Michael C. Mike is right with regards to dual proc. running Asterisk. Mike however handles HEAVY volume of calls which involves transcoding & a bunch of other features.
I love to have the added horse power, but I always love to use less powerful machines to try to push the limits of Linux & Asterisk. Let me provide you my bench mark tests and you can judge for yourself. I think it really comes down to how many calls are being processed. Recently on a friends box in Ottawa (an AMD 1 Ghz. 512 megs ram ) we have handled an exact total of 10 callers connected to his Asterisk. Myself & him, his relatives & friends from overseas. Out of that, 4 people were using different codecs... so obviously transcoding was going on. Added to this we added call monitoring to record ALL our 10 conversations for fun sake. After a pair has finished their conversation, SOX was configured to do some processing of the GSM files. At all times we were monitoring the CPU load using TOP & the CPU load did not even spike! This is of course a rough test and there may be other variables involved. However from this preliminary recent test, I'd safely conclude that even if 20 people were chatting simultaneously on his AMD 1Ghz on 512 megs of ram... transcoding and recoding conversations... would not have much of an adverse effect on the CPU load. Yes both my self and my Ottawa friend are cheap :). You have to be when you have a family and kids to feed :). If your business can afford the extra couple of hundred dollars to few hundred for a Dual Proc. server, why not. You may also monitor your production servers CPU load and then make a better decision based on the estimated number of simultaneous calls. If this machine were to be your hobby machine, a machine that sits at home or a lab out of a production environment, I'd be cheap. But if the box is ultimately being used for production quality business purposes... the extra money... for a high speed processor and RAM is worth its investment, and for the peace of mind if you are unsure, the extra few hundred for the Dual Core is worth its investment for ones mental sanity. Why be stressed and unsure about something, when you know the extra investment will make you worry free and sleep well at night. Cheers! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Cottenden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 8:52 AM Subject: RE: [on-asterisk] Brainstorming dual-core and Asterisk >I am also confused by this. When I initially discussed purchasing Digium's > Business Edition of Asterisk, they (being Digium) recommended a dual proc > machine. So I purchased that, and also made sure that RedHat Enterprise 3 > (ES) supported the dual proc setup. > > I merely assumed that this setup would be the best for Asterisk and that > Asterisk could take advantage of it. I never did any research on the > subject. > > So, should I just be purchasing one proc machines to run Asterisk at this > time? I'd really like to get this cleared up, as I have to purchase another > couple of servers for other offices we are going to be setting up. If the > second proc is a waste today, it would certainly save some $. > > Mike > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 7:20 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [on-asterisk] Brainstorming dual-core and Asterisk > > So running [EMAIL PROTECTED] on a dual processor P2 333 system is still a > waste of > processing power? CentOS does recognize both processors and loads the SMP > kernel. Is there any benefit at all? > > Peter M. > >> Maybe crazy enough that it will actually work. It amazes me sometimes >> what ideas u come up with!! Some related news: >> >> 1) IAX is multithreaded in head now, so should work better on dual >> processors than SIP, unless you're using the "other" asterisk sip >> stack. Also, a side benefit, silence suppression on IAX will probably >> come soon. >> >> On 3/2/06, Jim Van Meggelen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > Let me run something that's been floating about in my noggin by > everyone: >> > >> > Given that Asterisk does not make use of dual core CPUs or dual >> > processors, I was contemplating whether running Asterisk in two (or >> > more) VMWare sessions on a system might actually allow for more >> > total performance. For example, set up one VM to handle incoming >> > lines, echo cancellation and all sets, and then set up the other VM to > handle VoIP, including transcoding. >> > >> > A bit kludgy, to be sure, but would VMWare allow for both cores/CPUs >> > to be more fully utilized? >> > >> > Very possibly not practical, but it's been floating about my head >> > for a bit and I figured I'd send it out into the ether to see what >> > thoughts might come back. >> > >> > So . . . thoughts? >> > >> > Jim. >> > >> > -- >> > Jim Van Meggelen >> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2177 >> > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
