Technical Note: TN_6.2_166 VMware Requirements for Nextiva VMS Publication Date: May 2011 Product(s) Exposure Level Nextiva VMS Internal Customer Facing Type of Technical Note Product Integration Hotfix / Rollup Feature Description Other Applicable Software Package(s) Description Nextiva VMS 6.2 and above This technical note provides the minimum requirements for running Nextiva VMS 6.2 on VMware ESXi. Unauthorized use, duplication, or modification of this document in whole or in part without the written consent of Verint Systems Inc. is strictly prohibited. By providing this document, Verint Systems Inc. is not making any representations regarding the correctness or completeness of its contents and reserves the right to alter this document at any time without notice. Features listed in this document are subject to change. Please contact Verint for current product features and specifications. All marks referenced herein with the or TM symbol are registered trademarks or trademarks of Verint Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. All other marks are trademarks of their respective owners. 2011 Verint Systems Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
Contents Technical Note: TN_6.2_166... 1 VMware Requirements for Nextiva... 1 Publication Date: April 2011... 1 Overview... 3 Prerequisites... 3 Reference... 3 Physical Hardware Requirements... 3 Processor... 3 Memory... 3 Networking... 4 Storage Adaptor... 4 Storage... 4 Virtual Hardware Requirements... 4 Storage Requirements... 5 Fibre Channel SAN... 5 iscsi SAN... 5 Recommended VM Configuration... 5 Typical Supported Scenarios... 6 Server... 6 Scenario 1... 6 Scenario 2... 6 Support Statement... 6 Verint Video Intelligence Solutions 2 of 6
Overview Nextiva VMS 6.2 supports VMware ESXi to host Nextiva VMS servers. This document provides the minimum hardware, software and storage requirements for running Nextiva VMS over a virtual machine (VM). It also offers examples of typical deployment scenarios. Prerequisites VMware: o VMware ESXi 4.0 o VMware ESXi 4.1 Nextiva VMS 6.2 or higher Guest Operating system: o Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 x86 o Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 (x86 or x64) o Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64) Reference For further reference, consult the following: Nextiva VMS 6.2 Customer Furnished Equipment Guide Nextiva VMS 6.2 Installation Guide Nextiva VMS 6.2 Administrator Guide Physical Hardware Requirements It is highly recommended that the servers, storage adaptors, and other hardware you are using in the integration are officially validated by VMware. For the database of supported hardware for VMware, consult: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php Note: These hardware recommendations are different from those recommended for running Nextiva VMS without VMware. Verint recommends the following minimum requirements. Processor At least one Intel Xeon processor of the following type: Single Xeon 54xx, 55xx or 74xx for hosting up to two VMs Dual Xeon 54xx, 55xx or 74xx for hosting up to four VMs Quad Xeon 74xx for hosting up to eight VMs Memory Minimum 4 Gigabytes (GB) of RAM for a host running two VMs Verint Video Intelligence Solutions 3 of 6
Additional 2 GB of RAM for every two VMs hosted on a single hardware platform Networking Minimum of One Gigabit Ethernet for each pair of VMs Recommended: o One dedicated Gigabit Ethernet port for the ESXi Console o One dedicated Gigabit Ethernet port per VM Storage Adaptor Every SCSI or SAS storage adaptor used with VMware ESXi 4.0/4.1 must be certified by VMware. Every Fibre Channel adaptor used with VMware ESXi 4.0/4.1 must be certified by VMware and by the SAN vendor. Use the ESXi iscsi Initiator rather than the Microsoft iscsi Initiator Storage A minimum of 80 GB of unpartitioned disk space for each VM, or Direct attached, or SAN devices A minimum of 4 Gbps FC SAN recommended for Video Storage Virtual Hardware Requirements The virtual hardware requirements are equivalent to the recommended specifications for Nextiva VMS servers described in the Nextiva VMS 6.2 Customer Furnished Equipment Guide. Two (2) vcpus per VM 2 GB of Memory per VM (4 GB for the IVAP Server) Verint Video Intelligence Solutions 4 of 6
Storage Requirements This section provides the minimum storage requirements for the Recorder Server and ESM Servers. Note: On Nextiva VMS, Video disks use only Raw device mapping under ESX. Using ESXi Virtual disks (VMFS partitions) can impact the functionality and performance of the system. Fibre Channel SAN It is highly recommended to use a Fibre Channel SAN when ESXi is hosting any number of Nextiva Recorder or Nextiva ESM. The recommended minimum fibre channel speed is 4Gbps. iscsi SAN A typical iscsi offers less performance than Fibre Channel SAN: iscsi link speed is normally limited to 1Gbps Ethernet speed vs Fibre Channel running at 4Gbps (10Gbps iscsi is not, as of time of writing this article, broadly available). Traffic switching and routing may introduce significant latency or packet loss, impacting the effective storage throughput. iscsi Software Adaptor (initiator) increases the load in the CPU of the host server. Recommendations: Use Fibre Channel whenever possible Configure a dedicated vswitch for vmkernel (do not share a vswitch between vmkernel port group and Virtual Machine port group). Configure multiple Network adaptors in load balancing for the vswitch hosting the vmkernel. If recommended by the iscsi SAN vendor, implement Jumbo packet on your network. Recommended VM Configuration Configuration: Reserve 1200 Mhz for each VM (recommended but not required under ESXi 4.0 and ESXi 4.1) Runtime: To ensure the smooth execution of every VM, keep the average CPU utilization of the host below 55% of the total CPU usage. Verint Video Intelligence Solutions 5 of 6
Typical Supported Scenarios Server Dual Quad Core Intel Xeon processor 8 GB of RAM Dual Gigabit Ethernet Controller Fibre Channel Controller connected to a SAN VMware ESXi 4.0 or 4.1 Scenario 1 This scenario has a Master Server deployment with two recorder servers. 1 Physical server running 4 Virtual Machines: o Virtual Machine #1: Master Server o Virtual Machine #2: Recorder Server o Virtual Machine #3: Recorder Server o Virtual Machine #4: ESM Server Scenario 2 This scenario has a Master Server deployment with four recorder servers. 1 Physical server running 1 Virtual Machine: o Virtual Machine #1: Master Server 1 Physical server running 4 Virtual Machines: o Virtual Machine #1: Recorder Server o Virtual Machine #2: Recorder Server o Virtual Machine #3: Recorder Server o Virtual Machine #4: Recorder Server Support Statement Verint supports customers using virtualized environments; however: Should Verint suspect that the virtualization layer is the root cause of an incident; the customer will be required to contact the appropriate VMware support provider to resolve the VMware issue. Verint can ask a customer to reproduce a problem in a non-virtualized environment when Verint determines that the virtualization component can have an impact on the problem. Verint Video Intelligence Solutions 6 of 6