Server Requirements
The server requirements for deploying Softdial Contact Center™ (SCC) depend upon the number of users (agents) that must be supported. The following tables give specification details for both the physical and virtual servers.
5 agents - not for use in production
This configuration provides an all-in-one environment for up to 5 agents and 4 running campaigns.
This should be used for demonstration purposes only. Do not use this setup in production.
Physical (or Virtual) Server x 1
Fig. 1 - 5 agents, 1 server
| Processor | 8 Cores Intel I5 2.4 GHZ or greater |
| Memory | 8GB |
| Storage | 400GB |
| NIC | Single 1GB |
| OS | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition license x1 |
| Software | MongoDB Softdial Contact Center™ – full installation Softdial Telephony Gateway™ – full installation |
Notes
- Use MariaDB as the main database for Softdial Campaign Manager™ and Softdial Publisher
For production, a minimum of IIS 8.5, and therefore Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard, is required.
50 agents
Without High Availability (HA)
Physical Server x 1 - VM Host
Fig. 2 - 50 agents, 1 server
Physical Specification
| Processor | 12 Cores / 24 Threads Intel Xeon 2.4 GHZ or greater |
| Memory | 48GB (DDR3 or faster) |
| Storage | 2TB HDD must be SAS 15K drives RAID 5 or striped SSDs If recording calls: |
| NIC | Dual 1GB |
| OS | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition license x 2. Each license can be used for 2 virtual servers. |
| Software | Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Standard or Express Edition x 1 VMWare vSphere Standard 2 CPU x 1 VMWare vCenter Standard Appliance x 1 |
Virtual Specification
| Virtual Servers | vCores | vRAM | vDisk | OS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Primary - For Softdial CallGem™, applications (e.g. Softdial Campaign Manager™/ Softdial Scripter™), web server, reporting | 8 | 16GB | 1TB System Disk | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition |
| 2 | Telephony - For Softdial Telephony Gateway™ | 4 | 4GB | 200GB | |
| 3 | MongoDB - For 1 year of data retention | 4 | 4GB | 200GB | |
| 4 | SQL Server - Required if an existing SQL server does not meet the minimum requirement. Running Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Standard or Express Edition | 6 | 8GB | 500GB | |
| 5 | VMWare vCenter Appliance - Recommended | 2 | 4GB | 100GB | VMWare vCenter |
150 agents
Without High Availability (HA). See Notes - 1) below.
A virtual server has been included for the SQL database.
Because it is possible to build this environment with a varying number of physical hosts, the focus here is on the minimum requirements for virtual machines. Below are two examples:
1) Physical Servers x 1 - VM Host
Fig. 3 - 150 agents, 1 server
Physical Specification
| Processor | 24 Cores / 48 Threads Intel Xeon 2.4 GHZ or greater |
| Memory | 96GB |
| Storage | 8TB HDD must be SAS 15K drives RAID 5 or striped SSDs If recording calls: |
| NIC | Dual 1GB |
| OS | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition license x 3. Each license can be used for 2 virtual servers. |
| Software | Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition x 1 VMWare vSphere Standard 2 CPU x 2 VMWare vCenter Standard Appliance x 1 |
Virtual Specification
If you chose this option, all virtual servers (as detailed in the Physical Servers x 3 specification below) will be hosted in the same physical host.
2) Physical Servers x 3 - VM Hosts
Fig. 4 - 150 agents, 3 servers
Each with the same physical specification.
Physical Specification
| Processor | 8 Cores / 16 Threads Intel Xeon 2.4 GHZ or greater |
| Memory | 40GB |
| Storage | 1.5TB HDD must be SAS 15K drives RAID 5 or striped SSDs If recording calls: |
| NIC | Dual 1GB |
| OS | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition license x 3. Each license can be used for 2 virtual servers. |
| Software | Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition x 1 VMWare vSphere Standard 2 CPU x 2 VMWare vCenter Standard Appliance x 1 |
Virtual Specification
Physical Server 1
| Virtual Servers | vCores | vRAM | vDisk | OS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Primary & Apps - For Softdial CallGem™, Softdial Campaign Manager™, Softdial Scripter™ | 8 | 16GB | 200GB | Windows Server 2012 R2 / 2016 Standard Edition |
| 2 | Telephony - For Softdial Telephony Gateway™ | 4 | 4GB | 200GB | |
| 3. | File Server & WebRTC | 4 | 4GB | 200GB |
Physical Server 2
| Virtual Servers | vCores | vRAM | vDisk | OS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Telephony 2 - For Softdial Telephony Gateway™ | 4 | 4GB | 200GB | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition |
| 5 | MongoDB
For best IO performance, Sytel recommends a separated disk only for this server |
8 | 16GB | 400GB |
Physical Server 3
| Virtual Servers | vCores | vRAM | vDisk | OS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | SQL Server - Running Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Standard or Express Edition For best IO performance, Sytel recommends a separated disk only for this server |
8 | 16GB | 1TB | Windows Server 2012 R2 / 2016 Standard Edition |
| 7 | VMWare vCenter Appliance | 4 | 8GB | 100GB | VMWare vCenter |
250 agents
Without High Availability (HA). See Notes - 1) below.
Because it is possible to build this environment with a varying number of physical hosts, the focus here is on the minimum requirements for virtual machines. Here we show one possible option using three physical hosts.
Physical Servers x 3 - VM Hosts
Fig. 5 - 250 agents, 3 servers
Each with the same physical specification.
Physical Specification
| Processor | 8 Cores / 16 Threads Intel Xeon 2.4 GHZ or greater |
| Memory | 40GB |
| Storage | 1.5TB HDD must be SAS 15K drives RAID 5 or striped SSDs If recording calls: |
| NIC | Dual 1GB |
| OS | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition license x 4. Each license can be used for 2 virtual servers. |
| Software | Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition x 1 VMWare vSphere Standard 2 CPU x 3 VMWare vCenter Standard Appliance x 1 |
Virtual Specification
Physical Server 1
| Virtual Servers | vCores | vRAM | vDisk | OS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Primary & Apps - For Softdial CallGem™, Softdial Campaign Manager™, Softdial Scripter™ | 8 | 16GB | 200GB | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition |
| 2 | Telephony 1 - For Softdial Telephony Gateway™ | 4 | 4GB | 200GB | |
| 3 | File Server & WebRTC | 4 | 4GB | 200GB |
Physical Server 2
| Virtual Servers | vCores | vRAM | vDisk | OS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Web server | 4 | 8GB | 200GB | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition |
| 5 | Telephony 2 - For Softdial Telephony Gateway™ | 4 | 4GB | 200GB |
Physical Server 3
| Virtual Servers | vCores | vRAM | vDisk | OS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | MongoDB | 14 | 38GB | 800GB SSD | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition |
| 7 | VMWare vCenter Appliance | 2 | 4GB | 100GB | VMWare vCenter |
Above 250 agents
SCC can be deployed for larger installations above 250 agents. There are many options to achieving this using IaaS, physical servers or virtualisation services. If you need to deploy larger installations,
Deploying for IaaS
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a form of cloud computing that provides virtualized computing resources over a wide area network (WAN), such as the internet. IaaS customers access these resources and services through the internet (for example) and can use the cloud provider's services to install the remaining elements of an application stack.
For example, a user might log in to an IaaS platform to
- create virtual machines (VMs)
- install operating systems in each VM
- deploy middleware, such as databases
- create storage buckets for workloads and backups
- install the enterprise workload into that VM
If you choose deploy SCC in an IaaS environment, Sytel recommends the following:
- Create all your virtual machines following the same specification and sizing already defined above
- For vCPUs, use a minimum of 2GHz per core
It is strongly recommended to reserve 100% of CPU and RAM for all VMs
- Apply the same restrictions for virtual HDs as described in the server sizing above. This is important to maintain the vHDs' performance.
Notes
1) High Availability
High Availability can be achieved using virtualization, replicating the virtual machines to a synchronized parallel environment. It also is possible have physical hosts with higher capacity to use as spare servers.
For more guidance on HA deployments, please read this white paper, or
2) Optional servers
The following additional virtual servers are recommended:
| Virtual Servers | vCores | vRAM | vDisk | OS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SIP Registrar Server - Optional for extensions Required where the customer requires a SIP Registrar for agent SIP or softphone registration |
2 | 4GB | 100GB | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition, with Asterisk or Freeswitch |
| 2 | WebRTC server - Optional for extensions Required for WebRTC |
2 | 4GB | 100GB | Windows Server 2012 R2/ 2016/ 2019 Standard Edition, with customized Freeswitch deployed by Sytel |
3) Virtualization - general recommendations
- For best performance, reserve CPU and RAM for all servers
- Use separated disks for virtual database servers. For production environments we recommend using SSD hard drives
- All database server specifications (except for the 5 agent demo environment) should support up to 2 years of data, but bear in mind that data volume will increase over time. Therefore, it is important to monitor the server’s performance. It is also important to define a long term strategy for handling the data (e.g. increasing the server specification, or splitting the data)