploying the CM but that's just me.

Thanks for your reply. Good to know that somebody can testify that this works.
I was beginning to think that somehow R7.1.2 wouldn't work on such an old and underperformant server such as the S8300D.
But tell me, how did you install the utility server without getting an error message such as the one that I mentioned above?
Here's a link to the message:

https://imgur.com/a/QCeBOTY

Keep in mind once you install the AVP 7.1.2 you will now be in license error mode and have to install the license for AVP to continue. If you are looking to avoid this then I would install the 7.0 and all the OVA's then upgrade the AVP to 7.1.2. Again, you will need to license it or it will keep hitting you with popups about the license.

I see...
Well this is only for lab purposes. We just want to get a grasp of the process so that we're prepared when our customers start moving into R7.x.

utility server needs to be the first VM deployed on any AVP host..

I can see that now. But that's not easy to understand from the CM documentation.
We are now reading the documentation for System Manager and on that one it is more clear that we need to deply US before anything else.
Also, we can't find much information on the G4x0 configuration, on how to setup it's ethernet ports, on why there is now an Out Of Band Management, on the best practices to setup OOBM, etc.
We're in a maze because we have several small guides but we don't have the master guide to tell us on which guide to start and which guides to follow that one.

Thank you both for your replies.
Cheers

[corre44]

Okay, I think I've got it.
We've been trying to deploy the VM's from the SDM client on our laptop connected to the S8300D services port.
Today we happened to connect the laptop on one of the LAN ports on the G430 and suddenly the US has installed with no issues.
I mean, other than that we haven't done anything any different so we are confident that we spotted the issue.
The question is: is there anything on the documentation stating that the VM's deployment has to be done on the LAN and cannot be done on the services port of the server?
Cheers

[hurdk]

I can tell you that when I preload in the lab I use a simple layer 3 switch and mimic the customers network and use a connection to the DL360 and or MG4x0 to deply my software.

After the AVP is installed I can use SDM to load US which usually completes no issue,. I then install CM next and then the rest of my OVA's depending on the server type.

I have a WEBLM ova I run and redeploy as needed to set the SMGR/WEBLM address of the actual customers address and host the license there unitl I complete the preload and config then I will rehost to the customers when on site.

I do this to burn in my hardware and run a number of reboots to make sure I have no hardware /software issues. Then Its a simple rack and stack and or install/cutover.