Struggling with Hardware Planning

[dlasry]

Hi!,
I am new to Vicidial, and have been using ViciBox (vicibox-server-1.0.0-rc2-i386) in a test environment for the last 2 weeks. I have purchased the 2 manuals and am extremely impressed with the system. My hat comes off to this community.
I am in the process of installing this system for a relatively small environment, and would appreciate your thoughts on the hardware I have chosen.
The environment objective:
• 10-15 call simultaneous center agents, dialing out 90% predictive and 10% manual.
• SIP Trunks only, over Digium G729 codec compression.
• 100% Recording.



In order to achieve this, I would like to start out with an all-in-one server (at least at first) with the following specs. This is consumer grade hardware, and not a professional IBM or HP setup. If you think a pro setup with dual Xeon processors would be significantly better, I would love to hear your thoughts:
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83 Ghz 12MB Cache s775 133Mhz
• Motherboard: Asus P5Q Turbo (775 C2Q 1600Mhz, Intel P45, DDR2 1300, PCI-E2.0, HDAudio, 1394A
• Memory: Kingston HyperX 2x2GB DDR2 1066Mhz Pc2-8500
• Hard Disk RAID I: WD3200 – WD Caviar 320 GB 16 MB 7200RPM SATA II

Will this be enough? If not, how many agents do you think this could handle?
Any reason this hardware would not be compatible (Suse and Ubuntu websites do not mention these models)?

Thanks for your thoughts
David

[Op3r]

Go with the 25 per server rule.

[dlasry]

Thanks Op3r,

Could you elaborate or refer me to where the documentation speaks about this rule?

Based on the thread below, my purposed setup should be good enough. However, I am not sure how much more stress 100% recording would put on the system.

Topic 7447 (I cannot post links yet)


Also, do you think there is any Hardware-Linux incompatibilities with the setup above?

Thanks
David

[lerroux]

your specification should probably be ok. and since you are doing 100% recording on a g729 codec, your 320 gb harddrive would probably last afew months. depending on the number of calls you make in a day. like op3r suggested, stick to the 25 users per server rule.

as with the hardware-linux compatibility, im not so sure. but i'll suggest you test everything and make it work before putting it on production.

since you are using vicibox. i dont think you will encounter a lot of problems.


gud luck!

[brett05]

lerroux you say here with vicibox he can encounter a lot of problems,and i share you this opinion since vicibox is runing in ubuntu server 8 and as i have test ubuntu miss some good configuration with his kernel and he make some probleme with asterisk
but if we speak about vicidialnow i can say it is a good distribution and with stable asterisk ,and i don't know if some one share me this opinion.
and if we speak about vicidial in production i prefer testing it before going the production.
my config here and i used it in production:
core 2 duo E2200
4 go /RAM
HDD 500 go
slackware 11
sip trunk provider with 20 channel
20 seat
second server with mysql dateserver+ftp server
ADSL 5mb/s
auto mode for predective
some time i use the recording .
codec G729
i have add queuemetrics for more reports ans stats.
vtiger for crm intergration.
1 month with production and i have not seen any probleme .
thanks vicidial

[gardo]

There is no such thing as a "25 users per server rule". The number of users per server are totally dependent on what kind of hardware, trunks, codecs and etc you're going to utilize. It's an opinion and not a rule.

Based on your hardware, it is more than enough to handle 10 to 15 agents using SIP trunks, g729 codec, dial level ratio up to 4 and full recordings on RAM drives. That being said, check if your motherboard is supported by RedHat or CentOS. If it is, VicidialNOW will run on it flawlessly.

[lerroux]

lerroux you say here with vicibox he can encounter a lot of problems

i said i DONT think he'll be having a lot of problems.

There is no such thing as a "25 users per server rule". The number of users per server are totally dependent on what kind of hardware, trunks, codecs and etc you're going to utilize. It's an opinion and not a rule.

Based on your hardware, it is more than enough to handle 10 to 15 agents using SIP trunks, g729 codec, dial level ratio up to 4 and full recordings on RAM drives. That being said, check if your motherboard is supported by RedHat or CentOS. If it is, VicidialNOW will run on it flawlessly.

no, there isn't and its true that its dependent on the piece of hardware you have. but i usually practice that 25 per server rule when im not sure if my hardware is capable of handling a lot of users.

[Op3r]

I think the 25 per server rule was originated from me as I really dont want to cram as many user in a box. I always frequently tell every that I dont really much care if we waste money on the hardware as long as I get my full night sleep.

Basically, if anyone can prove to me that they can cram 50 seats on a single server and have the dial level up to wazzo anytime of the day while doing the full recording and using g729. Ill also follow. But as for my experience, Id rather have 25 people go down than have almost the half of the floor going down.

Heck they are already using a free dialer, they want the hardware to be free too? Wake up this is not a hobby system fyi If you cant spend a little bit for the hardware then you deserve to have a downtime.

[lerroux]

I think the 25 per server rule was originated from me as I really dont want to cram as many user in a box. I always frequently tell every that I dont really much care if we waste money on the hardware as long as I get my full night sleep.

Basically, if anyone can prove to me that they can cram 50 seats on a single server and have the dial level up to wazzo anytime of the day while doing the full recording and using g729. Ill also follow. But as for my experience, Id rather have 25 people go down than have almost the half of the floor going down.

Heck they are already using a free dialer, they want the hardware to be free too? Wake up this is not a hobby system fyi If you cant spend a little bit for the hardware then you deserve to have a downtime.

exactly. my usual setup for a 100 seat is 2 webservers/database each with their own 2 asterisk servers. or i can go at one big web/database server and 4 asterisk servers. im not full recording too. if i'm full recording at g711 then i usually take my specs a notch higher.

[dlasry]

Thanks for all your help guys! This was both informative and useful.



David

[dlasry]

I just wanted to let you all know that this motherboard comes with a
Atheros® L1E Gigabit LAN card that is not supported out of the box by the version of Ubuntu server that vicibox installs vicidial on.

To bypass this, I had to disable the on board NIC, and install an standard PCI nic card. (The other alternative was to do a from scratch install, which I wanted to avoid)


I will keep on posting my feedback about this setup, so that others may use it in reference to their own planning.


David