v10.5 UC products in home lab

Hi all,

As I am starting to build up my virtualised CCIE collab lab in my head, i ran into a potential issue and want to see if anyone else has an opinion on the matter.

I will be running v10.5 of CUCM, CUC, IMP and UCCX 10.0. At time of install on ESXi I will take a snapshot so that I have a baseline status for labs etc. Now, from what i've been told is that they come with a 60-day trial/demo license. My issue is that if I take a snapshot, will this be time stamped such that if I try to continue my work after the 60-day point it will fail due to expiration?

I don't really want to have to re-install and build approx 8 servers every 2 months from scratch.

I hope the above makes sense... its been a long tiring week, but if anyone has any input that could steer me to the right side of the tracks it would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

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Comments

gorebrush

I get what you mean... I don't know how these things are installed, but when do you apply any trial license? Is there a point in the installation where it needs to be applied? The only other problem with this is if the serial numbers (if any) are time sensitive, i.e. issued to only work in those 60 days where you had it given to you.

Changing clocks everywhere would be interesting, though in a lab environment you could always setup a Linux VM as an NTP server and totally fiddle the time.............

Alex90

I'm sure you can restore from the snapshot once the license has expired. I've never do it myself but maybe something like this (Mark Holloway's blog) can be of help:

"When installing CUCM 9 you are required to use an ELM server for licensing. This may be a separate VM instance or the ELM that gets installed on the Publisher server (easiest). Unlike previous versions of CUCM, there are no free DLU’s for CUCM 9. The system will operate in demo mode for 60 days. After 60 days you must rebuild your lab by reinstalling the Unified Communications applications. If you visit the Cisco Demo site there is a process for obtaining a 6 month demo license. Make sure to take VMWare Snapshots of your platforms after installing the demo license but before starting your practice labs. That way you can revert to a fresh system that is already licensed"

keenon

i do have some products that are time licensed. my esxi server doesn't have ntp enabled and i don't ever leave it running outside of me using it. which i have some products that still have working licenses even after all that time

cisco_nerd

out of the box it will run in 'demo mode' for 60 days, at the 60 day point the ability to add/delete devices will be deactivated and then from the ELM a new license needs to be applied to the UCs.

From the blog post that Alex90 has provided, it seems that without purchasing the 6 month demo license, I will have to re-install the whole UC environment at the 2 month mark which will really kill any momentum.

gorebrush you raise an interesting point that I didn't think of. I am not sure if the serial numbers will be locked against that instance of the license or not. I guess setting up a Linux VM and set it to be the NTP for the whole lab, with a cron script to reset the time by 1 month each month... so that time essentially stands still... but then would this affect the CDR/CMR reporting etc and CUC? or for a lab environment would this effect be manageable?

it seems that i need to do some experimenting to find out exactly how this all works, and at the same time research the cost of getting the 6 month demo license.

cisco_nerd

keenon wrote: »

i do have some products that are time licensed. my esxi server doesn't have ntp enabled and i don't ever leave it running outside of me using it. which i have some products that still have working licenses even after all that time

hi keenon,

do you use an NTP server at all in the lab? Or do you just disable it on the ESXi with every thing else pointing elsewhere?

I know that CUCM etc all need to use an NTP especially for SIP devices and CDR/CMR purposes so that everything matches up nicely.