Tipping

the Scales
Measuring
and Scaling
Asterisk
 CAN YOU SPEAK MAGIC?

Ben Klang

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ButDoes it Scale?!
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Yes!*
* Probably. This is what were gonna talk about

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AGENDA: TIPPING THE SCALES

Scaling terminology
Tools of the Trade
Testing Methodology
Results

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Scaling Terminology

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Calls Per Second (CPS)

Concurrent Calls (CC)

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CALLS PER SECOND

Rate at which new calls are started
5CPS = 5 calls started each second
Usually meaningful only where:
Average call duration is very short (dialers)
No media is handled (proxies)
For most people, this is not the
bottleneck

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CONCURRENT CALLS
Number of calls active at any
particular moment in time
This is what most people really
care about when scaling Asterisk

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HOW CPS AND CC RELATE

CPS * Avg. Call Duration = CC (peak)

5 CPS * 30s = 150 CC

10 CPS * 30s = 300 CC

10 CPS * 60s = 600 CC

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Tools of the Trade

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SIP P
THE Open Source SIP load
generating tool
High Performance
Very Flexible
XML-based configuration
Awkward command line options
Very Flexible

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The Problem with SIPp

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STEP 1: WRITE SIP

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STEP 2: RECORD A CALL

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STEP 3: DECIDE SIP P ARGS

sudo /usr/local/sbin/sipp -p 8836 \

-sf scenario.xml -l 1000 -m 20000 \
-fd 1 -r 5 -s 1 \
-no_rate_quit -rate_max 35\
-rate_increase 1 -rate_interval 30 \
-trace_stat -stf stats_file.txt\
-i 10.3.18.108 -mp 20953 -trace_screen \
-screen_file screen_file.txt \
-trace_err -error_file errors.log \
-t u1 10.3.18.134

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STEP 4: TEST

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PERMUTATIONS!

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The Problem with SIPp:

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SippyCup

1. Write test steps in simple syntax

2. Compile SIPp XML + PCAP audio
3. Run SIPp with correct arguments

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EXAMPLE: SIPPY CUP

source: 192.0.2.15
destination: 192.0.2.200
max_concurrent: 1000
calls_per_second: 5
number_of_calls: 20000
steps:
- invite
- wait_for_answer
- sleep 3
- send_digits '4045551234'
- sleep 5
- send_digits '#'
- wait_for_hangup

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TIME TO CREATE ONE TEST

SIPp: ~1 hour

SippyCup: ~1 minute

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SIP Treadmill

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Testing Methodology

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BAD QUESTIONS
How many calls can Asterisk
handle?
I heard X is faster than Y?
How much CPU/Memory do I need?
Does it scale?!

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GOOD QUESTIONS
What is my average call duration?
Am I touching the media?
What if I enable recording?
Can I optimize out transcoding?
Do I need mixing/conferencing?

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 CAN YOU SPEAK MAGIC?

How much does each

Asterisk feature
impact the capacity
of a given system?
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THE PERFORMANCE QUADUMVIRATE

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Results

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BASELINE: B2BUA

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BASELINE: B2BUA

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BASELINE: B2BUA

Saturation Point

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FILE PLAYBACK (NATIVE)

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FILE PLAYBACK (NATIVE)

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FILE PLAYBACK (NATIVE)

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FILE PLAYBACK (TRANSCODED)

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FILE PLAYBACK (TRANSCODED)

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FILE PLAYBACK (TRANSCODED)

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CONFERENCES (~10 CALLS/ROOM)

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CONFERENCES (~10 CALLS/ROOM)

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CONFERENCES (~10 CALLS/ROOM)

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RECORDED CALL

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RECORDED CALL

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RECORDED CALL

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THE RESULTS
100%

75%
71%
66%

49%

se l i n e at i ve ) c ode ) C on f rded
Ba ac k ( n ac k ( x S p l i t Reco
Playb Playb
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IF YOU HEAR NOTHING ELSE

Test for yourself!
Open Source tools make this not as
hard as it used to be
Sippy Cup
SIP Treadmill
SIPp

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sipp.sf.net

@bklang
bklang@mojolingo.com
mojolingo.github.io/sippy_cup

@MojoLingo github.com/att-innovate/SIPTreadmill
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