Best way to loadbalance

[jansaell]

We are in the process of upgrading and rebuilding the servers we have for the VICIDIAL system for a customer (very god product by the way).

There are several ways to loadbalance the system with multiple servers and i would just be interesteed in what the best way is.

1. Make a separate databaseserver. This is a obviouse one.

2. Make one server with both astersik and apace running and let some part of the users run on that
OR
Make 1 webserver that controlls a number of vicidial boxes?

Anyone have any idea what can be the best one and what the numbers are (ie how many vicidial servers can 1 webserver handle)?

best regards
jan

[mflorell]

getting the database onto a separate server is the best thing to do first. If you plan on expanding, make the database server as fast as you can with 4 x SCSI U320 drives in a RAID 10.

As for web server, we have found that a separate single P4 3.0GHz Apache/PHP webservercan reliably handle about 70 agents(probably more with better hardware). In our 120-seat call center we use two of these web servers with "balance" running on one of them to split the traffic load between the two and it works very well.

With 1 DB server and 2 web servers we have 6 Asterisk servers with 20 agents each, load balanced call distribution between them, and this setup proves to be very efficient.

So to answer you question: if you can get a dedicated web server for your multiple VICIDIAL servers to use.

[enjay]

Matt,

any config samples for a system with 2 asterisk servers where if all T1 channels on one system are utilized it will roll over to the next server to utilize their T1's.

thanks,
enjay

[mflorell]

I've never set one up like that. I suppose it would work, but you would have to tinker with the extensions.conf to get it working right. It would probably be easiest to use IAX channel from one server to the other and then just add a new line in the dialplan after the Dial Zap to go to the Dial IAX2(where dialing fails on the local Zap group, it will go to the nex line which is a Dial to IAX).

Doing that directly through VICIDIAL without extensions.conf settings is something I've thought about, but haven't had time to work on.

MATT---

[enjay]

Matt,

I figured it would be something along those lines I just wasnt sure if it received a CHANUNAVAIL if it would automatically goto the next line in the dialplan (i.e. the IAX trunk).

Thanks,
enjay