[asterisk-dev] HW requirements for a big conference server

[Pavel Troller]

Hi!
  I've got a task - to build a carrier-grade conference server for at least
200 participants in one big meetme. It will be TDM only solution, no VoIP
involved. The participants will come over SS7 trunks from 2 different EWSD
transit exchanges.
  I'm planning to use 2 TE412/420 cards in the box, but I'm not sure about
characteristics of the hardware I need. I've already built two smaller
servers, with one TE410 card in each. They are running on a Dual-core P-IV
at 3GHz, but when they handle 2 - 3 meetmes with about 30 participants in
total, CPU load increases to 1.30 - 1.50 (which is still OK because we have
2 cores), but it's clear that such a CPU would not be able to handle 200
participants at all. Numerically, it looks that I need about 8x the
performance of the above server to be sure that it will be able to handle it
gracefully.
  What I need to know, is:
  1) Whether it's even possible to build such a machine from a generally
     available server hardware
  2) Which bus type to prefer (PCIe or classic PCI)
  3) Recommended CPU type and number (currently I'm thinking about dual-socket
     board equipped with two quad-core Bloomfield Xeons at 3.2 GHz, giving
     8/16 (with hyperthreading) cores total, with 8GB of memory and no swap
     partition)
  4) Whether there is a noticeable delay when the calls are brigded between
     the cards, i.e. whether hardware echocancellers are necessary or not for
     this purpose.

  And please, excuse me for writing this question to the developers list, I
know that there is no source code discussion in it, but I'm afraid that in the
user list I would not find really usable answers.

  With regards, Pavel Troller