[Asterisk-Users] Virtual PC -- Asterisk ?

[Dan]

Hi,

>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Steven Critchfield" <critch at basesys.com>
>
> Ahh, but the question is worded such that the virtualization is running
> on windows. Therefore you have a lot of display overhead due to a
> windows environment. You also are just an application running in an OS,
> so you have to convince the OS to give you appropriate resources. So
> while the application isn't necessarily too inefficient, you are already
> running in an OS that can starve your emulator, and then you have
> another OS that can starve asterisk from running at the required speed.

I have done some tests in the past:
- Athlon Thunderbird at 1GB, 384MB RAM
- Windows XP Pro as the host platform
- VMWare Workstation version3
- Asterisk (a CVS from Oktober I think)
- RH9
- no Digium Hardware (cannot be used with a virtual platform)
- two analog phones connected to an ATA186

>
> Again, it is possible, just not recommended no matter what the
> underlying hardware is. Give asterisk at least a chance of working
> properly on its own before you handicap it. As the learning curve is
> enough already, don't augment it by adding artificial barriers.

Major drawbacks:
- the cost of the virtualization platform (VMWare or something else) is
bigger than a good old dedicated hardware platform.
- no way to use any Digium hardware, which is in my opinion unacceptable
- the load on the system is far bigger than on a dedicated one (increase
dramatically with the number of active channels).

As a conclusion:
- it was a nice proof of concept
- works preatty well for small demo's on a notebook (at the customer site),
but for sure not as a production (even for home) environment.
- can be used to better understand how Asterisk works
- all those if you want to pay the price for the virtualization platform.

Best regards,
Dan