[asterisk-biz] Max concurrent calls?

[Zoa]

Michael Munger wrote:
> 1. Single server is not a requirement. If we have to use 10 servers,
> that would be ok, but I would like to use the most efficient number of
> servers possible.
>   
I would advise otherwise, i would not recommend doing more than 300 
channels per server (Even if you could). I would definately not do 1000 
simultaneous calls on a single server. (I seriously doub't you would 
even get that far, whatever CPU's you throw at it).
imho, it's better to use less, cheaper ones and take care of load 
balancing and failover. (It will also scale better this way).
Agreed, it's a little more work.
> 2. Sky's the limit on the hardware. Dual quad-core zeons w/ 8GB of RAM
>   
8 GB of ram is overkill, spend more money on network cards.
> is what I was thinking initially. HP Prolient DL series, running FC4.
>
> 3. 1000 calls will be talking. Individual conversations. 
>
> 4. To lessen the load on the server, most of these calls will be using
> the same codec, and thus we will try our best to limit the amount of
> transcoding that is necessary.
>   
That's a good thing, if you are using IAX, using trunking will give you 
a lower load. If  your clients are not behind nat, transferring some 
might help lower the load too. (if you could, if you need billing it 
will not work).
As when you are not using transcoding, most of the load is coming from 
looping through bigger lists (where delays might happen because of 
locking) and network related activity (part of it limited to 1 cpu), it 
might not scale as well as you might expect it to. (If you were doing 
transcoding will scale better when adding more CPU's)

By this i mean:

when you do heavy transcoding, moving from 1 cpu to 2 may get you 80% 
more calls, but when not doing transcoding, just lots of packets per 
second, you might only get 20% more calls.

Feel free to talk to me on irc about it.

Zoa

> 5. Nothing else runs on the machine. It will be dedicated.
>   
Well, even then it will depend. (Asterisk has many little parts, 
connectivity towards a database server, or recordings or anything that 
could cause delays are disk writes are dangerous and have to be handled 
with caution).
> We are want to build a private phone network to connect offices and
> users around the world using IAXy's and asterisk with servers in
> strategic locations that will be governed by a numbering plan.
>
> The initial goal is to be able to support 1,000 concurrent calls / box
> with two boxes at our home base, and distribute the IAXy's to an
> existing customer base who need to communicate with each other.
>
> Yours,
> Michael Munger, dCAP
> 404-438-2128
> michael at highpoweredhelp.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Michael
> Jerris
> Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 9:31 AM
> To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion
> Subject: RE: [asterisk-biz] Max concurrent calls?
>
> The full answer to this question greatly depends on quite a few factors,
> the most important being:
>
> Is a single server a hard requirement?
> What kind of hardware?
> What will these 1000 calls be doing?
> Will you be transcoding?  If so, what protocols?
> What else will be running on the machine?
>
> All those questions aside, with proper hardware for your requirements, I
> would generally advise to keep individual instances of asterisk to
> around 200-250 calls.  These numbers are anecdotal but somewhat
> supported if you search the list archives, or look at the number of
> calls that digium will support on business eddition.  Given certain
> restrictions and proper hardware it would be possible to do 1000 calls
> on single box with multiple instances of asterisk.
>
> That being said, if you can describe your needs and requirements more
> fully, it is quite possible that a mixture of solutions (for example
> open ser and multiple asterisk instances) could even scale much larger
> than that on a single box, if for example your requirements do not
> require you to be in the media path for most of the calls.  The biggest
> trick is to know clearly what your needs are, and segment in such a way
> that you can use the best tool for each job.
>
> Mike
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-biz-
>> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Michael Munger
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 2:08 PM
>> To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion
>> Subject: [asterisk-biz] Max concurrent calls?
>>
>> What's the max number of concurrent calls a single server can handle?
>>
>> I have a request for 1,000 concurrent calls. Can we load balance
>>     
> between
>   
>> multiple servers?
>>
>> Yours,
>> Michael Munger
>> michael at highpoweredhelp.com
>>     
>
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