[asterisk-biz] ASTERISK running under VMWARE

[Nir Simionovich]

Alvaro Ramirez wrote:
> Has anybody experienced any problems running ASTERISK applications 
> (queues mainly) under VMWARE?
> Al
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
> 
> asterisk-biz mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
Hi Guys,

   I completely disagree with the conclusion that Asterisk is not a VM
capable application - why do I say so? simple, I manage 4 different 
platforms, all running under VMWARE servers. The quality is always good,
however, I had encountered issues in the past when dealing with FreePBX
based installs.

   I will explain.

   One of my customer is utilizing an installation consisting of 4 VMWARE
Server installations, each installation is running 3 instances of 
Asterisk, utilizing vanilla CentOS. Now, trick here was to build the 
Guest OS in such a way it will hold the VMWARE server well. For example,
we've used IBM blades with 16GB RAM and RAID-1 SAS drives. Each of the
Asterisk virtual boxes had got a dedicated 3GB of RAM and 2 cores for 
the operation - making them highly stable. All the systems are running
a high-speed dialer application - currently ticked at generating over 
300 concurrent calls per second (across all gateways combined).

   Now, we're using VMWARE Server 1.0.4 not the VMWARE workstation of 
something else. I know others had reached better performance with VMWARE 
Server ESX, but again, if you are looking for the free alternative, 
VMWARE Server is a great tool to use.

   Now, when using FreePBX - VMWARE doesn't cut it with queues. Well, to 
be more exact, if you want it to cut it, make sure that all your phones 
and connected trunks support re-invite correctly, so that you don't need 
to handle media on Asterisk. Queues is FreePBX are managed via the local 
channel, causing it to go in and out of the queue and the local channel 
quite rapidly. I have to admit that I tried running FreePBX with VMWARE, 
the general experience wasn't a good one. However, I'm currently working 
on a better image for the VMWARE servers that will work better with it.

-- 
Kind Regards,
   Nir Simionovich
   Asterisk Community Founder and Maintainer - Israel

   (e) nir.simionovich at gmail.com
   (w) http://www.simionovich.com
   (p) +972-732-557799    (MSN): nirs at greenfieldtech.net
   (m) +972-54-6982826  (GTALK): nir.simionovich at gmail.com
   (f) +972-73-2557202    (ICQ): 420882334