[cisco-voip] BE7K or not?

Fri Dec 4 09:34:54 EST 2015

Thanks Charles. 

Yes, I was really hoping to be able to use the 10Gig option. But unfortunately that breaks a system's TRC certification. :( 

We're going to have to end up installing another switch and additional top of rack patch panels to accommodate the horde of cables. Along with the "are you sure you need all these?" over and over again. :( 

Lelio 

--- 
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A. 
Senior Analyst, Network Infrastructure 
Computing and Communications Services (CCS) 
University of Guelph 

519‐824‐4120 Ext 56354 
lelio at uoguelph.ca 
www.uoguelph.ca/ccs 
Room 037, Animal Science and Nutrition Building 
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Charles Goldsmith" <wokka at justfamily.org> 
To: "Rob Dawson" <rdawson at force3.com> 
Cc: "Lelio Fulgenzi" <lelio at uoguelph.ca>, "cisco-voip voyp list" <cisco-voip at puck.nether.net> 
Sent: Friday, December 4, 2015 12:05:16 AM 
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] BE7K or not? 

This has always been the case for me, always run out of CPU cores on the TRC builds long before the memory, even with the 10k ova's on UCM, 20k ova on UCxn and 400 agent CCX. 

The c240's also come with something like 12 nics, so never had an issue with bandwidth either, but I have had some customers swap out for 10gb nics, just to cut down on cable size and standardize with the rest of their servers. 

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 7:32 PM, Rob Dawson < rdawson at force3.com > wrote: 

Unless you are planning on running co-resident database or messaging apps with large memory, storage, or IOPS requirements (which typically wouldn’t be run on a server with direct attached storage anyway) then you are likely not going to exceed the memory and disk capacity on the 7K. 

A 10k user CUCM instance burns 4 cores, 8 GB RAM and 110 GB of disk. Based on the fact that over subscription of resources is not supported, in most cases you would probably run out of CPU before memory or disk space. 

Rob 

From: cisco-voip [mailto: cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net ] On Behalf Of Lelio Fulgenzi 
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2015 4:41 PM 

To: cisco-voip voyp list 
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] BE7K or not? 

Thanks Ryan. 

I hear what you're saying about the TRC and the listed components. I only raise the question about additional memory and additional NICs because in the docwiki it says that you can add both more memory and more NICs (of the same type) and still be TRC. Or at least that's the way I read it. (REF below) 

As far as long term objectives, my concern is really with the changing VM memory requirements which may increase past the amount available. That being said, the "large" model has 124GB available to VMs, so I should be in good shape for a while. 

I'll be building out the platforms using the UCS tool next week and see how that goes. 

================= 

Reference: 

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/UC_Virtualization_Supported_Hardware#Memory_.2F_RAM 

Under "UC on UCS TRC" column: Total available is listed in Table 1. Additional memory may be added. 

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/UC_Virtualization_Supported_Hardware#IO_Adapters.2C_Controllers_and_Devices_for_LAN_Access_and_Storage_Access 

For UCS C-Series TRC: 
must exactly match adapter vendor/model/technology (e.g. Intel i350 for 1GbE or QLogic QLE2462 for FC) listed in Table 1 BOMs. 
Allowed NIC quantity must be same or higher than what is listed in Table 1 BOMs. 

================= 

--- 
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A. 
Senior Analyst, Network Infrastructure 
Computing and Communications Services (CCS) 
University of Guelph 

519 ‐ 824 ‐ 4120 Ext 56354 
lelio at uoguelph.ca 
www.uoguelph.ca/ccs 
Room 037, Animal Science and Nutrition Building 
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 

From: "Ryan Huff" < ryanhuff at outlook.com > 
To: "Lelio Fulgenzi" < lelio at uoguelph.ca >, "cisco-voip voyp list" < cisco-voip at puck.nether.net > 
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 4:02:30 PM 
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] BE7K or not? 

Lelio, 

Yes, you can remove the pre-installed VM's and deploy your own (with respect to the allowances of the TRC). 

The reason adding additional hardware isn't supported is because the Business Edition UCS chassis's are sold as a TRC (Tested Reference Configuration); meaning that Cisco has tested a variety of approved configurations on the platform with which TAC will support end-to-end. 

Configurations (hardware or software) outside those parameters have not been tested and could cause unplanned/unpredictable results with which TAC will not support. With the TRC stuff, you pretty much need to follow the DocWiki and deployment guides chapter and verse. 

If you'd like to be able to customize your UCS chassis and perhaps capitalize on co -residency allowances (again, within supported parameters), you'd want to look at something called a specs-based configuration or a data center product like a B series chassis. 

If you'd like to provide us with some detail on what your long-term objectives are with the upgrade and some demographics on your user/device population we might be able to give you some more informed insight. 

Hope that helps, 

= Ryan = 

Email: ryanthomashuff at outlook.com 

Spark: ryanthomashuff at outlook.com 

Twitter: @ryanthomashuff 

LinkedIn: ryanthomashuff 

Web ryanthomashuff.com 

From: cisco-voip < cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net > on behalf of Lelio Fulgenzi < lelio at uoguelph.ca > 
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 3:45 PM 
To: cisco-voip voyp list 
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] BE7K or not? 

Thanks for everyone's responses. I read on one of the pages that BE7K comes pre-loaded with UCCx 4 vCPU OVA, but I'm guessing that I can run whatever OVA I want as long as it fits? 

We were told that the BE7K is not customizable, even after ordering, so adding memory or anything like that is not permitted. This sort of makes me cringe. I like having the opportunity to add memory and/or additional NICs as with the other TRCs. Can't really justify it now, but as future versions come up, I'd like to have the ability to add more memory if the CUCM v11 or v12 version requires it. 

It's really only memory and NIC throughput that I can see having to increase and only as the apps demand more with each version. 

Lelio 

--- 
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A. 
Senior Analyst, Network Infrastructure 
Computing and Communications Services (CCS) 
University of Guelph 

519 ‐ 824 ‐ 4120 Ext 56354 
lelio at uoguelph.ca 
www.uoguelph.ca/ccs 
Room 037, Animal Science and Nutrition Building 
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 

From: "Rob Dawson" < rdawson at force3.com > 
To: "cisco-voip voyp list" < cisco-voip at puck.nether.net > 
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 11:27:07 AM 
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] BE7K or not? 

The newest BE7ks are built on C240 M4 hardware. The BE7H-M4-K9 is 20 cores, 128 GB RAM, 4+ TB of available disk space, the BE7M-M4-K9 is 12 cores, 64 GB RAM, and around 2.6 TB available disk. 

Cisco states on the data sheet that BE7k is “optimized for enterprise-scale organizations with 1000 to 5000 users and 3000 to 15,000 devices” but they also note “For more capacity to support larger sized deployments, simply stack additional servers. And in smaller sized deployments with less than 1000 users, typically more applications can be supported per server.” 

I haven’t seen any practical limitations, and as pointed out by someone else you can use the VM Placement Tool to see what OVAs fit, and scale to size. 

Rob 

From: cisco-voip [ mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net ] On Behalf Of Lamont, Joshua 
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2015 10:21 AM 
To: Lelio Fulgenzi 
Cc: cisco-voip voyp list 
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] BE7K or not? 

Sorry for the confusion... We had originally planned to install C240 M3s but swapped them out for the C240 M4s instead. 

Joshua Lamont 

Senior Telecommunications Engineer 

Brown University 

office (401) 863-1003 

cell (401) 749-6913 

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Lelio Fulgenzi < lelio at uoguelph.ca > wrote: 

There are BE7Ks built on the new UCS C240 M4s. 

Or by "new" do you mean something else other than the 240M4s? 

--- 
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A. 
Senior Analyst, Network Infrastructure 
Computing and Communications Services (CCS) 
University of Guelph 

519 ‐ 824 ‐ 4120 Ext 56354 
lelio at uoguelph.ca 
www.uoguelph.ca/ccs 
Room 037, Animal Science and Nutrition Building 
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 

From: "Joshua Lamont" < joshua_lamont at brown.edu > 
To: "Matthew Loraditch" < MLoraditch at heliontechnologies.com > 
Cc: "Lelio Fulgenzi" < lelio at uoguelph.ca >, "cisco-voip voyp list" < cisco-voip at puck.nether.net > 
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 10:02:47 AM 
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] BE7K or not? 

We're in the process of converting to Cisco UC and recently during our design phase swapped out the BE7Ks in favor of the new UCS C series severs. C240 M4s are used for the majority of our cluster. 

Joshua Lamont 

Senior Telecommunications Engineer 

Brown University 

office (401) 863-1003 

cell (401) 749-6913 

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Matthew Loraditch < MLoraditch at heliontechnologies.com > wrote: 

http://tools.cisco.com/ucs 

is your friend, pick your server model and the ovas you will use. 

In general though BE7K should be fine. No limitations besides overall resources. Just gotta figure out how many you need or want 

Matthew G. Loraditch – CCNP-Voice, CCNA-R&S, CCDA 
Network Engineer 
Direct Voice: 443.541.1518 

Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | G+ 

From: cisco-voip [mailto: cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net ] On Behalf Of Lelio Fulgenzi 
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 9:38 AM 
To: cisco-voip voyp list < cisco-voip at puck.nether.net > 
Subject: [cisco-voip] BE7K or not? 

We're spec'ing out some new UCS servers for our next upgrades. 

Still trying to figure out what, if any, limitations going with a BE7K might have. Does anyone care to share a reason why we shouldn't go with BE7K, or why we shouldn't go with a la cart using the BOM? 

There was once an issue with a limitation of users/devices, but I think that's gone now. My biggest concern is trying to do something on the BE7K and finding out only after that it's not allowed or supported. 

Any ideas would be great. 

Lelio 

--- 
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A. 
Senior Analyst, Network Infrastructure 
Computing and Communications Services (CCS) 
University of Guelph 

519 ‐ 824 ‐ 4120 Ext 56354 
lelio at uoguelph.ca 
www.uoguelph.ca/ccs 
Room 037, Animal Science and Nutrition Building 
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 

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