Virtual Servers: Proxmox, Hyper-V, ESXi,...

[jroper]

Hi

Someone drew my attention to this new product from Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/servers/hyper-v-server/default.mspx

It's a free download, which is a good start, and allows virtualisation.

I've not got a piece of spare hardware to try it on, but if anyone wants to have a go and see what happens...

There are other virtualisation machines - notably vmware - but can be a little wobbly with VoIP, XEN, of course, but a bear to set up, you need the right hardware to use an ISO image, and you have to compile your own kernel for ztdummy to work.

If, as Microsoft suggests, you build a box with Hyper-V on it, then use the PIAF ISO to create a number of PBX installations, and it turns out that ztdummy works, etc, and we don't get choppy sound, then this could be a nice solution for Multi-Tennant operations.

As an architecture, you could have one Hyper-V server running multiple PBX systems for each company, and a second box running A2Billing with the line cards in it, then route and bill for all calls through that.

Anyone with a bit of spare hardware prepared to have a play, and see what happens?

Joe

 

[Gibran27703]

Hello Joe -

In the past Microsoft only supported its own guest OSes on its virtualization products, it seems they changed that to support Suse only now.

That might a limitation as far as PAIF, not to mention the hardware resources it needs. The darn think requires a lot of power.

I have couple of servers I'll be willing to test if you think it is worth while, but I don't have any of the digium cards to test with.

Let me know if I can assist.

Nabil

 

[jroper]

Hi

It seems that it is an ISO they supply, and then you have a management system remotely, so its not running any GUI, if my understanding of the documentation is correct.

Additionally, they do mention it as a way of revitalising old hardware, and the mention the ability to load guest ISO's on it, so all the signs are there from the documentation that it may be OK.

I don't think that you would run cards on a virtual machine anyway. If you need a PSTN interface, I'd use a gateway or another asterisk box, probably running A2Billing.

I think it may be an interesting mental excercise to give it go, whether it is any good or not remains to be seen. But the alternatives require a high skill set as well, and are not entirely satisfactory.

Joe

 

[cjkeeme]

This is interesting. I have a couple spare machines. I'll give it a try and see where it goes. I was thinking about this earlier - I'm going to try out OpenVZ too.

 

[Fortel]

The free download looks to be a somewhat limited version of Hyper-V. That may be fine. It does require a 64 bit machine.

I'm surprised I haven't been hearing more about Linux Vserver in these forums. It installs and runs on 32 bit hardware; I've got it running with multiple guests on an old Toshiba laptop. It is far from plug and play, though, and I have yet to get PIAF working on it. But with time...

If MSoft's Hyper-V & PIAF works without much difficulty, I am very interested, and anxious to hear about it.

 

[jroper]

Hi

As we've mentioned before, there is not much modern hardware out there which is not 64bit.

That's why it's a bit annoying to have a 64 bit operating system, 64 bit hardware, and find that reportedly, asterisk is not as stable as we would like on 64bit

Joe

 

[jweek]

Joe -

I've tried PIAF on Hyper-V on WS2008 - worked ok, but ran into echo/choppy sound problems with my spa-3102. seems jitter was the problem. Also had trouble with the clock as Microsoft's hyper-v integration tools don't support centos. I do have a spare ML350-G4 and am willing to test. I'd love to virtualize my piaf install.

John

 

[wardmundy]

Here's another option that looks promising, and it also is free...

Proxmox Virtual Environment

 

[cjkeeme]

How are companies like LiliX doing it? It would be so awesome to collocate one massive server capable of serving many offices.

 

[Fortel]

Lilix uses Linux Vserver. I have 5 "guests" with Lilix, all running PiaF. It works well.

 

[compuguy]

I use virtual iron for my virtualisation. Supports Centos, Windows etc. It is based on XEN but has had a lot of development done on it and it is a mature product. Uses full virtualisation not para virtualisation so does need modern 64bit cpu's with the Intel virtualisation enhancements turned on.

The version to buy only costs $800 per physical cpu and comes with all the addons that vmware charge you for such as vmotion, vpower etc. If it works well with piaf it will be easy to create redundancy. There is also a free version available.

I have just downloaded the 1.3 iso and installed it in virtual iron. I have backed up our physical server and restored it to the virtual environment ( 10 extensions 1 x IAX trunk and 5 SIP trunks).

I will connect it up tomorrow and run some tests. VI provide rpm source for the vi tools (improves performance)

I will report back on the results of my tests.

there is a free version available on www.virtualiron.com

 

[drvcrash]

There is also a free version of Vmwares ESX server. Esxi. its pretty much the same as Esx just no local console. you have to do everything in a remote one. I run them all in the past and vmware wins me everytime.

 

[jhamon]

Hi,

Additionally when talking about VMWARE don't forget that in July 2008 ESXi was made as a free option.

It won't work with every motherboard but I'm using this with an HP Proliant ML110 G5 and it works great.

Here is the link on the VMWARE site

This site also gives you details of compatible/tested hardware

Unless you have access to the host node I wouldn't use openvz as all the VPSs share the same kernel unlike most other virtualisation platforms.

 

[jweek]

Centos pre-built with Hyper-V integration components

Here's a link to x86 and x64 vhd's ready to load on your Hyper-v install. Now all we need is Piaf!

[FONT=&quot]http://www.jules.fm/Logbook/files/hyperv_centos52.html

[/FONT]

 

[jroper]

Now all we need is Piaf!

and here it is ...

http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17423&postcount=10

 

[Gibran27703]

Hello All -

I am not sure if someone mentioned this here before or not, but thought I bring it your attention anyways - VMware ESXi is free to download and use. It's about 32Mb in size and don't think it needs that much resources as MS product does.

HTH - Nabil

 

[jerrymaynor]

I've been running under HyperV on server08 for about 6 months after installing the PiaF ISO image. I have a few issues - most notably that I can only see the console from another Server 08 machine so am now using that as my desktop OS. Altogether I'm pretty happy with it and it's been extremely stable.

 

[ronw]

I use Sun xVM VirtualBox to run piaf as a backup. I had it in operation at the house for about a week while I was rebuilding my asterisk box. I could not tell the difference as far as voice qualify. It works much better than vmware.

 

[krzykat]

How to Virtualize PIAF ??

Looking for some help or a shove in the right direction.

I have plans to take some dual xeon CPU boxes (IBM Xseries) and run several hosted PBX's on them. Through reading, seemed like XEN is the tool to use ? Anyone know how to do this?

I've done a Virtual Machine with VMserver on a win machine, I hope its half as easy as that is.

Also, can you run the PIAF as it stands, or do you need to customize anything such as Zaptel ? (using only soft switch, and won't have any FXO cards in the box).

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

 

[jroper]

Hi

I did this with Zen, zaptel crashed the box, but recompiling the kernel with a clock time of 1000hz instead of 250hz, and some minor mods to ztdummy got it working fine.

If you don't want zaptel, and therefore conferencing, then this step is not necessary.

Joe