[asterisk-users] Server Optimization and Load Balancing

[Mitch Jackson]

I'm hoping to get some guidance on some of our asterisk growing pains.  Any
help is greatly appreciated.

Over the last few months, our call center has grown considerably and we're
now experiencing choppy calls and dropped calls under full capacity.

We have around a 60/40 outgoing to incoming ratio

At the moment, we've got the following configuration:
Asterisk SVN-trunk-r7230
All calls recorded to disk
External mysql server for CDR + IVR operations
Dual Xeon 2.8 4GB Ram (Dell)
Digium TE210P
2 x PRI lines
72 Ploycom 301P SIP phones using ulaw codec

We have a second identical server ready to offset some of the load, but
we're not sure how to balance the sip phones and configuration files between
the two servers.  If we balance the sip registrations between the two
servers, then there's the issues of both servers having to handle one call
via IAX in some situations.

What kind of experiences, problems and solutions have y'all had when adding
servers to your center?

Should we try to have incoming on one server and outgoing on the other?
Should we have both servers capable of handling all the IVR operations, so
the other server doesn't have to?
Should we try to have an identical configuration between both servers and
load balance?
What kind of general optimizations should we look at to improve network /
server performance?
Is there a way to easily register each phone with all asterisk servers, and
have the phone choose a random server to dial, and then be available as a
SIP to each server if it needs to contact it?
Is it a bad idea to register all phones with each server instead of
distributing registration?

-Here's some of the things we're got planned in the next few days:
-Make sure we have all audio files in all codec formats to reduce the need
for transcoding in IVR
-Convert all music on hold from mp3 to native codec formats
-Reduce database operations from within extensions.conf
-Upgrade switches on each set of desks to midrange enterprise 100MB switches
with gigabit uplinks, from SOHO netgear 100MB switches


Thanks,

/mitch
/fidelity reserves
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