collabboy

Bypass CUCM/Unity hardware check I was trying to install the UC 8.6.1 suite on my VMware ESXi.  I'm pretty savvy at VMware and UC, thus I didn't bother to download the OVA template from Cisco.  I created a VM with 75G hard drive and 2G RAM. I had no problem getting UCM installed.  However, when it came to Unity Connection, I realized that the option was not presented on  screen like it did in previous versions (see below). Maybe there's some magic in the OVA template.  So let's download it. Open up the OVA file with Notepad.  You'll see that the minimum hardware requirement is 4G RAM and 160G hard disk. If you're just testing it in the lab and want to save some hard disk space, you may choose "Thin Provision" while deploying the OVA.  VMware will dynamically allocate space as needed up to 160G.  ie. if the initial install occupies 75G, it'll only takes 75G physical space (even though the hard disk "looks like" 160G)

Make a non-bootable ISO image bootable For whatever reason, Cisco only post "non-bootable" ISO images on CCO for download. In some urgent situations, you might need a bootable disc to recover the system (or your client/boss would shoot you in the head). Here's the procedure to make a non-bootable ISO image bootable. Before you continue, be aware that this procedure is NOT approved by Cisco. Neither Cisco nor I will be responsible for any loss caused by this.  Any bootable disc has to follow " El Torito " specification. No exception for Cisco discs. The only difference between a bootable disc and non-bootable disc is the "boot sector". Thus the solution is very simple - extract the boot sector from a bootable disc and inject it into a non-bootable disc. The boot sector is a very small file (usually less than 10k). And the boot sector is  usually  content independent (i.e. you may extract the boot sector from CUCM 7.1.3 and inject it into 7.1.5).