Servers

Comms Mundi™ server sizing guide.

Redundancy

In order to ensure the required stability of a Comms Mundi™ system, is it important to choose the appropriate hardware redundancy options in the server.

Apply the following recommendations in order, given the budged available:

  • Hard disk: Having at least two disks in RAID-1 (mirror) configuration is essential for any type of project.
    • Software RAID: Comms Mundi™ can configure software mirroring (RAID-1 soft) if it detects 2 disks of the same size on installation.
    • Hardware RAID: Performance and stability can be improved using a RAID card offering redundancy levels (RAID-1, RAID-5, RAID-10, …), memory and battery
  • CPU / Memory: A professional CPU (ex: Intel Xeon) with ECC memory is highly recommended.
  • Power Supply Unit: A redundant PSU is recommended if possible.

CPU

When sizing CPU for a project, maximum frequency and number of cores are not the only metrics to take into consideration. Also take into account:

  • Generation: Newer generation of CPUs are generally faster and more reliable for the same number of cores and frequency.
  • Features:
    • Memory bus: Number of channels and frequency of bus can make an important speed difference.
    • ECC Memory support: Error-correcting code memory is only supported in certain CPUs.
    • Multi-CPU: Not all CPUs support being installed in multi-CPU servers.
    • Encryption: Intel AES-NI or equivalent features can multiply VPN capacity by many folds.
    • Virtualization: Intel VT or AMD SVM are required features to install virtual machines in Comms Mundi™.

Hint: An interesting metric to compare general CPU speed can be http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

Memory

In terms of memory size, consider the following recommendations:

  • Minimum requirements: A minimum of 4GB of memory should be considered for production servers with minimal usage.
  • Recommended: A size of 8GB should be comfortable for most “non-extreme” scenarios.
  • Performance: Comms Mundi™ uses memory for disk-caching and other performance related improvements. More memory means better performance.
  • Virtual machines: Any amount assigned to a virtual machine is reserved, thus unusable by other tasks. In order to host a machine with 2GB, Comms Mundi™ requires at least 6GB.

Disk

Choosing between traditional electromechanical magnetic disks (HDD) and solid state disks (SSD) depends on project requirements:

  • SAS vs SATA: While practical differences (in speed and reliability) between both buses are few, SAS compatible disks tend to be more reliable because of SAS being a traditional “enterprise-grade” bus.
  • SSD vs HDD: Current enterprise-grade SSD are reliable enough to be used in servers, and offer impressive speed improvements over magnetic disks (HDD), but require a higher budget.
  • Disk size: Disk size should be considered given needs to store user data:
    • System usage: Comms Mundi™ reserves 50GB of disk space for system.
    • Minimum requirements: Minimum size requirements is 100GB, enough for 50GB of user data
    • User data: Take the following into account when considering disk size
      • Voice: For voicemail, recordings and other sound or music files, count ~1MB per minute in wav, or ~100KB per minute in mp3
      • Fax: Count from 1KB to 150KB per page, mean of ~25KB per page
      • Other: Do not forget virtual machine disks (configurable), proxy cache (configurable), and user-uploaded data.

Scenarios

Tiny (1-20 users)

Scenarios:

  • Generic usage: 1-20 users
  • PBX / Softswitch: 1-10 simultaneous calls, <0.5 calls per second
  • VPN: <20Mbps bandwidth
  • Hotspot: 1-50 users

Recommendations:

  • CPU: Intel Celeron/Pentium G3320, AMD Turion
  • Memory: 4GB
  • Disk: Two disks in RAID-1 software
  • Example models:
    • HP MicroServer G7
    • Dell T30

Small (20-200 users)

Scenarios:

  • Generic usage: 20-200 users
  • PBX / Softswitch: ~10-100 simultaneous calls, 1-2 calls per second
  • VPN: 20-100Mbps bandwidth
  • Hotspot: 50-200 users

Recommendations:

  • CPU: Intel Xeon E3-12XXv2 or better
  • Memory: 8GB
  • Disk: Two disks in RAID-1 software or better (RAID-1 hardware)
  • Example models:
    • Dell T30 with Intel Xeon E3-1225v2
    • HP Proliant ML310e Gen8

Medium (200-1000 users)

Scenarios:

  • Generic usage: 200-1000 users
  • PBX / Softswitch: 100-500 simultaneous calls, 2-5 calls per second
  • VPN: 100-300Mbps bandwidth
  • Hotspot: 200-800 users

Recommendations:

  • CPU: Intel Xeon E5-16XXv3 or better
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Disk: Two disks in RAID-1 hardware or better
  • Example models:
    • HP Proliant DL360p Gen8
    • Fujitsu Primergy RX300 S8
/home/www/wiki/data/pages/documentation/hardware/servers.txt · Last modified: 2019/11/08 11:53 by asilva
 
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