Load Balancing Manual Dialing

[AlexR]

I've got a Vicidial Setup which is dialing ONE campaign and im exceeding over 40 agents right now all running in just one server. So what i would like to do right now is :
1. Use a dedicated database server.
2. Spread the calls in 2 servers where agents log.
3. Have one server with the E1.

I've read all the LOAD_BALANCING.txt file, and I understand this works for predictive dialing, but im wondering how would i go about manual dialing method?

I think that what i have to do is just create more "conferences" pointing to the other vicidial servers where agents are logged, and it is not necessary to go installing all the stuff in the load_balancing document. Am i right about this?

Any ideas?


Thank you!


Alejandro

[mflorell]

I haven't really had anybody ask about that before. What I have done in the past for manual dialing on a server with none(or not enough) lines, is just to add an IAX trunk to the other server. Since the dialing is not done in an organized way(it is controlled by uses not automatec processes) it is more difficult to do load balanced dialing with and there really hasn't been a demand for it.

how many conferences do you have now?

[AlexR]

Thanks for the fast reply Matt,

Actually i think it would better to call what im trying to do: "Agent Distribution across multiple servers" rather than Load Balancing. Because I know always how many agents there are on an asterisk server at a given time, and they know when they are free to dial another call... since they are manually dialing.

Im in a very complicated position since, at the same time i have a closer campaing and all agents should be able to transfer to this closer agents.

I guess for now it will be best to at least have a dedicated database server and one vicidial server... (maybe a dedicated web server as well) to spread a little bit of the joy to other servers, and leave the whole agent distribution thing alone.

About that database server... when you create the table you enter into vicidial_conferences an IP address... this should be the asterisk address and NOT the DB address? Right?


Matt, thanks a lot, you have been great help all of these years and you have a friend always here in Guatemala.

[eliasferreyra]

matt how can i make a load balancing for two servers .

1-server---asterisk/apache/vicidial
2-server---mysql database

how can i do that please help

[mflorell]

40 agents on one server shouldn't really be a problem. If you can move the DB and web server off to the other machine that should help you to have at least 60 agents on your Asterisk/VICIDIAL server dong manual dialing/inbound(closer) call handling.

Yes, the vicidial_conferences entries should have the IP_address of the Asterisk server no the DB on them.

Adding another server for agents to be on is not that difficult either, just install everything as normal on the server and use the different IP address of the second server for the new phones/conferences/vicidial_conferences/servers/etc... table entries that you put into the database.

As for moving the database/web server to another server, just install everything on the second server that is on your first one and move the database over. Then turn off the database, Asterisk and all VICIDIAL scripts on the first server and change the database in the astguiclient.conf file to the IP of the new server and start everything back up.

[eliasferreyra]

whats the better way to make load balancing with two servers

whats service on first and what on second

[mflorell]

It is always best to have the DB on a separate server if possible.

[AlexR]

Thanks Matt...

Im a little confused. I copied over the asterisk table to server 2 (what would be DB server) and left on server 1 Everything else (asterisk, httpd,AGI,etc...). And just pointed my astguiclient.conf to server 1.

After a reboot just to make sure all the cron jobs switched to using server 2 as DB, the admin interface worked just fine, some calls could be placed... but not a single agent got the right call and at times they got audio from other calls.... evrything messed up.

Now im wondering: Should the cron jobs be installed in server 2 (DB server) as well? You mention that EVERYTHING should be installed in the DB server as well... so you left me wondering.

I made sure that the ntpd in working well in both servers and pointing to the same address to sync.


Any Ideas what am i doing wrong?


Greetings,


Alejandro

[mflorell]

There really shouldn't be any problems with your setup, I have set up dozens of companies just like that. You do not have to install EVERYTHING on the dedicated DB server, it is just more likely you won't forget anything if you do.

Did you move your web server over too? That is recommended.

What was the loadavg on both servers?

have you looked at mtop to see if any queries could be slowing anything down?

Do you have any Asterisk CLI output of the calling after the move? or agiout logfiles?

[AlexR]

You really got me there Matt with those questions sadly I did not test fully and we noticed this setup was not working, minutes before the campaign started (yes, a live production campaign... i know.. i know..) so i had to switch everything back. So i did not had time to check the CLI output or anything else for that matter.

I will get back to this later today, thank you!


Alejandro