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In this section:

This section describes 

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 hardware and software requirements and recommendations on KVM.

To install and configure 

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, make sure the Virtual Machine (VM) host meets the following recommended hardware, server platform and software requirements.

Warning

The recommended hardware and software settings are intended to ensure optimum 

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stability and performance. If the recommended settings are not used, the 
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system may not behave as expected.

SBC SWe for KVM Hypervisor – Server Hardware Requirements


The following table lists the server hardware requirements.

Configuration Requirement
Processor

Intel Xeon processors (Nehalem micro-architecture or above) with 6 cores and above (processors should support hyper threading).

Note

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.

Note

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.


 RAMMinimum 24 GB
Hard DiskMinimum 500 GB
Network Interface Cards (NICs)
Minimum 4 NICs
Note

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.

Note

The following are supported for configuring as SR_IOV:

  • Cisco VIC
  • Intel I350
  • Intel x540
  • Intel x550
  • Intel x710
  • Intel 82599 Ethernet adapters
  • Mellanox Connect - 4x
  • Mellanox Connect - 5x
Ports

Number of ports allowed:

Warning

The 

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software runs only on platforms using Intel processors. Platforms using AMD processors are not supported.


BIOS Setting Recommendations

Ribbon recommends the following BIOS settings for optimum performance:

BIOS ParameterRecommended
Setting		Details
Intel VT-x (Virtualization Technology)EnabledFor hardware virtualization
Intel Hyper-ThreadingEnabled
Intel Turbo BoostEnabled
CPU Power ManagementMaximum Performance
Sub-NUMA ClusteringDisabledOnly applies if it is present as an option on the server

Example BIOS setting recommendations for HP DL380p Gen8 servers are shown below. For BIOS settings of other servers, refer to the respective vendor's website.


BIOS Setting Recommendations for HP DL380p Gen8 Servers

BIOS ParameterRecommended
Setting		Default Value
HP Power ProfileMaximum PerformanceBalanced Power and Performance
Thermal ConfigurationMaximum CoolingOptimal Cooling
HW PrefetchersDisabledEnabled
Adjacent Sector PrefetcherDisabledEnabled
Processor Power and Utilization MonitoringDisabledEnabled
Memory Pre-Failure NotificationDisabledEnabled
Memory Refresh Rate1x Refresh2x Refresh

SBC SWe for KVM Hypervisor – Software Requirements


The SBC SWe requirements for a KVM hypervisor environment are listed in the following table.

SoftwareVersionTested or Qualified Version
KVM Module 3.10.0 or above3.10.0
QEMU Emulator  1.5.31.5.3
libvirtd (libvirt)1.1.11.1.1
virt-manager0.10.00.10.0

Downloading the SBC SWe Software Package

For more information, see Downloading the SBC SWe Software Package.

Note

Ensure Processors and VM configuration (CPUs, RAM, Virtual Hard Disk, NICs, and Bridge settings) are identical for an SBC SWe HA pair.

Note

Do not change BIOS settings once they are applied on the server.

KVM Configuration and Settings 

ConfigurationSettings
 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.  

CPU resource reservation and pinning are required.

 vRAM

Reserve the memory based on call capacity and configuration requirements. Refer to benchmarking data for supported call capacities with different configuration limits.

Memory resource reservation is required.

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).

  • Use Virt-IO drivers only for MGMT and HA. VIRT-IO interfaces are not recommended for higher call loads.
  • For PKT0 and PKT1 the driver to use depends on the parallel sessions to support - it is either VIRT-IO or SR-IOV.
  • Associate each vNIC to separate bridges.

Note

To configure VLAN on SRIOV and PCI Passthrough Ethernet interfaces, disable the Data Center Bridging (DCB) on the switch connected to the interfaces.

Note

You can instantiate the SBC SWe in smaller-sized configurations that use limited memory and vCPU resources, if required. However, the limited resources place some restrictions on capacity and capabilities. Refer to Small SBC SWe Deployment Characteristics and Performance Metrics for Small SBC SWe Configurations for more information.



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