[asterisk-dev] OpenCL for improved performance transcoding and conferencing

[Chris Coleman]

> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 07:44:34 +0200
> From: Stefan Schmidt<sst at sil.at>
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-dev] OpenCL for improved performance,
> 	transcoding and conferencing
> To: Asterisk Developers Mailing List<asterisk-dev at lists.digium.com>
> Message-ID:<4C9D8C42.60500 at sil.at>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Am 25.09.2010 06:34, schrieb Chris Coleman:
>    
>> Only then will we REALLY have the answer, to the question -- how much
>> will the asterisk community benefit from 50 GigaFLOPS of free GP-GPU
>> horsepower offered by the Nvidia ION ??
>>
>> It's hard to know, until you try it out and see...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>>      
> Hello chris,
>
> you allways talk about Atom CPUs. I dont know how many user will use
> asterisk in that evironment atleast when it comes to heavy usage of
> transcoding but most of us use a Server System where the whole
> Architecture (not only CPU) is build for much more througput than a
> board with an atom on it.
>
> Do you really think i want to loose an expensive PCI(e) Slot in my
> server just to build in a GPU for transcoding? I say expensive cause a
> normal 1 HE Server like from HP which i use, has only ONE PCI Port.
> I would need to buy a 2 HE Server to have space for a ISDN Card and a
> GPU. And to be honest, a second 1 HE server would be much better than
> just 1 HE for a GPU for transcoding.
>
> I understand that you think this could improve Transcodings on a special
> System environment but i think this environment is not what someone call
> a typical asterisk setup.
>
> So if you want more power in transcoding get more power in your server
> and dont use homeuser equipment or would you go to a car-race with an
> Family Van?
>
> best regards
>
> Stefan
>
>
>    
Hi Stefan,

I should have mentioned the idea behind using the Atom CPU and the 
motivation behind using GP-GPU to offload conference call and 
transcoding processing.

I'm not aiming this at big budget systems in data centers where 
clustering additional 1 RU servers is more economical than trading the 1 
RU server for a 2RU server because an ISDN card is required in there...

Although the data center type systems would certainly benefit from using 
the added processing power on the GPU, if you're constrained by space, 
it's best if you have a motherboard with a GPU onboard, that supports 
OpenCL (DirectX 10.1)... like the Nvidia ION, or the upcoming AMD 
Fusion, and there are others, Crystal has an HD GPU supporting this 
level , already being sold in netbooks.

The idea is, for all of the bottom and middle segments of the market 
that runs on netbook/nettop/home server/mini-ITX 35 watt, machines: 
these systems support a maximum of 100 voice calls active at the same 
time, 100-500 extensions, per server.

Popular applications.. small/medium business, town and city governments, 
schools, universities, solar powered villages in the 3rd world 
countries... any organization with less than a few hundred people.

Chris