I was just going to show the same.

they have tried them all and have great success with this.  Even if you have to 
load balance.

Check is out 

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=643


On 2010-03-04, at 2:21 PM, Chuck Mariotti wrote:

> PiaF seems to speak highly of success of ProxMox (though you need 64bit 
> server hardware). I doubt it will handle the volumes you need.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOKGnev6Zfw
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Reza - Asterisk Consultant [mailto:[email protected]] 
> Sent: March-04-10 11:39 AM
> To: John Lange
> Cc: Asterisk Users Group
> Subject: Re: [on-asterisk] VM ESXi on Asterisk Production Platforms.
> 
> *Hello John:*
> 
> This is great info!  To update everyone here - after speaking with several 
> leaders in this field - we've decide to stay away from ESXi.
> 
> Back to the drawing board.
> 
> *Best,
> Reza.
> *
> 
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 10:51 AM, John Lange <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> This discussion really boils down to the difference between 
>> full-virtualization and para-virtualization.
>> 
>> Do a google search for "full virtualization vs. paravirtualization".
>> 
>> One of the things you will learn is that VMWare is full virtualization 
>> and Xen is para-virtualization.
>> 
>> Para virtualization exposes parts of the underlying hardware allowing 
>> the guest OS direct access to some things, chief among them hardware 
>> clocks and timing which is absolutely critical to Asterisk.
>> 
>> Asterisk running on a fully virtualized guest OS is unlikely to run 
>> properly because the clock bounces all over the place. Even just 
>> keeping the proper date and time is problematic on these systems which 
>> is why you are supposed to install "VMWare tools" which helps mitigate 
>> these issues.
>> 
>> On the other hand, my understanding is that Asterisk on Xen runs great.
>> I believe there is even a commercial product for hosted PBXes that is 
>> based on this though the name escapes me at the moment.
>> 
>> And there Xen kernel modules for Digium cards meaning you install the 
>> Digium cards in the Xen box and then all the virtual machines can 
>> access them just as if they were installed on the local system.
>> 
>> A couple more things to keep in mind:
>> 
>> - there is a massive difference between virtualization installed on 
>> top of an existing OS (such as VirtualBox, Microsoft Virtualization 
>> and all the "free" VMWare products), and "bare metal" virtualization 
>> like ESX and Xen. Bare metal is the only way to go for serious 
>> virtualization.
>> 
>> - There are now specially tuned installs of some OSes designed for 
>> virtualization. For example, SUSE has an option for "this is a 
>> virtualized system" which installs all the specially tuned kernel 
>> options which makes a major performance difference.
>> 
>> - And, everything I've said above, while still true, is a bit outdated.
>> VMWare has recently gotten into the para virtualization game and there 
>> has been _tons_ of work done on the linux kernel in the last couple 
>> years to improve the performance of full and para virtulized systems.
>> 
>> --
>> John Lange
>> http://www.johnlange.ca
>> 
>> On Thu, 2010-03-04 at 00:49 -0500, Reza - Asterisk Consultant wrote:
>>> *Hey guys!*
>>> 
>>> Thanks for all your responses.    We've played heavily with ESXi -- but
>>> before getting an Asterisk server with ESXi, I'm not ready to take a
>> blind
>>> leap of faith here without bench marks.  I don't mind swimming in a 
>>> cold water if I know there are others with me :).  But then again if 
>>> there are other options besides ESXi catered for Asterisk, then I'd 
>>> liketo
>> investigate
>>> it.
>>> 
>>> During peak hours - we can hit 70+ simultaneous calls on ONE server
>> alone.
>>> We've also been receiving lots of requests for Virtual Asterisk 
>>> Hosting needs (plain vanilla Asterisk & FreePBX type).  So I need to 
>>> keep an open mind with Virtualization options for prospects & clients.
>>> 
>>> *Robert:   *If you are using software G729 transcoding - then forget
>> ESXi.
>>> If you are doing any form of transcoding, then forget ESXi.  If you are
>>> doing call recordings & some sort of transcoding, forget ESXi.    If you
>> are
>>> running Asterisk on top of other VM's on the same ESX(i), that is 
>>> running Windows Servers, Application servers and ESX(i) - then forget it.
>>> 
>>> IF you **must** use PRIs in a virtual environment, then use 
>>> foneBRIDGE (
>>> http://www.red-fone.com/)  and make sure there is no transcoding 
>>> going
>> on.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> *Hey Dave:  *Been a LONG while!   As per XEN, I've never used it - but
>> I've
>>> also heavily used Virtual Box.   Though I love Sun's Virtual Box compared
>> to
>>> VMWare Workstation - don't even think of deploying Asterisk on 
>>> VirtualBox
>> on
>>> a production platform.   Trust me, as you always have :).
>>> 
>>> *Cheers!
>>> Reza.*
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Toronto based VoIP / Asterisk Trainer, I.T. Consultant and Hosted 
>>> PBX Solutions Provider.
>>> +1-647-476-2067.
>>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/seminar
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Robert Brock <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Odd, I had a lot of problems with ESXi.
>>>> 
>>>> If I setup the asterisk server with just a firewall and asterisk 
>>>> server everything ran fine, Isolated nics for each app and network 
>>>> (internal,
>> DMZ
>>>> and external), worked fine, but as soon as you load more VM 
>>>> machines
>> things
>>>> started to go sideways. Call quality of recordings went weird, 
>>>> G729 connections started to act like there was a lot of jitter on the line.
>>>> 
>>>> I tried loading a test server on our ESX cluster and it was much 
>>>> much
>> worse
>>>> (60+ VM's).
>>>> 
>>>> Also with ESXi you can't add PRI/PSTN cards, everything must be
>> external.
>>>> 
>>>> I couldn't see much point in running a production asterisk server 
>>>> as
>> and VM
>>>> on ESX - Handy for testing but not for production.
>>>> 
>>>> I have also tried using ESX as a media server for Video and once 
>>>> more
>> than
>>>> 6 Vm were running on the ESX cluster video would get choppy for 
>>>> 1080P streams, it's like the network resource pools are being 
>>>> shared, even
>> when
>>>> nics are isolated to the specific VM.
>>>> 
>>>> Robert Brock
>>>> Telecom Administrator, MKS Inc., www.mks.com Waterloo, ON, Canada
>>>> Tel: 519-883-3243 or 800-265-2797 x3243
>>>> Fax: 519-884-8861
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Dave Donovan [mailto:[email protected]]
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 9:27 PM
>>>> To: Asterisk Users Group
>>>> Subject: Re: [on-asterisk] VM ESXi on Asterisk Production Platforms.
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Reza - Asterisk Consultant
>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> Has anyone in here worked hands on with ESXi and Asterisk?    Would
>> like
>>>> to
>>>>> hear your input and benchmarks, along with recommendations of other
>>>>> alternatives that you may have placed at your data centre running
>>>> Asterisk.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Do you prefer ESXi or other alternatives?   If alternatives, then
>> why?
>>>> 
>>>> Reza,
>>>> 
>>>> This is a timely post.  We just deployed Asterisk (PBX in a Flash) on
>>>> our ESX 3.5 platform at our Mississauga office.  ESXi is just a
>>>> skinnier version of ESX.
>>>> 
>>>> It's a bit early to say much about long-term stability, but we've had
>>>> no problems with Asterisk since deployment.  Fingers-crossed.
>>>> 
>>>> During testing, we found we had choppy/poor quality audio on
>>>> playback() operations like autoattendant.  It wasn't as bad with
>>>> voicemail messages so we installed native sounds, hoping that avoiding
>>>> GSM-ULAW transcoding would fix it.  It was improved but not great.  We
>>>> applie a kernel patch to resolve timing issues that caused the choppy
>>>> audio.  Now it's smooth as silk.
>>>> 
>>>> Info on that patch can be found here: http://pbxinaflash.com/vm/
>>>> 
>>>> We ran the code exactly as it appears near the bottom of the page.
>>>> The only other thing we had to do was edit grub.conf to make the new
>>>> kernel the default one.
>>>> 
>>>> I imagine that you're looking at a hosted type of application so,
>>>> unfortunately, I can't tell you much about scaling since we're running
>>>> only one Asterisk instance and it's the only thing in the high
>>>> priority resource pool.  It doesn't have to contend with any
>>>> resource-intensive guests on the same machine.
>>>> 
>>>> We chose VMware a couple of years ago for several reasons not related
>>>> to Asterisk.  Since then I've heard good things about other platforms
>>>> like VirtualBox and Xen but I have no first hand experience with them.
>>>> 
>>>> Good luck with your project,
>>>> 
>>>> Dave
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Toronto based VoIP / Asterisk Trainer,
> I.T. Consultant and Hosted PBX Solutions Provider.
> +1-647-476-2067.
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/seminar
> 
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
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> 


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