[Asterisk-Users] Computing horsepower needed

[Michael Graves]

You need to be careful about Intel's cheapo Celeron chips. While they
are cheaper than P-4s I just recently saw a well documented comparision
that found that the AMD's Duron and Athlon are far more capable for the
same or less $$$. This can be important when translating between codecs
in *. My new * server is running an Athlon XP 2500+ which only cost me
$89 at a local supplier. The whole machine cost only $350.

Michael


On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:58:59 -0600, Rich Adamson wrote:

>> I have been reading asterisks and everything I can get my hands on for the 
>> past week. I want to know what class processor is the bare minimum I need 
>> for a four port Asterisk installation?
>
>As a low-end data point (probably not cool for a reasonable production box),
>I purchased a eMachine T2240 with a 2.2ghz Celeron, 40 gig drive, 384 meg
>ram, with integrated 10/100 nic from Circuit City (new, open box, with
>warranty, $300). Its running asterisk with 2 x100p's, festival, sendmail, 
>apache, mysql, MOH, X11, Gnome, etc, just fine. Asterisk has three iax 
>trunks running, a couple of remote nat'ed 7960's, a few local sip phones, 
>and nothing very fancy for a dial plan. 
>
>The size of the box (and its architecture) is far more related to voice
>traffic volumes and uptime then it is anything else. (e.g, if you never
>place a phone call, you don't need any resources; if you never click the
>console mouse, gnome is not consuming any cpu resource, etc, etc.)
>
>In an idle condition (no calls being processed), "top" is the heaviest
>app. Placing a single asterisk demo call from a sip phone (forcing iax2
>to Digium) causes asterisk to bump towards the top at about 0.3% cpu
>utilization with an occasional random peak at 2% cpu. (A single pstn
>call via x100p to a 7960 averages about 1.0% cpu. Both of these are
>eyeball inspection of top.)
>
>I don't know what you mean by "port" in your statement, so can't comment
>on machine size. If you mean four physical pstn lines, I'd have to venture
>a guess and say the above machine could handle four x100p's. But, as you've
>already seen from the list, there are probably a dozen different ways to
>configure * to support any given set of requirements with different
>cost/benefit trade offs for each.
>
>The above just happens to be one of the the "cheapest" around for new
>assembled equipment with a so called warranty. Don't think I'd install
>it at a hospital or police department though. ;)
>
>Rich
>
>
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--
Michael Graves                           mgraves at pixelpower.com
Sr. Product Specialist                          www.pixelpower.com
Pixel Power Inc.                              gravesmj at earthlink.net
                                                                         FWD 54245

"People said that there is no economic model for it, but there is:
the economic model of flower boxes...I put out flower boxes to raise 
my self esteem and make my house more attractive. If almost everyone 
does then the whole town becomes beautiful. The same thing can happen
with communications." - Nicolas Negroponte
 
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