Vicidial Structure

[asterguy]

Hi Gurus,

I got some questions about the structure of vicidial. Inline with it, I also want to ask if the following scenarios are possible.

Asterisk Version
#1. The latest stable release is using asterisk version 1.4. Can vicidial support asterisk versions 1.8 and 11? Are any development changes prior to these versions?

#2. Asterisk can be load tested using SIPp. Are there any tool to do the load testing in Vicidial? I saw in one of the posts here in vicidial forum about load runner of HP that can do this. Has anyone tried it?

#3. In a Multi Server Setup, is it possible for vicidial to have a setup of multiple vicidial(web server) to conenct on one asterisk server?

#4. Does vicidial support asterisk realtime?

#5. Has anyone tried to use any SIP proxy to work with Vicidial? example is Kamailio.


Sorry for asking too many questions.. I appreciate any comments and answers on my post.



Regards,
Lui

[mflorell]

1. The most recent svn/trunk codebase of Vicidial works fine with the latest Asterisk 1.8 release(1.8.21.0)

2. Vicidial has built-in load testing, see the PERFORMANCE_TESTING.txt doc for more details

3. Yes you can have multiple web servers work with a single Asterisk server, but you more often need multiple Asterisk servers to a single web server, since Apache scales better than Asterisk does.

4. We've never really had the need to try Asterisk Real-time, Vicidial has it's own dialplan control features built-in.

5. Vicidial works just fin with SIP Proxies, we use OpenSIPs as the core of our Vicihost service.

[asterguy]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the fast reply. I really appreciate it!

1. The most recent svn/trunk codebase of Vicidial works fine with the latest Asterisk 1.8 release(1.8.21.0)
- this is great, i can use the added features in 1.8 that are not in 1.2/1.4.

2. Vicidial has built-in load testing, see the PERFORMANCE_TESTING.txt doc for more details
- I have read the txt file. is the "controller server" the vicidial server or it's the test asterisk server that will connect to vicidial?

3. Yes you can have multiple web servers work with a single Asterisk server, but you more often need multiple Asterisk servers to a single web server, since Apache scales better than Asterisk does.
- In a multiple web server setup, what information is it sharing? Are there any information stored in a file system or all information are in the database? Assuming I will load balance the web servers.
- In a load balance setup, does it need sticky connections?

4. We've never really had the need to try Asterisk Real-time, Vicidial has it's own dialplan control features built-in.
- thanks!

5. Vicidial works just fin with SIP Proxies, we use OpenSIPs as the core of our Vicihost service.
- thanks! i'm using kamailio in a load balance setup but will check on opensips if it does better.


Best Regards,
Lui

[mflorell]

The control server can be the same as the vicidial-asterisk server, or you can set up a separate Asterisk server to act as a carrier.

The web connections do not have to be sticky or preserve sessions in a load-balanced setup.

Everything is stored in the database, except for the Audio Store files, you will need to define which web server runs the audio store in the System Settings.

[williamconley]

2. Vicidial has built-in load testing, see the PERFORMANCE_TESTING.txt doc for more details
- I have read the txt file. is the "controller server" the vicidial server or it's the test asterisk server that will connect to vicidial?

I expect most will use another vicidial server as the controller server to avoid loading the vicidial server with the test server load. The test leads will be in the controller server and the server/cluster being tested will be a completely separate box accepting the calls.

3. Yes you can have multiple web servers work with a single Asterisk server, but you more often need multiple Asterisk servers to a single web server, since Apache scales better than Asterisk does.
- In a multiple web server setup, what information is it sharing? Are there any information stored in a file system or all information are in the database? Assuming I will load balance the web servers.
- In a load balance setup, does it need sticky connections?

Everything is stored in the database except for some specific items like Voicemail and recordings which are stored on the respective servers handling those specific functions. One server can be Assigned as the repository for all the recordings (IVR recordings and such) from which all Dialers will collect recordings when there is a change. One server is also assigned to be the Voicemail server. All dialers will need to "have" the recordings, but will acquire them from the audio store server.

4. We've never really had the need to try Asterisk Real-time, Vicidial has it's own dialplan control features built-in.
- thanks!

I would love to see an implementation of a real-time scenario in Vicidial. It would actually work quite well.

5. Vicidial works just fin with SIP Proxies, we use OpenSIPs as the core of our Vicihost service.
- thanks! i'm using kamailio in a load balance setup but will check on opensips if it does better.

How many calls does your kamailio server handle and what are the hardware specs. We like OpenSIPS, but the more the merrier (we also like vSphere, but Proxmox is handy too!)

[asterguy]

Hi Matt and William,

Thanks for answering my questions. I'm very glad that I got replies coming from Gurus. My goal is to build a good infrastructure of vicidial that will have a good failover/redanduncy setup and to know the limits of my servers (load test). I guess with your answers i can make things work.


asterguy wrote:
2. Vicidial has built-in load testing, see the PERFORMANCE_TESTING.txt doc for more details
- I have read the txt file. is the "controller server" the vicidial server or it's the test asterisk server that will connect to vicidial?

I expect most will use another vicidial server as the controller server to avoid loading the vicidial server with the test server load. The test leads will be in the controller server and the server/cluster being tested will be a completely separate box accepting the calls.

- This is clear! thanks!

asterguy wrote:
3. Yes you can have multiple web servers work with a single Asterisk server, but you more often need multiple Asterisk servers to a single web server, since Apache scales better than Asterisk does.
- In a multiple web server setup, what information is it sharing? Are there any information stored in a file system or all information are in the database? Assuming I will load balance the web servers.
- In a load balance setup, does it need sticky connections?

Everything is stored in the database except for some specific items like Voicemail and recordings which are stored on the respective servers handling those specific functions. One server can be Assigned as the repository for all the recordings (IVR recordings and such) from which all Dialers will collect recordings when there is a change. One server is also assigned to be the Voicemail server. All dialers will need to "have" the recordings, but will acquire them from the audio store server.

- I guess having a separate server to handle all the recordings (voicemail and asterisk calls) will be the best way to implement it.
- The web load balancing setup is also clear now. Thanks!

asterguy wrote:
4. We've never really had the need to try Asterisk Real-time, Vicidial has it's own dialplan control features built-in.
- thanks!

I would love to see an implementation of a real-time scenario in Vicidial. It would actually work quite well.

- Yup! I also would like to see it. Having the asterisk configuration files in a database is great.

asterguy wrote:
5. Vicidial works just fin with SIP Proxies, we use OpenSIPs as the core of our Vicihost service.
- thanks! i'm using kamailio in a load balance setup but will check on opensips if it does better.

How many calls does your kamailio server handle and what are the hardware specs. We like OpenSIPS, but the more the merrier (we also like vSphere, but Proxmox is handy too!)

- For Kamailio, I use minimum specs here. 1 cpu core with 512mb ram is good already. I will only increase the specs if it needs to. You mentioned vSphere and Proxmox, those are virtualized environement. Can those also act as a sip proxy?
- I'm more familiar with kamailio than opensips. But since you are using it i might get a try also.

[williamconley]

asterguy wrote:
4. We've never really had the need to try Asterisk Real-time, Vicidial has it's own dialplan control features built-in.
- thanks!

I would love to see an implementation of a real-time scenario in Vicidial. It would actually work quite well.

- Yup! I also would like to see it. Having the asterisk configuration files in a database is great.

If you borrow the methodology of the script that writes out the "conf" files, but activate it immediately upon "save" in the admin screen for admin->phones, Inbound->call_menu, admin->Carriers ... and a few "custom" locations ... you could have a real time scenario that is seriously cool. Or perhaps have an "activate real time changes" button on each of those pages to allow the creation of the full scenario before activating it (ie: if you want to activate one carrier and deactivate the other ... it would be a bummer to have overlap or gap for 20 seconds while you set that up!).

asterguy wrote:
5. Vicidial works just fin with SIP Proxies, we use OpenSIPs as the core of our Vicihost service.
- thanks! i'm using kamailio in a load balance setup but will check on opensips if it does better.

How many calls does your kamailio server handle and what are the hardware specs. We like OpenSIPS, but the more the merrier (we also like vSphere, but Proxmox is handy too!)

- For Kamailio, I use minimum specs here. 1 cpu core with 512mb ram is good already. I will only increase the specs if it needs to. You mentioned vSphere and Proxmox, those are virtualized environement. Can those also act as a sip proxy?
- I'm more familiar with kamailio than opensips. But since you are using it i might get a try also.

Virtual sip proxies are viable ... but you'd have to load test them to see how well they perform compared to metal boxes.