topic Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question in Collaboration Applications

CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

danny.yf_li — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 02:06:35 GMT

Hi all

Cisco document says that CMS1000 support up tp 96HD calls. My client purchased a CMS1000

and a SMP+ license for CMS. How should I edit the CMS vm (vCPU, vRAm...) which was preloaded on CMS1000 in order to support 96HD calls? I can't find any document talking about this.

Thanks!

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Jaime Valencia — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 14:57:28 GMT

The CMS 1000 should already ship with the required specs in the VM so you just turn it on, load the licenses and configure it.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Patrick Sparkman — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 05:24:49 GMT

CMS 1000 comes preconfigured from the factory and already supports 96 HD ports when it ships.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

danny.yf_li — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:55:20 GMT

Thanks Java and patrick

I checked the preloaded CMS VM . The VM was given 8vCPU and 16GB RAM.

According to Cisco CMS VM resource allocation

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/uc_system/virtualization/virtualization-cisco-meeting-server.html#notes

, 1vCPU = 1.25HD port. So 8vCPU=10.24 HD ports

How to calculate 96HD ports with 8vCPU and 16GB RAM. This is a bit confusing to me.

Thanks guys

Danny

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Zoltan Kelemen — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 18:36:34 GMT

Hi Danny,

if it's showing you 8vCPUs, something is not quite right.

Have you activated your VMWare license?

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Jaime Valencia — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 18:42:45 GMT

It seems that they're shipping with the defaults as if you use the OVA from cisco.com (8 vCPU / 16 GB vRAM), just had a call with a partner that got two CMS 1K with the same thing.

The ESXi license was the right one on their boxes

OP, do the following, shut down the VM, upgrade the VM HW version

Then adjust the specs as follows:

2 sockets * 35 cores per socket

58 GB vRAM

Also reach out to your SE and let them know you also got a box with the wrong VM specs on the CMS 1K so the BU is aware, and they try to track this issue.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

danny.yf_li — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 02:35:27 GMT

Hi Zoltan

Yes. All licenses were applied. Including Vsphere 6 combined key for 2 CPU and CMS activation and call license keys. So far, I have deployed 3 CMS1000 for my clients. All CMS1000 come with preloaded VM with 8vCPU, 100GB harddisk and 16GB RAM. That's why I am so confused with the VM spec. Thanks!

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

danny.yf_li — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 02:50:36 GMT

Hi Java,

Thanks again for your comment. I have deployed 3 CMS1K so far. All of them came with 8vCPU, 100GB Harddisk and 16GB RAM. The VM specification didn't change automatically even all licenses were applied (Including Vsphere combined key for 2CPUs CMS activation key and call license. eg pmp+ smp+ and CMSCU)

The VM cannot be set as 2 sockets * 35 cores per socket but 2 sockets with at most 16 cores per socket

Thats makes the CMS1000 VM has Max 32 vCPUs. I did tune the virtual socket and cores per socket setting. The result were the same. The max CPU for CMS is limited to 32 vCPUs. This does make me confused. According to CMS Virtual machine deployment guideline provided by Cisco, such spec will not meet the requirement for 96HD concurrent calls.

Thanks!

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Jaime Valencia — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 02:59:38 GMT

VM version shows 8, did you upgrade the VM HW as I mentioned in my previous post??????

And the vRAM is also WRONG, it should be 58 GB, not 64. The server comes with 64 GB of RAM, if you choose 64, there's nothing left for the VM overhead and ESXi.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

danny.yf_li — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 03:55:54 GMT

Hi Java

I have just updated the VM from version 8.0 to 11.0.The vCPUs can now be set as 2 sockets and 3235 cores per socket. That makes it 7270 vCPUs (By the way,72 70x1.25=9087.5 HDports not 96HD ports). However I still have a question about the RAM. Cisco says that the RAM requirement is

4+ GB(1 per physical core). How should I interpret that requirement.

Thank you very much for your help!

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Jaime Valencia — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 03:18:42 GMT

The VM specs for a CMS 1000 are what I explained:

2 sockets * 35 cores per socket = 70 vCPU (BTW, check your math)

58 GB of vRAM

Those are the specs the VM that came preloaded should have had.

2vCPU left for ESXi

6 GB left for ESXi and VM overhead.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

danny.yf_li — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 03:49:35 GMT

Thank you Java

Sorry for my bad Math. 😜 .You did help me alot. I am still curious how to calculate 96HD ports if 1 vCPU=1.25 HD ports. Whatever, if 70vCPU and 58GB RAM can support 96HD ports, that is totally okay.

Danny

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Zoltan Kelemen — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 08:45:07 GMT

Since CMS1k is dedicated to CMS (and should not be running anything else, besides ESXi), the calculations on the Virtualization Wiki do not apply to it.

With the correct setup, it can handle the number of calls described in documentation.

If you look closer to the Virtualization Wiki, it does say that the tables do not apply to some hardware (like CMS1k). This is because the Virtualization Wiki assumes co-residence with other VMs.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Farrukh ' — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 08:01:32 GMT

Unfortunately my box came with preconfigured Telepresence server. when I create CMS OVA it does not let me configure more than 32 vCPU of 1 socket or 16 vCPU of 2 socket.

I right clicked on VM of CMS and click on Upgrade VM Compatibility and my VM machine upgraded from 8 to 11

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

beandrew — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 19:07:08 GMT

Hey Danny,

This is because you're currently running VM version 8 which only supports 32vCPUs. You'll want to upgrade the VM hardware by right clicking on the VM and hitting Upgrade Virtual Hardware. Once you've done this you'll be able to configure the VM with 2 sockets with 35 cores each.

Please let me know if you have any further comments, questions, issues, or concerns.

Kind regards,

Ben Andrews

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

lior look — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 08:26:08 GMT

Hey Jaime,

Look what Cisco suggest to do when going to deploy vmware based machine.

Go to "Cisco Meeting Server 2.0+ Installation Guide for Cisco Meeting Server 1000 and Virtualized Deployments" page 12.

7. From the Getting Started tab, select Edit Virtual Machine settings and CPUs.
a. Edit VM settings and choose CPUs. Set Number of Virtual Sockets to 1.
b. Set Number of Cores per Socket to one of the following:
* On a dual processor host with hyperthreading, set Number of Cores per Socket to the
number of logical cores minus 2.
"

So it seems like Cisco suggest to set vm with 1:68 instead of your recommendation 2:35

Please explain the difference

Thanks

For the record when I look at the ova parameters for the vm as Cisco defined on CMS 1000, I see that it looks as your suggestion.

But I still don't understand the difference between the guide.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Zoltan Kelemen — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 08:39:02 GMT

the CMS1k has 72 logical cores. Leaving 2 for ESXi will result in 70 cores.
Not sure if there is any practical difference between 2:35 or 1:70. CMS will see 70 cores either way.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

Jaime Valencia — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 15:02:00 GMT

That wasn't even there, good to know they added some info.

You'd really need to discuss with the BU or a TME the reason for that, which is different from what they send in the pre-configured OVA.

From a technical perspective, I agree with Zoltan, Only certain OSs would have/had specific requirements as to how they required virtual sockets Vs. cores per socket. But ultimately, the performance would be the same as it's really the hypervisor who handles the scheduling.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

beandrew — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 15:37:34 GMT

Hello Lior,

I agree that isn't the clearest, but if you take a look at Appendix C.1.1 Sizing your VM - Call Bridge VM - Running a single VM it mentions that you should configure mirror the underlying hardware.

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/conferencing/ciscoMeetingServer/Installation/Cisco-Meeting-Server-2-0-Installation-Guide-for-Virtualized-Deployments.pdf#page=38

C.1.1

Running a single VM When running a single virtual machine on a host, one physical core per host must be left unused by apps for ESXi scheduler. With a single VM, it is possible to use hyper- threading to increase the available capacity. In this case the number of available vCPUs is double the number of physical cores in use. So a two socket system which has 20 physical cores will have 19 available to the application. With hyper- threading enabled, 38vCPUs can be used, which should be allocated to the Meeting Server VM, and the other 2 left unused. If an option is available to choose both number of sockets and number of cores per socket, then these should mirror the underlying hardware.

Even in your excerpt it does still say that "On a dual processor host with hyperthreading, set Number of Cores per Socket to the number of logical cores minus 2". Which does suggest that it's still per core. Either way I do agree bullet a. should be clearer.

You definitely could run into a performance decrease if the VM believes it's using 1 processor with 70 cores vs 2 processors with 35 cores each due to how CPU cache works. If the VM isn't aware of the number of cores it may not keep the multi-threaded applications on the same CPU which could decrease the performance for certain tasks. However I can't say for sure the exact performance difference you'd see because there are a lot of factors that could affect how impacting it would be to have a process split between two physical CPUs.

Re: CMS 1000 VM resource allocation question

lior look — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 21:49:22 GMT

Ok thanks guys but I'm still not sure what to choose
@Jaime Valencia, what is BU / TME?