[Asterisk-Users] Examples of hardware implementations

[Jim Van Meggelen]

asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Just to add another question regarding the hardware, for 60
> simultaneously channels and with voice recording, is a P4
> 3.0Ghz system with 1GB memory and 200GB IDE harddisk sufficient?
> 
> TinKoon

Possibly, but it'll depend on many factors, some of which include:

- Is the Linux platform you're running on stripped down to the bare
essentials? (NO web server, NO databases, and most importantly, NO GUI
DESKTOP!)
- Are you going to be doing a lot of transcoding? If you stick with
G.711 you'll reduce the load on the CPU, but this is probably not
realistic; especially if you'll be accepting VoIP connections.
- Are you going to be doing conferencing? Mixing multiple channels in
near-realtime is very CPU-intensive.
- Will all 60 active channels be recording at the same time? This would
impose a heavy I/O load on the system. Heavier if you add transcoding
into the mix.

I wonder if the most important question might be this:
If you install such a system and the performance is not acceptable, are
you prepared to deploy a second system to share the load?

Cheers,

Jim.