asterisk users - Aug 2009 - Asterisk in VMWare, how does it perform and what is the limit?

Hi,
I'm coming up with ideas about building a cluster of asterisk servers,
and am exploring the virtualization option.
I'm curious to know some real-world data about how many extensions a
VMWare install on good hardware could support.
I've seen stories about how the hypervisor timeslicing can wreak havoc
on call quality at some point.
Is this really the case? If so, what's a feasible extension limit? 20? 50?
100?

Any information would be great.

Thanks.

-- James

It depends on processor capability, disk access time and bandwidth.  You
will need to dedicate slices of disk and bandwidth for each machine. A
"realworld" scenario of worst case would be this:
You get sucky throughput on VM2 because 3 or 4 folks are monitoring calls or
using voicemail on VM1.

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of James Lamanna
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 10:47 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk in VMWare,how does it perform and what is
the limit?

Hi,
I'm coming up with ideas about building a cluster of asterisk servers,
and am exploring the virtualization option.
I'm curious to know some real-world data about how many extensions a
VMWare install on good hardware could support.
I've seen stories about how the hypervisor timeslicing can wreak havoc
on call quality at some point.
Is this really the case? If so, what's a feasible extension limit? 20? 50?
100?

Any information would be great.

Thanks.

-- James

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been testing with Sun VirtualBox  and i managed more than 30 extensions on a
2GHz Dual core machine with 1 GB ram for the VBOX.. just not running recodring
or encoding .. things went well

--
AHD Tarek Sawah
----------------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 08:47:03 -0700
> From: jlamanna at gmail.com
> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> Subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk in VMWare, how does it perform and what
is the limit?
>
> Hi,
> I'm coming up with ideas about building a cluster of asterisk servers,
> and am exploring the virtualization option.
> I'm curious to know some real-world data about how many extensions a
> VMWare install on good hardware could support.
> I've seen stories about how the hypervisor timeslicing can wreak havoc
> on call quality at some point.
> Is this really the case? If so, what's a feasible extension limit? 20?
50? 100?
>
> Any information would be great.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -- James
>
> _______________________________________________
> -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
>
> AstriCon 2009 - October 13 - 15 Phoenix, Arizona
> Register Now: http://www.astricon.net
>
> asterisk-users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync.
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=PID23384::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:NF_BR_sync:082009

Talk to damin AT nacs.net (he's on this mailinglist)

Zoaaa

James Lamanna wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm coming up with ideas about building a cluster of asterisk servers,
> and am exploring the virtualization option.
> I'm curious to know some real-world data about how many extensions a
> VMWare install on good hardware could support.
> I've seen stories about how the hypervisor timeslicing can wreak havoc
> on call quality at some point.
> Is this really the case? If so, what's a feasible extension limit? 20?
50? 100?
>
> Any information would be great.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -- James
>
> _______________________________________________
> -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
>
> AstriCon 2009 - October 13 - 15 Phoenix, Arizona
> Register Now: http://www.astricon.net
>
> asterisk-users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 11:47 AM, James Lamanna<jlamanna at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm coming up with ideas about building a cluster of asterisk servers,
> and am exploring the virtualization option.
> I'm curious to know some real-world data about how many extensions a
> VMWare install on good hardware could support.
> I've seen stories about how the hypervisor timeslicing can wreak havoc
> on call quality at some point.
> Is this really the case? If so, what's a feasible extension limit? 20?
50? 100?
>
> Any information would be great.
So VMWare messes around with clock timing.
This is a Bad Thing if you're trying to do things that rely on
faithful timing, such as audio mixing for a MeetMe conference room.

If you're only doing very simple things like playing messages or
ordinary bridged two-way phone calls it probably wouldn't be as bad.

If call quality matters, at all, I wouldn't go that route. If managing
a real server with asterisk is too hard for your data center, may I
humbly suggest an asterisk appliance?

>On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 11:47 AM, James Lamanna<jlamanna at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I'm coming up with ideas about building a cluster of asterisk
servers,
>> and am exploring the virtualization option.
>> I'm curious to know some real-world data about how many extensions
a
>> VMWare install on good hardware could support.
>> I've seen stories about how the hypervisor timeslicing can wreak
havoc
>> on call quality at some point.
>> Is this really the case? If so, what's a feasible extension limit?
20? 50? 100?
>>
>> Any information would be great.
> So VMWare messes around with clock timing.
> This is a Bad Thing if you're trying to do things that rely on
> faithful timing, such as audio mixing for a MeetMe conference room.
>
> If you're only doing very simple things like playing messages or
> ordinary bridged two-way phone calls it probably wouldn't be as bad.
>
> If call quality matters, at all, I wouldn't go that route. If managing
> a real server with asterisk is too hard for your data center, may I
> humbly suggest an asterisk appliance?
Managing a server isn't the problem, I'm just looking to explore all
solutions.
If the call quality issues are that bad on vmware, then it is a
non-starter in my book,
especially trying to support the number of extensions I have now (I
have 500 at the moment).

Thanks.

-- James