In this section:
This section describes SBC SWe hardware and software requirements and recommendations.
To install and configure SBC SWe, make sure the Virtual Machine (VM) host meets the following recommended hardware, server platform and software requirements.
The recommended hardware and software settings are intended to ensure optimum SBC SWe stability and performance. If the recommended settings are not used, SBC SWe system may not behave as expected.
The following table lists the server hardware requirements. KVM Hypervisor Server Hardware Requirements Intel Xeon processors (Nehalem micro-architecture or above) with 6 cores and above (processors should support hyper threading). Ribbon recommends using Westmere (or newer) processors for better SRTP performance. These processors have the AES-NI instruction set for performing cryptographic operations in hardware. The supported CPU Family number is 6 and CPU Model number must be newer than 26. Refer to the Intel Architecture and Processor Identification document for more information. Make sure NICs have multi-queue support which enhances network performance by allowing RX and TX queues to scale with the number of CPUs on multi-processor systems. The Intel I350, x540, x550, and 82599 Ethernet adapters are supported for configuring as SR-IOV and DirectPath I/O pass-through devices. Number of ports allowed:Configuration Requirement Processor RAM Minimum 24 GB Hard Disk Minimum 500 GB Network Interface Cards (NICs) Ports
The SBC SWe software runs only on platforms using Intel processors. Platforms using AMD processors are not supported.
Ribbon recommends the following BIOS settings for optimum performance:
Recommended BIOS Settings for Optimum Performance
BIOS Parameter | Recommended Setting | Details |
---|---|---|
Intel VT-x (Virtualization Technology) | Enabled | For hardware virtualization |
Intel Hyper-Threading | Enabled | |
Intel Turbo Boost | Enabled | |
CPU Power Management | Maximum Performance |
For example, the BIOS settings shown below are recommended for HP DL380p Gen8 servers. For BIOS settings of other servers, refer to the respective vendor's website.
BIOS Setting Recommendations for HP DL380p Gen8 Servers
BIOS Parameter | Recommended Setting | Default Value |
---|---|---|
HP Power Profile | Maximum Performance | Balanced Power and Performance |
Thermal Configuration | Maximum Cooling | Optimal Cooling |
HW Prefetchers | Disabled | Enabled |
Adjacent Sector Prefetcher | Disabled | Enabled |
Processor Power and Utilization Monitoring | Disabled | Enabled |
Memory Pre-Failure Notification | Disabled | Enabled |
Memory Refresh Rate | 1x Refresh | 2x Refresh |
The following are SBC SWe requirements for a KVM hypervisor environment: KVM RequirementsSBC SWe for KVM Hypervisor – Software Requirements
Software Version Tested or Qualified Version KVM Module 3.10.0 or above 3.10.0 QEMU Emulator 1.5.3 1.5.3 libvirtd (libvirt) 1.1.1 1.1.1 virt-manager 0.10.0 0.10.0
For more information, see Downloading the SBC SWe Software Package.
Processors and VM configuration (CPUs, RAM, Virtual Hard Disk, NICs, and Bridge settings) must be identical for an SBC SWe HA pair.
BIOS settings and recommendations must not be changed once they are applied on the server.
KVM Configuration Recommendations
vCPU | Minimum 4 vCPUs required. Any number of vCPUs may be configured depending upon the call capacity requirements, but the number should be even (4, 6, 8, etc.) to avoid impacting performance. |
vRAM | Reserve the memory based on call capacity and configuration requirements. Refer to benchmarking data for supported call capacities with different configuration limits. |
Virtual Hard Disk | Set Hard Disk (virtual) size as 100 GB or more (based on requirements of retaining CDRs, logs, etc. for number of days).
Note: Hard disk size cannot be changed after the SBC SWe software is installed. |
vNICs | Set number of virtual NICs as 4 (1-MGMT, 1-HA, 1-PKT0 and 1-PKT1).
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To configure VLAN on SRIOV and PCI Passthrough Ethernet interfaces, disable the Data Center Bridging (DCB) on the switch connected to the interfaces.