Licensing Question

[NJohnson]

We have an existing 3CX Pro V18 Windows install that is on an older ESXi host server. We have new server infrastructure in place in a newly built server room that is in a different building on campus and on a different network. The existing 3CX install is older and has a ton of exensions/IVRs/etc. that are no longer in use and it is currently using a Patton SmartNode to interface back to our local telco on a PRI circuit. We have already purchased a SIP trunk from our local telco and I have tested it with another 3CX installation at a remote campus in town and it works fine. What needs to happen is we need to move our primary and current 3CX V18 installation to the new server, fresh install, with a new IP and SIP trunk configuration. So, my thought is that I can spin up the new VM on the new host server with V20 Linux installation using the free 3CX license I got earlier this year to test V20 with (that I never got around to actually doing). I then can take a week and rebuild the configuration from scratch that way I have a nice and clean server config. I can go ahead and connect to the SIP trunk I purchased from our local telco which already has one of our un-used DIDs on it and can do all the testing I want before "flipping the switch". Then when I'm ready, I can just update our internal firewall/router to point to the new IP, reboot the phones to pick up the change and be back in business. My question is that I'm assuming that 3CX won't let me use the FQDN that is currently in use with the existing V18 installation (we'll call it phone1.xyz.com), so if I use another FQDN (we'll can it phones.xyz.com) with the free license and do all my building of the config, can I swap it over to the pro license that I have on the current sever using the original FQDN phone1.xyz.com? It's not the end of the world if I have to keep the new FQDN, I would just have the users who use the mobile app re-register using the new QR code on their extension. I'm just curious if my proposed migration plan is feasible or is there a better way to go about a major server/version/IP/FQDN change.

 

[Alphabetic]

Im not entirely sure (or convinced) that replacing the license on your trial key would swap out both license and FQDN and trying to replace your license with a key thats already got an FQDN assigned would probably fail so you'd have to release your FQDN and try.. However, I couldnt guarantee that would work as i've never done it and the official stance on changing your FQDN on v20 is to reinstall the PBX and start from fresh. As you may or may not know you will need ENT edition of 3CX to run on v20 on Windows so you're best off moving to the Debian ISO on your new server. Changing your IP should be fairly straight forward.. Could you not get set up as your are in your v18 and then backup, turn off and restore?

 

[NJohnson]

I am aware that in order to stay on Windows, I need a ENT license (unfortunately), so I was already planning on the move to Debian. I tried a V2V migration of the existing ESXi VM of my current 3CX installation over to our new Hyper-V infrastructure and that broke something internally in 3CX. I think it was hung up on the network interface change, but that's a completely separate conversation. So, since my original post, I've had a dozen different scenarios run though my head and I think my best option would be along the lines of your suggestion, to upgrade to V20 first, and then migrate to the new hardware/network/SIP trunk a few days later just to give me some time to iron out any hiccups I might have with the upgrade. Our phones are the biggest part of our business and my thought was to try and minimize any downtime and any potential risk of an outage, but I think a two phase migration would be better than doing all that extra work.