Network Management

Hello we are sizing a airwaves for a client. 

And i just want to be sure this would be the correect information

They got a small 650 with 16 APS

They want all the alert features and the monitoring that airwaves can give them

The thing is that im sizing it with the help of the hardware  sizing

For that i woud recomment the fallowing

1 Quad core processor

5 GB Ram

90GB Hard Drive

Anything else i need to take in consideration or that sizing would be okay so it perform fast and clean.

Cheers

Carlos

Airwave Sizing Guide is here:  http://support.arubanetworks.com/DOCUMENTATION/tabid/77/DMXModule/512/Command/Core_Download/Default.aspx?EntryId=8721

Thanks Colllin

The guide i got from the course its like outdated... it says min memory 3gb and max memory 4gb...

Now i read in the one you gave me that is 8gb?

those 8 gb is minimum requirement or what?  or its the recommended¡?

There are two charts in the document:

- Minimum

- Recommended

Minimum is 4gb.  Recommended is 8gb.

The minimum and recommended guidelines are based loosely on ideal office deployments.

Some additional things to consider?

What's the customer's deployment like?  Are they a hotspot / coffee shop / airport vendor?  Are the APs going to be RAPs deployed in employee homes?  What kind of users associations are expected (several single time clients, or many recurring clients)?  How long is historical data retention desired?

     Each of these may cause need to increase hard disk capacity.

Is customer planning to expand anytime soon (in the next 2-3 years)?

     If so, may want to size the AMP bigger to match estimated expansion.

Thanks rgin ill get that info and i ll try to sieze it myself and post for your opinion.

Thanks for helping me this first time in sizing airwaves:)

I want to do it correctly. 

Well he told me that  that they might be planning to upgrade to 32 APS

they would like at least one year of historical data.

All the aPS are on thecentral site.

I would say

1 Quad core 100GB HD and 10mbs ram

You're on the right track, just make sure the disk speed is at least 15k rpm.  Slower disks will cause significant performance issues as they don't keep up with the I/O load.

Thanks Rgin

Im happy im on the right track when sizing it.

Ill talk with the custumer to start the quoting

Thanks again Rgin!!!! really apreciate your help

Cheers

Carlos

Any suggestions as to what/where to buy something like this inexpensively?  We are also a small installation, right now only 14 APs.  We may add more in the future, but probably no more than 4-6 more, taking us to 20 APs total.

I've found lots of solutions without the 15k SAS drive(s), but find myself high up in enterprise workstation land by the time I get to the SAS drives.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Dana Pero

Honestly, we're on our second Airwave implementation and the 15K drives are a must. It's tough to understand how much data Airwave's actually tracking simlutaneously, but it's not an easily virtualized solution, and it's very much worth the investment in hardware that will keep up and last. 

I'll be deploying the latest version to our new hardware sometime in the next day or two and with 1500 APs we're running a HP DL320 with dual Quad Xeons, 32 GB RAM and 8 15K disks. Our old deployment was woefully outmatched after expansion. Pentium III Xeons of some sort, I believe.

Thanks for your reply.  It helps to know that the 15k drives are really needed, instead of just "probably  should haves."

~ Dana

In regards to where you can purchase a server, you have several options.

Though you can get some servers directly from Aruba Networks, you may be able to save by going directly to Dell.  Other customers have gone through SuperMicro with success.  And beyond that, other customers have gone through other server hardware vendors for comparable hardware.  You should be good as long as hardware matches the outline of the sizing guide.

How often do you recommend replacing/upgrading server hardware?

My initial deployment of Airwave was back in 2010.  Following those guidelines (version 6.3.x) it recommended the following specs for 500 devices:

CPU- Quad core Xeon e5420 (2.5GHz)

RAM - 8 GB (5 for AWMS, 1.5 each for RAPIDs and VisualRF).

Disk - 150 MB per managed device (AP).  Min of 38 GB and Max of 75 GB in RAID-5

We ordered:

CPU - 2 x Xeon e5620 (2.4Ghz)

RAM - 12 GB

Disk - 6 x 146GB (15k SAS)

The new recommendations for Airwave 7.6 are (500/1000 devices):

CPU - i3-2220 (3.30GHz) or i5-3570 (3.40GHz)

RAM - 16 or 32 GB

Disk:  6 x 146GB or 10 x 146GB in RAID 10

We currently have 550-600 devices.  I do experience lag when accessing the current system, although the data center guys tell me that CPU, RAM, and drive space utilization is very low on the current server.

I see that the minimum requirements for 7.6 are:

CPU - i3-550 (3.20GHz) or Xeon E5-1603 (2.8GHz)

RAM - 8 or 16 GB

Disk - "RAID 1+0 is the ONLY supported RAID configuration for AirWave."

Since I'm at the stage where moving forward will require a complete rebuild of the server (for version 7.7), do I need to look at getting a new server?  We will probably get closer to 1000 devices within the next 6-12 months, so just trying to figure out if I need to start dropping hints and preparing them for the additional cost of a new server.

A typical server is expected to last for 3 years (if following the minimum sizing model).  If you're experiencing slowness, it would be worth looking at the System -> Performance page to see if any of the graphs are spiking or showing a high volume of usage.  In your case, you're planning to grow your network, so it'd be a good time to start planning on upgrading to a newer server hardware.  Is 1000 devices the target device count for the end of this year?  Or is it a future target?  How far in the future?  Also, don't throw out the old hardware, there may be a use case for it when the new architecture for AMP is released.

I would say the 1000 device count might be over the next 12-18 months - hard to say as the company is constantly looking at consolidating offices, as well as possible expansion into new regions.

We are currently at 182 controllers, 360-370 APs and a handful of RAP2 devices.

Initial deployment was with the "wireless as luxury" mindset.  As the tablet market and BYOD trend exploded, I've already told them that we realistically need to double, if not triple, the number of APs.  Standard response is "not going to happen."

Short term goal is to add around 1 AP per office this year - that would be 180 minus however many offices I've already completed, so probably 100-150.  I have some offices that are small enough that they won't need any, and some that I'm taking from 2 APs up to 6.  Given the slowness of getting purchases approved, and relying on vendors to do the installs, I'm probably limited to 6-8 offices per month.

Long term - ???  The company could expand and make some acquistions and basically double in size, in which case I'd be looking at 1500 devices.

Any new server recommendation from me will be for at least 1000 devices, with a strong push for the 1500 settings.  I believe the recommendations for 1000 devices will meet the "minimum" for 1500.  Storage and RAM is pretty cheap these days.

I guess my main concern is I'm already experiencing 10 second delays when switching tabs in Airwave.  Each version upgrade seems to be make it slightly worse.  If my next upgrade step is going to require a system backup, wipe and reload of OS and app, and import of the backup, now would be the best time to look at a new server if needed. 

If there were any issues with the upgrade, I'd still have the old server to bring back online.  Assuming no issues, I would then look at using the old server as a possible failover (assuming data center doesn't repurpose).

Attaching performance graphs.  Really don't see anything in there that looks too bad, which is making it hard to argue for a new server.

Am I missing anything?

You current hardware seems to be handling the load as expected, though I can't guarantee it'll handle twice the load when you reach 1000 devices later on.  The slowness in response may be due to the fact that the OS is on CentOS5.5 instead of CentOS6.2.  AMP is leveraging several Cent6 specific packages, upgrading the OS should give you the performance speed up to help with your web page loads.

Thanks.

I guess my next question is about the drives and storage.  AMP 6.x.x recommended using RAID5.  Sizing guide for 7.6 says "RAID 1+0 is the ONLY supported RAID configuration for AirWave."

My server is currently configured with RAID5.  I'm running 7.6.2, so clearly AMP functions with RAID5, although RAID10 is probably the preferred method.

Moving from RAID5 to RAID10 is basically a wipe and reload.  Upgrade to CentOS6.2 is also a wipe and reload.  Upgrade to AMP 7.7 is a wipe and reload.  So, assuming I keep the existing server, all that will be done at the same time.

Of course, since I'm the one using the system on a daily basis, I'm just trying to find a way to justify a new server.  I already spend a portion of every day keeping 7-10 year old servers running.....nice to get new stuff every once in a while. ;)

RAID 5 to RAID 10 move is done to give better parity over your disk array in case of disk failures since AMP is I/O intensive and can burn through disks depending on the amount of data processed.

Changing RAID does require wipe / reload.

Upgrade to CentOS 6.2 does require wipe / reload.

Eventual upgrade to AMP 7.7 - does NOT necessarily require wipe / reload.  This depends on the starter state.

Keep in mind that the OS upgrade expects that you're not changing the AMP version at the same time.  If you're on RAID 5, CentOS 5, AMP 7.6.2 -> then you'll take a backup off server, then set BIOS for RAID 10, reinstall with AMP 7.6.2 ISO (CentOS 6.2).  Then upgrade to 7.7 when it's released.

Thanks for that clarification.

I think I knew that, but maybe not.  I typically intiate the upgrade directly from AMP command line, but starting with the upgrade to 64-bit, I also download the ISO just in case.

There is a good chance I would have just downloaded the ISO for 7.7 and tried to restore a backup from 7.6.x

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@rgin wrote:

 

Keep in mind that the OS upgrade expects that you're not changing the AMP version at the same time.  If you're on RAID 5, CentOS 5, AMP 7.6.2 -> then you'll take a backup off server, then set BIOS for RAID 10, reinstall with AMP 7.6.2 ISO (CentOS 6.2).  Then upgrade to 7.7 when it's released.

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