System requirements and ViciBox

[oliverm]

Hi

Does anyone have examples of the system requirements for certain number of agents or calls? We are looking at putting Vicidial in place for a client and we want to know whether to spec out a separate server or whether it can be installed on the new FreePBX (centos) based server we are putting in for them.

Also, if we did use a dedicated server for Vicidial is the ViciBox Server ISO production-ready?

Olly

[williamconley]

Vicidial does not install with FreePBX or share well with any other asterisk based front end.

Vicidial's .iso is very production ready as evidenced by hundreds of users world-wide.

Rule of thumb is 25 users per Dialer (assuming something in the realm of a 2.3 Ghz Core2Quad with 2G RAM). Do NOT assume that 8 cores will increase your capacity noticeably. The 25 users rule of thumb (believe it or not) still applies. If you are recording all calls or using a compression codec or dialing more than 2.5 channels per agent (or any one of several other exceptions to the norm ...) this may reduce the number of agents per dialer.

Vicidial systems may be Clustered which requires a single DB server with as many Admin Web/Agent Web/Agent Conference/Carrier Trunk servers as you care to attach to it (depending on the power of the DB server of course). Most installations simply have a single DB server with a couple "combo" Web/Dialer boxes to achieve 50 agents easily. Any server in the cluster may assume any role (when properly installed) except DB server which is expected to always be The DB Server (there can be only one of that role).

Happy Hunting.

[oliverm]

Hi

Thanks for that.

We need to accommodate 150 users so thats about 7 servers. That's quite a few.

Could we use virtual machines in your opinion? We could put in place one 16 way or 2 8 way servers and allocate a core or two to each virtual machine with a few GB of ram each.

Any opinions?

Olly

[williamconley]

No virtual machines. You lose capacity by adding the word virtual. In an excellently designed system an 8 core Virtual system will handle less than a Dual Core system that's physical.

But you could get away with 4 servers ... it is quite personal to how much you use each type of process (recording, transcoding, etc). It is certainly possible to power up the servers to get more agents on each one, but the calculations necessary to get a "real" idea of how many agents will fit on a server generally cost more than the server (and still cannot be truly relied upon until YOU load them up and use them the way you intend to use them ... no matter what any smart person on this site says!). And remember that using servers at 8 cores each running 3.4 Ghz with a 1333Mhz FSB and 15K SAS drive instead of a more "stock/inexpensive" server will easily triple your price for double the server. So it's a matter of how you look at it, really. Bang for the buck and all that. And avoid "bleeding edge" because the drivers may not be on the latest .iso release if you get a motherboard that has only been on the market for a few months. We like off-lease servers and stock Core2Quad boxes is what we build for our ordinary call center boxes.