VMWare and IPO 1

[codermonkey]

Last night I finished a successful install, so I figured I'd share the good news.

In installed the management software and VoicemailLite for IPO406v2 on a Virtual Machine using VMware.
The virtual machine is a windows XP machine with 10gb HD and 512 RAM. Everything seem to be running fine. It's a little slow, when navigating around the management software, but I'm OK with that.
I have three other virtual machines on that server (single xeon with 2gigs of RAM) and this seemed a logical way of utilizing the remaining resources on that server. Didn't see the need in assigning an entire hardware server to IPO.

 

[aarenot]

Good, as long as you do not need support. Also, if you are a vendor, or service providor the first thing any half smart competitor would do would be to decry how what you have done is totaly against Avaya specs, unsupported, and may cause a corruption in the VM, IPO CFG, or cause any other number of unknown issues since this is totaly untested.

You can bet I would if I was looking to take the customer from anyone who sold a system this way.

Now if you own it, it is not the same situation.

 

[codermonkey]

I own it, so its a different situation.

I'm a big fan of Virtualization. No one really knows that its a VM, IPO certainly does not, the managment software does not either. For all intents and purposes its a real machine.

Appriciate you pissing in my corn flakes

 

[groundedagain]

The only real issue you may have with the VoiceMail is Disk I/O. Your users will love you if they have stilted Voicemail. Hero to Zero in two seconds flat.

Jason Wienert
Brisbane, Australia

http://www.centralcity.com.au

GoldMine, Avaya, ACCPAC CRM

Please remember to thank preople for their valuable input.

 

[codermonkey]

Valid Point. In the test I've done so far, it seems fine.
In any case, Voicemail Lite is so poor, that no one would notice.

 

[crumthwacket]

How would you feel if it worked on a mac? Now THAT would be interesting! (please don't hurt me)

 

[aarenot]

coder,
Sorry about the corn flakes, they are better with milk, or beer. I do see a HUGE difference between doing unsupported things with someone elses system than with your own. If it is yours then no worries that are not your own anyway so it is all good.

 

[aarenot]

I am actually looking at doing some virtual servers myself for a number of things. It is quite interesting what can be done with this technology.

 

[TheMitelGuy]

To the point where someone said "VMware may [could] cause corruption," that is completely false. Not sure where that came from, but not true.

Avaya will have to start interopt testing on VMware and MS Virtual Server. They have no choice. It is the way the industrIES have gone. Cisco and Mitel already support this (yes, they support it for VoIP systems and peripherials). Nortel has already started testing it as well, but has not come to the plate like Cisco and Mitel saying it's supported yet.

It's only time.

 

[big70]

Have some clients with VM-pro on VM-ware really no problems at al.....

Greets Peter

 

[ronnydelgado]

I have been running mine for 6 months with no problems.
I imaged my box and did a hardware independent restore into the VM.

Absolutely no problems during the restore and forward.

 

[Drew2400]

Usually I don't get into debates, however, this is an interesting one. I have quite a bit of experience with virtualization (specifically VMWare). Here are some items of interest:

IBM has been virtualizing mainframes for a VERY long time. Mainframes have been known to be one of the most reliable pieces of hardware ever. Your local ILEC/CLEC PBX (5ESS and DMS100) have also been known for this.

Virtualization allows you to remove hardware dependencies (i.e. processor type, board type, etc.). One minute you could be running VMPro on a single processor P4 and the next on a Dual processor XEON. Think of the ability to be back in business in mere minutes. Download the free VMware server, build a VM under one machine, copy the files to a completely different machine and it will boot (you can also use VMWare player).

Now, if you are running this under the free VMWare Server, this may not be so good. VMWare server lacks things like Vmotion and memory utilization algorithms in the commercial ESX. With ESX you can throw more horsepower at the IPO servers when necessary and prioritize them higher then the rest of the VM's.

Networking wise, make sure you are running a gigabit card in the VM server. The IPO will max at 100 Mbps, roughly 10% of the server (physical max not throughput max as IP has overhead). VLANing is something to be considered and the VMWare bridge should honor a higher priority packet thus bumping other traffic.

Packet wise, the IPO uses VERY little overhead for Voicemail, which let's face it, is the HIGHEST of priority. I'm quite sure that your IP Phone that is TFTPing it's config from the Virtual Machine can wait 50ms longer for each packet with out "hacking up a furball". I know a bit graphic....

I too tested IPO software(s) under VM and it worked very well. Yes, the responsiveness for the Manager app is terrible, however, I performed a workaround. I shared out the directory that contained the IPO config files on the VM and then pointed Manager on a desktop machine to the share in lieu of the the local folder. This would insure that I keep all configuration files in the same location.

Alot of people I talk to today are leveraging VM. Let's face it, ALL of our budgets are decreasing in size. How hard is it to sell a phone system today? VM allows you to better utilize a server's unused horsepower. Remember the Legend/Magix? It rang phones, made calls and took messages. That's it. Plain, simple and effective. As we've wanted more from our technology the IPO now can do all of the above plus act as your firewall, VPN you and it across the internet, perform directory lookups, deliver content to your phone, decide where a call should go, etc. Business wants more from it's hardware today and Multitasking is the key.

Lastly, to all who consider using VM, there are few elements to consider:
1) Memory Memory Memory
2) Proper networking and use a good switch
3) Put apps that have similar technologies/topologies on different boxes (put DNS, LDAP, DHCP VM's on with IPO software and file, print, and streaming software on a different piece of hardware). Put a little thought into the design of your virtualization infrastructure.
4) For the IPO VM, preallocate the disk space (after you defrag the harddrive). This will keep all the files contiguous and increase performance.
5) CPU horsepower is not as important as you think. What is? See number 1.

Also, HOST operating systems are irrelevant. You can run the IPO VM on VNWare server for Linux or Windows. It's your choice. With all the software available for free, give it a try. If only to get a better understanding of virtualization. And, to give you an idea of how virtualization is eminent, several hardware manufacturers are looking that the option of making virtualization "built in" at the board hardware level.

One thing I would like to see, is for us to have the option of the running the IPO apps under Linux in addition to/or in lieu of windows. Which would eliminate the cost of paying for an operating system. But, I'm sure that will start an entirely different debate.....

Take care all,
Drew

 

[TheMitelGuy]

Good posting (we are having good information brought to the table here).

To comment on Drew2400's comment, about Linux or Windows apps, Mitel has gone **almost** fully linux for applications. They have done it so well - you don't need to be a Linux guy or gal. It's all "next, next, next, finished" to the tech. When your all done, you have installed a Linux server with all of your telecom apps. Everything is managed via a HTML page and is completely graphical. Everything from a end-user's perspetive is Windows based (there are no end-user apps in Linux), but who cares what it looks like on the back end, as long as it is easy to manage and inexpensive for the hardware and O/S.

 

[kurthansen]

TheMitelGuy
Could you point me to where Cisco says Virtual Machine is ok? Not that I don't believe you but they make sure your hardware matches what they want 100% or the install will fail. I know Cisco runs Virtual on their demo machines but would like to see where they will let anyone run CCM on a virtual server. (maybe they won't let CCM but unity or something)

 

[aarenot]

I am very impressed with the VM capabilities, and think it is going to be the wave of the future. I think it even makes sense to put some on the test in the BP offices, and on test benches. That does not mean I support selling a system utilizing a VM as it does not meet support specs, that is my only reservation. There is a big difference between tryin, testing, and selling an unsupported solution, and lying to your customer saying you can do it that much cheaper when you are not telling them it is not a supported system scenario.
Now if you tell your customer you are rigging it up in an unsupported manner, so they can consider that in decision then you have a chance at an honest sale, however unsupported it may be.

 

[TheMitelGuy]

Kurthansen:

Check out Cisco's Call Manager 6.0 documentation. It is clearly stated in there. It was supported on 6.0(a) and up.

 

[TheMitelGuy]

The only problem I find with VMware, is for small business, it's typically cheaper to buy separate machines. Looking at Dell, servers are very cheap, and by the time you have the ESX (or even free version) of VMWare installed, extra RAM and procesing power, plus the additional MS licensing (or yes just free Linux), you are typically looking at more cost then if you just bought separate servers. Medium to large companies definately can save money with VMWare.

 

[codermonkey]

Looks like I've opened up a great can of worms. love it!

Got to disagree with the last post about, Virtualization only being for mid size companies.
I'm at a small company, and virtualization is a great solution for me.

I purchase a used IBM 335 server on ebay (don't start flaming me about reliability of hardware from ebay) for between $250-$450. Yes its true that I have to get an MS license for the operating system, but that's what the Action Pack is for, after all its an internal service.
Then I put as many VMs on there, as the hardware can handle.
Yes, I agree I could just drop the 450 bucks each time I need an application hosted, after all its only $450, HOWEVER I'm a bit of a tree huger, and feel bad about having a server sucking on electricity 24 hours a day when its processor is running at 2%. I rather put a few VMs on it, and make use of that processor (and RAM Drew2400)

Enough about theory, what do I actually use it for:
1 IBM 335 server (single xeon, 2gb RAM), VMware free server with the following virtual machines:
- IPO with Voicemail lite
- Custom call logging software for IPO
- Hylafax (6 faxlines for large volume faxing)
- Microsoft Fax server (4 lines for desktop faxing)
- Trouble Ticketing System
- XP Vm for testing, because I love the Snapshot feature, incase I screw up an instalation of something.

That's a saving of 6 servers. Now I have a budget to have a backup mirror of the Vm server, just in case something happens to the main one.

 

[TheMitelGuy]

codermonkey,

I don't consider your hardware/software configuration to be "true real world." You have lowend apps running on a decent machine. For what you are doing, yes your confurgation is fine, however, most businesses would need to run higher powered apps then what you are.

You are not using fair $$ (cost) when using Action Pack, that is not what our customers will pay.

If we do this honestly, at the correct retail values, I would love to go (friendly) "head-to-head" with a configuration from Dell, using individual machines.

Just so you know, we asked VMWare to provide the ROI for a small business, they too agreed, for the average 5-10 user office, with "normal" applications and multiple virtualisations. Although they provided one, they agreed it would be hard in some situations, considering the price of the hardware (it's getting so cheap now).

 

[aarenot]

TheMitelGuy,
While I agree with your calling codermonkeys' scenario as not a typical real life situation, that does not mean yours is either. Small businesses may find a reduction in machines needed, opening up the excess machines they already have to create redundancy with VM capabilities.

I would guess that Avaya will be coming out with a server in the IP500 color to match the IP500, rack mountable. They will test it, and possibly configure it for virtualization to support the IPO Apps on one server, and only support this avenue for virtualization first, then possibly support it after with even higher resourcing specs for providing your own machine.