CMS - Load Balancing and Distributed Calls using VCS-Control

[Simon Battye]

Hi,

I am looking at a CMS Design for a scalable and resilient Cisco Meeting Server deployment, probably consisting of around 3 clustered servers.

I want to understand what options i have for distributed calls and load-balancing when the call control is Cisco VCS-Control, not CUCM.

Am i still able to cluster my Call Bridges as a Call Bridge Group? are there any advantages/disadvantages of doing this when using VCS-Control?  I'm aware that the load-balancing element will only work with CUCM as VCS does not include support for "INVITE with Replaces".

As there is no intelligence when load-balancing calls from VCS-Control, i'm thinking the best solution would be to group my endpoints in location based subzones, then create neighbour zones specific to the subzones using the source zone field, that defines a routing preference (primary/secondary/tertiary).

This would ensure that endpoints are routed to their local CMS node, but we would still take a hit if all locations joined the same space, as the call would be distributed across all nodes consuming a total of 9 ports, if there were a participant in each location.

Are there no other options when using VCS-Control? Or do we just have to put up with the inefficient use of resources?

Thanks, Simon

[Nick Halbert-Lillyman]

Callbridge groups aren't supported with VCS but I believe that functionality is coming very soon (or at least to Expressway, which I assume will also work for VCS).

If you needed it right now, your approach probably sounds like the best option.

[Simon Battye]

Thanks Nick - I'll keep an eye out for this.

[Dishani]

Hi Simon,

are you able to load Load Balancing and Distributed Calls from VCS-C to CMS ?

I am looking for a similar solution ?

my VCS-C connected  to 2 CMS servers .In VCS i have created a  zone and inside the zone -> location i have given both the CMS Ip address so that call will equally distribute to both the CMS.

I am having VCS X.8.8.1 version and planing to upgrade upgrade my VCS to X.11.x. The current design is not going to work after the upgrade. is there any other solution where calls can we equally disctibuted to both the CMS without call bridge group.?

[Nick Halbert-Lillyman]

Callbridge Groups are supported for Expressway as of X8.11, I assume also for VCS.  Does this solve your issue?