Virtualizing Asterisk

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Virtualizing Asterisk

• Despairing Myths and Legends
• Nir Simionovich, Asterisk Guru
• Greenfield Technologies Ltd.

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A bit about myself

• Founder of Greenfield Technologies Ltd
• Founder of the Israeli Asterisk Users group
• Started using Asterisk in 2002
• Author of the AsteriskNOW book from Packt
  Publishing (Mar 08)
• Author of the Asterisk Developers Guide book
  from Packt Publishing (Jan 09)

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Asterisk A SysAdmins POV

• When most SysAdmins look at Asterisk, this is
  what they see

Oink, Oink, Im a resource hog!
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Myth I is a resource hog

• Asterisk requires a fair amount of resources in
  order to run properly.
• The things that turn Asterisk into a resource hog
  are the applications associated with it (AGI, AMI
  and others).
• Call center applications usually consume much
  resources.

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Myth II is a slow dialer

• Traditional Asterisk based dialers utilize the
  AMI interface for generating outbound calls, in
  its most simplistic form.
• While AMI had progressed over the years,
  traditional implementations are in capable is
  surpassing the 10 calls per second limitation.
• Companies build large infrastructures to sustain
  their needs

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Myth III Cant run in a VM

• Myth III is a result of Myth I and Myth II
  together.
• After all, if Asterisk is a hog, and,
• Asterisk is a slow dialer, thus,
• Running Asterisk in a VM based environments is
  either complicated or impossible.

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Introducing PokeTalk.Com
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Why is PokeTalk interesting?

• PokeTalk.Com is an ad driven, web callback system
  based upon Asterisk.
• While it utilizes an Asterisk based dialer, its
  platform is completely virtualized utilizing
  VMWARE Server.
• It currently operates 4 different Virtual
  Asterisk servers, capable of sustaining up to 100
  dials per second and up to 800 concurrent
  channels.

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100 Dials per second?
800 Channels?
VMWARE Server?
Im Confused!Numbers dontadd up!
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How does it work?
Yes, we have a veryfast hog in there!
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The Architecture
Web Server
Web Server
Web Server
Web Server
Asterisk Dialer
Asterisk Dialer
Asterisk Dialer
Asterisk Dialer
MySQLDatabaseCluster
VMWAREServer
VMWAREServer
Firewall
ISP WebLBS
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Hardware Specification

• Each VMWARE server is based upon the following
  hardware
• Intel Dual Quad Core XEON Processors
• 2 x RAID-1 SATA Drives (500GB)
• 2 x Gigabit Ethernet
• 16GB RAM
• In a VM environment, the more RAM you have the
  better even if you dont use all of it.

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Guest Operating System Setup

• CentOS 5.2 64bit Release
• All services turned off
• Active services include SSH and xinetd
• VMWARE Server 1.0.4
• Each Virtual server is setup as
• Dual Core CPU
• 2GB RAM
• 40GB Hard Drive (static allocation)

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Dialer Operating System

• CentOS 5.2 32Bit Release
• Asterisk 1.4.22
• MySQL 5
• PHP 5.2
• lighttpd web server
• FreePBX Management Interface
• Dialer is implemented in PHP and C!

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The Dialer Application Setup
SIP Termination Partners
Frontend Web
XML-RPC
XML-RPC StatusReports
Quaue Manager
DialerHandler
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A few service facts (Jan 09)

• Number of registered users gt 90,000
• Max number of concurrent calls across the
  cluster 360 calls
• Max number of concurrent requests served 110
  concurrent requests
• Total number of minutes served monthly gt 2M
  minutes per month.

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Making the case for Asterisk Virtualization
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Why virtualize Asterisk?

• Enable better utilization of your hardware money
• Consolidate your services into single hardware
  infrastucture
• Utilizing Open/Free virtualization technologies
  will lower your overall TCO
• Virtualizing Asterisk installations can negate
  the need for multi-tennent systems and IP centrex

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Asterisk Clouding

• Currently, there are working installations of
  Asterisk utilizing Amazon EC2
• As a test, weve installed the dialer application
  on EC2 based instances
• The added value of running virtual dialers using
  EC2 is to get the dialer power you need when
  you need it and not more
• Performance during the test was identical to that
  of VMWARE dedicated servers

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Where to from here?
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Development from the past

• Todays over excessive use of VM type run- time
  environments do not fit well with virtualization
• Working with virtual servers require a return to
  basics for most developers, returning to
  paradigms of high-speed optimizations and low
  memory foot prints
• The more optimal your runtime is, the more
  performance youll get from your virtual servers
  environment

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Optimize for -
Execute like -
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Pooled Provisioning

• Handling multiple VM images (or EC2 AMIs) can be
  a hassle
• Utilizing pooled provisioning and programmatic
  APIs, your provisioning process can be
  centralized and simple
• Maintain a single VM image instance (or EC2 AMI),
  and deploy your software from a central location

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Can we virtualize Asterisk?
Yes We Can!
Barak H. Obama Image taken from
http//www.obamarama.org
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Rules of thumb for Asterisk Virtualization

• Ensure proper coding techniques to lower
  platform overheads
• Utilize central pooling provisioning for ease of
  management
• Make use of programmatic APIs in a layered
  platform approach
• Ensure proper caching in your application

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Questions?

• Contact Information
• Nir Simionovich
• (e) nirs_at_greenfieldtech.net
• (p) 972-73-2557799
• (w) http//www.simionovich.com
• (w) http//www.greenfieldtech.net
• (w) http//www.asterisk.org.il
• (MSN) nirs_at_greenfieldtech.net