Below is the Cisco Prime Collaboration virtualization information copied from the development page. We do not yet have final IOPS numbers for the assurance, but you can budget ~10 average and 25 maximum. Generally, to size you need to add up the cores, RAM and total amount of vDisk and make sure the system and the VMware can provide the total requirement.  Assume resources are dedicated to each VM.  The more complex part of sizing is the disk performance, since it is essentially shared across the applications.  Adding up the IOPS will give you an idea of the total amount of disk performance needed.  This is a simple method of generally determining how many and which applications can be added to a server.  Supported OVA Templates: Prime Collaboration Application, OVA Capacity and Notes+Download Link vCPU Cores vCPU Speed vRAM / Memory vDisk IOPS (avg) (1) IOPS (max) (1) vNIC Notes Prime Collaboration Provisioning up to 1K phones 1 2.33Ghz 2 GB 90 GB 100 500 1 Prime Collaboration Provisioning 1K to 10K phones 4 2.33Ghz 8 GB 120 GB(2) 100 500 1 Prime Collaboration Provisioning 10K to 100K phones app server 8 2.33Ghz 16 GB 120 GB(3) 100 500 1 requires DB VM Prime Collaboration Provisioning 10K to 100K phones database server 8 2.33Ghz 16 GB 120 GB(3) 100 500 1 requires App VM Prime Collaboration Provisioning 100K to 150K phones app server 8 2.33Ghz 16 GB 150 GB(3) 100 500 1 requires DB VM Prime Collaboration Provisioning 100K to 150K phones database server 8 2.33Ghz 16 GB 150 GB(3) 100 500 1 requires App VM Prime Collaboration Assurance 1K phones 4 2.33Ghz 8 GB 150 GB 1 Prime Collaboration Assurance 1K to 10K phones 8 2.33Ghz 16 GB 200 GB 1 Prime Collaboration Assurance 10K to 100K phones 12 2.33Ghz 24 GB 500 GB 1 Prime Collaboration Assurance 100K to 150K phones 18 2.33Ghz 32 GB 750 GB 1 Notes: (1) IOPS are for each CM publisher synced in parallel. If only one CM publisher then IOPS are 100/500. The maximum figures would be expected during nightly Infrastructrure or Subscriber syncs. (2) PM requires SAS or SCSI drives for deployments over 1K phones up to 10k phones (Disks must be aligned) (3) PM requires FC SAS for deployments over 10K phones (Disks must be aligned ... View more

The collaboration market has been evolving over the last 10 years, with more and more enterprises putting strategies in place for investing in collaboration or Unified Communications, and employees driving greater and greater adoption. As we all know, the promise of this technology is to enable organizations of all sizes to exchange information, speed decision-making, and enhance training. And, at the same time, it helps employees save time, enabling them to increase their personal productivity. However, to make the potential of collaboration a reality, organizations require more than network devices, applications, and endpoints. They need a powerful management solution to help them control costs, simplify operations, deliver a superior user experience, and extract the full value from their unified communications and collaboration technology investment. In this tough economic climate, organizations are seeking better ways to reduce operating expenses associated with collaboration solutions and lower their total cost of ownership. Their IT groups need to minimize the complexity of running a network infrastructure that is hampered by siloed, disparate, complex management products. Traditionally, these scattered, nonintegrated tools make it difficult to troubleshoot problems; provision new users; or perform moves, adds, changes, and deletions (MACDs). At the same time, organizations have limited resources, and they need to make the most of an expensive, highly skilled IT staff. That means freeing them from manual, administrative functions to concentrate on more strategic tasks. IT organizations also focus on providing the best possible quality of experience to end users. And again, although collaboration can transform business processes, it will not be successful unless an organization can encourage its adoption and consistent use. The best way to promote adoption is to deliver a highly available, trouble-free solution that can complement and work smoothly with existing network services. Minimizing service degradation and quality-of-service concerns dramatically enhances the end-user experience, and lets operators avoid expensive and time-consuming system and service outages. Cisco Prime Collaboration: An Integrated Solution for Collaboration Management Recently Cisco announced our new simplified, unified solution for management of voice and video networks—Cisco Prime Collaboration. Designed specifically for Cisco Collaboration environments that include Cisco Unified Communications and Cisco TelePresence and desktop video systems, Cisco Prime Collaboration helps our customers deliver on that collaboration technology promise and realize the best return on their technology investment. For those of you familiar with our previous collaboration management products, this new release merges all of those products into one integrated voice and video voice solution that includes both automated, accelerated voice provisioning and comprehensive service assurance management across voice and video networks. Specifically, Cisco Prime Collaboration enables IT organizations to: Monitor and test the entire voice and video network from a single product, reducing cost and complexity Provision new phone users and apply changes efficiently, to accelerate site rollouts and maintenance Proactively identify and resolve problems, to maintain the highest quality of service while minimizing the effect of problems on services and users Inventory all collaboration network assets, including real-time records of location, licensing, and version information With Cisco Prime Collaboration, organizations can take advantage of Cisco best practices to not only enhance provisioning and assurance processes, but also build strategic insight into the network. I encourage you to read this white paper and learn more now! ... View more

Check out these 2 VoDs for help with deploying Cisco Prime Collaboration 9.0: Deploying Cisco Prime Collaboration for Provisoining Description: The E-Learning module covers the deployment planning, installation, and the initial configuration and setup tasks required for Cisco Prime Collaboration for Provisioning. Audience :     System and Network Administrators responsible for installing and configuring software. Length:          120 mins URL:  http://www.applied-concepts.net/CPC9-Provisioning/launcher.html Deploying Cisco Prime Collaboration for Assurance Description:    This E-Learning module covers the initial deployment and configuration for Cisco Prime Collaboration for Assurance. Audience:       System and Network Administrators responsible for installing and configuring software. Length:           45 mins        URL:  http://www.applied-concepts.net/CPC9-Assurance/player.html ... View more

This technical whitepaper is a reference guide for designing an IPv6-enabled network. Using Las Vegas InteropNet 2011 as a real-life template, this paper navigates through emerging IPv6 framework, challenges, and design elements, exemplifying an IPv4 and IPv6 dual-stack network. ... View more

IPv6 Transition Planning and Techniques for DHCP and DNS, with Ralph Droms, Cisco Distinguished Engineer IPv4 addresses are running out and service providers need to make immediate decisions regarding deployment of IPv6. This presentation addresses some of the typical issues and concerns related to the transition to IPv6, and you will learn about the following with respect to DNS and DHCP: IPv6 fundamentals and impact Key elements of IPv6 readiness including planning, goal setting, modeling and tracking Transition technology options, techniques and strategies Brief introduction of Cisco Network Registrar and Cisco Advanced Services to help ease the transition to IPv6 ... View more

Many service providers today are implementing or investigating cloud computing to take advantage of its inherent operational advantages and as a platform from which to offer differentiated cloud-based services. An important element of successful cloud-based offerings is fast, efficient provisioning and service delivery. However, as IP addressing becomes much more complex, providers will need a new, easier way to manage IP addressing and multitenant services. This paper looks at how preparing to deliver cloud-based services can be made much easier with an integrated, scalable, reliable solution for DNS, DHCP, and IPAM like Cisco Prime Network Registrar. ... View more

This document provides alternatives to Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Version 6 (DHCPv6) failover, as no DHCPv6 failover implementation is presently available. The paper includes a Basic DHCPv6 operation overview as well as techniques such as: Two Servers - Split Address Space (and how to configure Cisco Network Registrar DHCPv6 servers), Two Servers - Interface-Identifier Addresses, Two Servers - Using Client Reservations, and more. ... View more