Cisco Expressway Cluster CE 1200

[Anil Sharma]

Hello there, 

I am planning to build a two node cluster for each exp-C and exp-E. 

My questions are as follows: 
1) If single CE 1200 (C&E Pair) supports 5000 registrations and 1000 concurrent audio calls will a Cluster of two simply multiply the cluster capacity by 2 ?  or Does during building a cluster there is an option to either chose Active/Passive ? 

2) Do I need any extra licenses for CE1200 cluster. I will be using expressways for MRA only and users will make only registered calls and PSTN calls.  All I have done is ordered 4 x  EXPWY-1200-K9.

[Jaime Valencia]

Have you read Cisco Expressway Cluster Creation and Maintenance doc?

[Anil Sharma]

:)  yes i still have these question, Can you help ?

[Vaijanath Sonvane]

Hi,

1. The detailed information about cluster capacity is mentioned in below guide:

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X12-5/Cisco-Expressway-Cluster-Creation-and-Maintenance-Deployment-Guide-X12-5.pdf

In short, here are answers to your question:

To determine the capacity for clusters with two or three nodes, apply a factor of 2 or 3 respectively to the standalone figures. So if you are deploying two CE1200, then it will support 10,000 registrations, 1000 Video or 2000 Audio Calls.

2. If you are using Expressway C& E only for MRA then you need following licenses:

PID	Description	Where to Apply
LIC-SW-EXP-K9	Release key for Expressway – This is the main release key for the VM	Both
LIC-EXP-SERIES	Enable Expressway Series Feature Set – Turns a VCS Series into an Expressway Series	Both
LIC-EXP-AN	Enable Advanced Networking Option – Enable Dual-NIC and Static NAT address	Exp-E only
LIC-EXP-E	Enable Expressway-E Feature Set – Turns an Expressway-Core into an Expressway-Edge	Exp-E only

Please refer this document for more details:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/unified-communications/expressway/211288-Mobile-and-Remote-Access-MRA-License-K.html 

[Anil Sharma]

Hello Vaijanath , 

Thanks for the responses. 
1) Actually the below table from Cisco for medium OVA shows no Capacity increase for 2 node cluster (not sure why?) this is creating some confusion. However as per your reply it seems its safe to apply the factor of 2 for 2 node cluster. 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/CVD/Collaboration/enterprise/12x/120/collbcvd/sizing.html

Virtual machine with medium OVA template

2,500

100

200

Cisco Expressway Simplified Sizing Deployments and Associated Cluster Capacity

Virtual machine with medium OVA template
Deployment 1	2 nodes	N+1	2,500	100	200
Deployment 2	3 nodes	N+1	5,000	200	400
Deployment 3	6 nodes	N+2	10,000	400	800

2)  For licenses actually I am planning to go with Appliance CE 1200 and while creating BOM it doesn't have any of the below license options which you mentioned. 

EXPWY-1200-K9	-	Cisco Expressway Series Multi-purpose 1200 Appliance
EXP-CPU-6134	-	3.2 GHz 6134/130W 8C/24.75MB Cache/DDR4 2666MHz
EXP-HD2T7KL12N	-	2 TB 12G SAS 7.2K RPM LFF HDD
EXP-TPM2-002	-	Trusted Platform Module 2.0 for UCS servers
EXP-MRAID1GB-KIT	-	SAS RAID KIT for C220M5L
EXP-PSU1-770W	-	770W AC Hot-Plug Power Supply for 1U C-Series Rack Server
EXP-SD-32G-S	-	32GB SD Card for UCS servers
EXP-BZL-C220M5	-	C220 M5 Security Bezel
EXP-10GSFP-SR-MP	-	10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP Module 10GBASE-SR SFP+ SR Optics
EXP-PCIE-ID10GF	-	Intel X710-DA2 dual-port 10G SFP+ NIC
EXP-1GSFP-T	-	1 Gigabit Ethernet SFP Module 10/100/1000BASE-T
EXP-MR-X16G1RS-H	-	16GB DDR4-2666-MHz RDIMM/PC4-21300/single rank/x4/1.2v
EXP-MSTOR-SD	-	Mini Storage Carrier for SD (holds up to 2)
R2XX-RAID1	-	Enable RAID 1 Setting
LIC-EXP-BASE-K9	-	License Key Software Encrypted
SW-EXPWY-12.X-K9	-	Software Image for Expressway with Encryption, Version X12
CAB-9K12A-NA	-	Power Cord, 125VAC 13A NEMA 5-15 Plug, North America

[Jaime Valencia]

The answer to your sizing question is in that doc, read:

About Capacity Gain

Cluster capacity for MRA registrations

No passive/active, they're all active, this is handled via SRVs and covered in the MRA guide.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/unified-communications/expressway/211288-Mobile-and-Remote-Access-MRA-License-K.html

[Ayodeji Okanlawon]

Anil,

Which part of the document is not clear. I believe it explains clustering and capacity in detail. Can you be more specific?

[Anil Sharma]

hello Ayodeji, 

Table 9-9 in the link I shared. It says  With a cluster of 2 or 3 nodes, one node can fail without impacting the cluster capacity.  My understanding is if one node supports 200 audio calls , 2 nodes will support 400 as both are active / active and if one node fails the cluster capacity is reduced by Half.  This statement is true for a 6 node cluster where 2 nodes can fail without impacting the overall cluster capacity. Am i missing anything here ?

 Table 9-9 shows the cluster capacity for those recommended deployments. It is important to note that all of the deployment models account for redundancy. With a cluster of 2 or 3 nodes, one node can fail without impacting the cluster capacity (N+1 redundancy). 

[Ayodeji Okanlawon]

I am going to use this table to explain it.

1. Using a medium size ova, one node support 100 video session and 200 audio sessions

2. A 2 or 3 node cluster supports N+1 cluster capacity..ie

 For a 2 node node cluster it will be 100 video session and 200 audio session. This means that if one node fails, this cluster capacity is maintained.

For a 3 node cluster it will be

200 video sessions and 400 audio sessions.

For a full 6 node cluster it will be N+2 capacity so it's

400 video session and 800 audio sessions.

The maths is in the N+1 and N+2

So as you can see if one node fails in the N+1 the cluster capacity is maintained.... You start from cluster capacity and work your way back..the only time cluster capacity is halved or impacted is if you are assuming a N cluster capacity in which case for a 3 node cluster you expect 600 audio calls but when one goes you are left with 400...but that's not the case here..

I hope it's clear

[Anil Sharma]

hello Ayodeji , 

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I agree with you. We need to start from cluster capacity and work the way back to decide how may nodes we need to put so that we get redundancy.