FYI, not sure if it's of use to you... but... The digium tc400b is a
transcoder card that can offload upto 120 channels of transcoding for g729
<-> ulaw... It's available as PCI only, but, if that's OK, it
could be an alternative to replacing your server... G729 licenses are not needed
when using that card...
There have been posts by some people about having multiple CPU machines but
finding that asterisk's load wasn't spread over those CPUs very well...
I'm not sure if they had something special happening that caused their
symptoms, but, from your dual core machine you should be able to see whether or
not the load is already being spread across the 2 cores OK with your workload...
d
2009/3/27 Mike <list at virtutel.ca>
Thanks that`s great info, and I've already subscribed to the HA mailing
list.
I understand call handling takes little CPU, but half my calls are
transcoded from ulaw to g729 and vice versa. That seems to take my single
CPU, dual-core 2.5Ghz machine up to ~35% CPU utilization. I imagine
doubling what happens on my server would take me dangerously close to the
upper limit of good call quality.
Am I complete off?
Mike
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-
> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of David Backeberg
> Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 18:40
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk multi-cpu
>
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Mike <list at virtutel.ca> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I know somebody is going to give me the link to the wiki hardware
pages,
> but
> > I can't find the answer there. I'd like to know if, for an
Asterisk only
> > system (nothing else of note running on it), I get a real gain from
> having 2
> > CPUs.
> >
> > Does the amount of traffic/SIP registrations/codec translation
possible
> > doubles with 2 CPUs? (each quad core E5420 to be precise)? Does it
> increase
> > by 50%? It is only a marginal increase, or none at all?
>
> You don't say anything about your possible kind of usage, so it's
> difficult to provide any specific answer to your question. In general,
> a few things are true:
> * asterisk is multi-threaded
> * linux kernel has nice job schedulers and i/o schedulers
> * if you have more ram, more things will get cached in ram
> * if you have more cpus / cores you can do more things at once as long
> as they aren't all idle waiting for some resource constraint
>
> You need to run a LOT of traffic through a server if it's just
> straight call handling, with a minimum of disk-bound i/o or
> transcoding, before you're going to max out modern hardware. So just
> buy the best server you want to buy, but save some money for a good
> warranty, or buy two servers if that's cheaper than what it would cost
> to be down.
>
> If you want more in-depth discussions on this you probably would
> prefer the asterisk-ha-clustering list:
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-ha-clustering
>
> _______________________________________________
> -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
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> asterisk-users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
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<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Thanks.=C2=A0 I am "forced" to change
servers anyways, so
I'm starting from scratch, which gives me the benefit of allowing me to plan
things exactly as I want them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>I was hoping to avoid the TC400B until the server itself
was
almost under strain, at which point I`d put one (or two) of those in to relieve
it.=C2=A0 But what I really wanted to know if whether I'd go with a single
quad-core
or two.=C2=A0 Two isn't that much more expensive (not if it makes Asterisk
process
twice as much stuff) but if it doesn't add anything, I'd rather avoid
this extra
~800$ per server.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>As for my specific needs: I am adding users/transcoded
channels to
this server regularly, so I do see it being not powerful enough
eventually.=C2=A0
That's why I am planning without giving any hard values: the most powerful
(for
the buck) the better it is.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Mike<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style=3D'border:none;border-left:solid blue 1.5pt;padding:0in 0in
0in 4.0pt'>
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<div style=3D'border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt
0in 0in 0in'>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><b><span
style=3D'font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style=3D'font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] <b>On Behalf Of
</b>D Tucny<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, March 27, 2009 0:42<br>
<b>To:</b> Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial
Discussion<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk
multi-cpu<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal style=3D'margin-bottom:12.0pt'>From your
figures, it would
appear that if you double the load you will be potentially starting to see
problems... <br>
<br>
FYI, not sure if it's of use to you... but... The digium tc400b is a
transcoder
card that can offload upto 120 channels of transcoding for g729
<->
ulaw... It's available as PCI only, but, if that's OK, it could be an
alternative to replacing your server... G729 licenses are not needed when using
that card...<br>
<br>
There have been posts by some people about having multiple CPU machines but
finding that asterisk's load wasn't spread over those CPUs very well...
I'm not
sure if they had something special happening that caused their symptoms, but,
from your dual core machine you should be able to see whether or not the load
is already being spread across the 2 cores OK with your workload...<br>
<br>
d<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal>2009/3/27 Mike <<a href=3D"mailto:list
at virtutel.ca">list at
virtutel.ca</a>><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal>Thanks that`s great info, and I've already
subscribed to the
HA mailing<br>
list.<br>
<br>
I understand call handling takes little CPU, but half my calls are<br>
transcoded from ulaw to g729 and vice versa. That seems to take my
single<br>
CPU, dual-core 2.5Ghz machine up to ~35% CPU utilization. I
imagine<br>
doubling what happens on my server would take me dangerously close to
the<br>
upper limit of good call quality.<br>
<br>
Am I complete off?<br>
<span style=3D'color:#888888'><br>
Mike</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><br>
> -----Original Message-----<br>
> From: <a href=3D"mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at
lists.digium.com">asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com</a>
[mailto:<a
href=3D"mailto:asterisk-users-">asterisk-users-</a><br>
> <a href=3D"mailto:bounces at lists.digium.com">bounces
at lists.digium.com</a>] On
Behalf Of David Backeberg<br>
> Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 18:40<br>
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion<br>
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk multi-cpu<br>
><br>
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Mike <<a
href=3D"mailto:list at virtutel.ca">list at
virtutel.ca</a>>
wrote:<br>
> > Hi,<br>
> ><br>
> > I know somebody is going to give me the link to the wiki
hardware
pages,<br>
> but<br>
> > I can't find the answer there. I'd like to know if,
for an Asterisk
only<br>
> > system (nothing else of note running on it), I get a real gain
from<br>
> having 2<br>
> > CPUs.<br>
> ><br>
> > Does the amount of traffic/SIP registrations/codec translation
possible<br>
> > doubles with 2 CPUs? (each quad core E5420 to be precise)?
Does it<br>
> increase<br>
> > by 50%? It is only a marginal increase, or none at
all?<br>
><br>
> You don't say anything about your possible kind of usage, so
it's<br>
> difficult to provide any specific answer to your question. In
general,<br>
> a few things are true:<br>
> * asterisk is multi-threaded<br>
> * linux kernel has nice job schedulers and i/o schedulers<br>
> * if you have more ram, more things will get cached in ram<br>
> * if you have more cpus / cores you can do more things at once as
long<br>
> as they aren't all idle waiting for some resource
constraint<br>
><br>
> You need to run a LOT of traffic through a server if it's
just<br>
> straight call handling, with a minimum of disk-bound i/o or<br>
> transcoding, before you're going to max out modern hardware. So
just<br>
> buy the best server you want to buy, but save some money for a
good<br>
> warranty, or buy two servers if that's cheaper than what it would
cost<br>
> to be down.<br>
><br>
> If you want more in-depth discussions on this you probably
would<br>
> prefer the asterisk-ha-clustering list:<br>
> <a
href=3D"http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-ha-clustering"
target=3D"_blank">http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-ha-clustering</a><br>
><br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
> -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by <a
href=3D"http://www.api-digital.com"
target=3D"_blank">http://www.api-digital.com</a>
--<br>
><br>
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> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:<br>
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