Virtualization for Unified CCE - Additional Information

Contents 1 Notes on Hyper-threading 1 Unified CCE Network Configuration in a Virtualized Environment 2 Virtualization Support for ICM Network Interface Controllers 3 Voice Browser Functionality 4 KVM Profiles for Virtualized Voice Browser 5 Hybrid Unified CCE Deployment Options 6 Unified CCE Hardware Requirements for Duplex Synchronized Applications 7 Remote Expert Mobile Co-residency Support 8 Installing VMware Tools 9 Timekeeping Best Practices for Windows 10 System Performance Monitoring Using ESXi Counters 11 System Performance Monitoring Using Windows Perfmon Counters 12  Information for Partners About Unified CCE on UCS Deployment Certification and Ordering

 

Notes on Hyper-threading (top)

For Unified CCE 11.5 and later versions, use the resource provisioning policies described in the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Solution Design Guide.
For Unified CCE 11.0 and earlier versions, you must use a 1:1 allocation of vCPU to physical cores. Logical cores are not supported for vCPU allocation.

Unified CCE Network Configuration in a Virtualized Environment (top)

Unified CCE solution supports the following softswitches:

Softswitch	Support
VMware vNetwork Standard Switch (vSS or vSwitch)	Y(C)
VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS)	Y(C)
Cisco Nexus 1000V	Y(C)
Cisco Application Virtual Switch (AVS)	N

Y(C) means that the softswitch is supported with caveats. Unified CCE has High Availability requirements for network communications that must be met by the chosen softswitch, as folllows: 

• For details on using the vNetwork Standard Switch, see Unified CCE Network Configuration in a Virtualized Environment.
• For details on using the vNetwork Distributed Switch, see the vSS designs in the previous bullet. You can adapt the vSS designs for vDS.
• The Nexus 1000v and other Cisco distributed virtual switches based on the Nexus 1000v are not compatible with ESXi 6.5 after Update 1. See the VMware article on the discontinuation of third-party vSwitches for more details. For details on using the Nexus 1000v with Unified CCE, see Nexus 1000v Support in Unified CCE.
• For general details on support policies for softswitches, see Virtualization Software Requirements.

Follow these guidelines for enabling Quality of Service (QoS) in Unified CCE:

• Enable QoS for all Unified CCE Private network traffic.
• For Visible (Public) network traffic, you can use QoS in the 2000 Agent and 4000 Agent Reference Designs.
• For Visible (Public) network traffic in a 12,000 Agent Reference Design, QoS can delay the detection of server failures.
• For details, refer to the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) section in the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Design Guide.

Virtualization Support for ICM Network Interface Controllers (top)

The following table lists the ICM Network Interface Controllers (NICs) and their status.

NIC	Status
AT&T	See note1.
CRSP	Supported.
CWC	See note1. Supported.
GKTMP	Deprecated in Version 9.0.
ICRP	Deprecated in Version 9.0.
MCI	Supported.
Nortel	Supported.
NTL	Supported.
SS7In	See note1.
TIM	See note1.
Unisource	See note1.
1This NIC is connected to the IXC switching domain through its Sigtran or SS7 Gateways (NGW).

Voice Browser Functionality(top)

The following table lists the VM configuration requirements and supported hardware:

Component & Capacity Point	VM Configuration Requirements				Supported Hardware
	vCPU	vRAM	vDisk	vNIC	UCS Tested Reference Configurations	UCS or 3rd-party Specs-based on Intel Xeon
					XS TRC	Full UC Perf. CPUs	Restricted UC Perf. UCs
Medium Profile	4(9000 MHz)	8 GB	1 x 146 GB	1	No	Yes	No
Small Profile	4(6000MHz)	6 GB	1 x 146 GB	1	Yes	Yes	No

Virtualization for KVM Based Service Containers on ISR 4K

The following table lists Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) profiles for Cisco ISR series routers that support VVB.

Cisco Integrated Service Routers (ISR) *	Software Versions verified on	Intel X86 Processor	CPU for KVM	CPU Reserved for VVB	Memory	Disk	NIC	Flash
4331	IOS XE 16.9 IOS XE 16.12	Intel Rangeley 8 - core 2.0 GHz	3 cores (equivalent)	3 cores	6 GB	146 GB	1	16 GB
4351	IOS XE 16.9 IOS XE 16.12	Intel Rangeley 8 - core 2.4 GHz	3 cores (equivalent)	3 cores	6 GB	146 GB	1	16 GB
4431	IOS XE 16.9 IOS XE 16.12	Intel Gladden 4 - core 1 GHz	3 cores (equivalent)	3 cores	6 GB	146 GB	1	16 GB
4451	IOS XE 16.9 IOS XE 16.12	Intel Gladden 4 - core 2 GHz	3 cores (equivalent)	1 core	6 GB	146 GB	1	16 GB

Notes:

• * Requires IOS XE 16.3.3 or later release. For details on the exact IOS XE version required, see the Contact Center Enterprise Solution Compatibility Matrix.
• Cisco VVB KVM supports Cisco IOS XE Release 16.12(x) or lower releases.
• Provision a RAM card of 16GB or higher to handle the RAM requirements of the router plane and VVB.
• A NIM-HD disk of at least 200GB is required to support the VVB OVA.
• A flash size of 16GB or higher is required for hosting core dumps.

 

Hybrid Unified CCE Deployment Options (top)

Unified CCE 10.0(x) and later supports only virtualized deployment on VMware vSphere ESXi.

Unified CCE releases prior to 10.0(x) support Hybrid deployment where some components could be deployed bare metal (OS on Server) on MCS servers alongside virtualized Unified CCE applications. Hybrid deployment does not allow A/B application processes to be disparate hardware server type or virtualized/bare metal deployed.

The following Unified CCE applications do not support hybrid A/B:

• Router
• Logger
• Rogger
• Peripheral Gateway (all types) 

Unified CCE Hardware Requirements for Duplex Synchronized Applications (top)

Unified CCE allows for application VMs to be deployed on different supported servers, whether Cisco UCS or 3rd Party Specs-based within the same or multiple data center sites, excepting duplex and synchronized operation applications, which have a more restrictive requirement.

The following Unified CCE applications are hardware-constrained for side A and B pairings:

• Router
• Logger
• Rogger
• Peripheral Gateway (PG, all types)

These require that the A and B application instances be installed to separate host servers and have exact matching:

• Processor make, model and speed
• Memory type and speed
• Mainboard chipset controller

Remote Expert Mobile Co-residency Support (top)

Remote Expert Mobile can co-reside with other applications (VMs occupying same host) subject to the following conditions:

• No oversubscription of CPU: 1:1 allocation of vCPU to physical cores must be used
• No oversubscription of RAM: 1:1 allocation of vRAM to physical memory
• Sharing disk storage

Note: Remote Expert Mobile must be installed on its own pair of Side A and Side B servers. It must not be installed co-resident on Packaged CCE Side A and Side B servers.

Installing VMware Tools (top)

You must install the VMware Tools on each of the VMs, and you must use all of the VMware Tools default settings. Please refer to VMware documentation for instructions on installing or upgrading VMware Tools on the VM with the Windows operating system.

Timekeeping Best Practices for Windows (top)

Follow the instructions provided in the VMware Knowledge Base article VMware KB: Timekeeping best practices for Windows.

• ESXi hosts and domain controllers must synchronize the time from the same NTP source.
• When Unified CCE virtual machines join the domain, they synchronize the time with the domain controller automatically using w32time.
• Be sure that Time synchronization between the virtual machine and the host operating system in the VMware Tools tool box GUI of the Windows Server guest operating system remains unchecked; this check box is checked by default.

For more details about time synchronization, see the relevant section in the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Design Guide.

System Performance Monitoring Using ESXi Counters (top)

• Make sure that you follow VMware's ESXi requirements and the SAN vendor's instructions for optimal system performance. 
• VMware provides a set of system monitoring tools for the ESXi platform and the VMs. These tools are accessible through the VMware Infrastructure Client or through VirtualCenter.
• You can use Windows Performance Monitor to monitor the performance of the VMs. Be aware that the CPU counters may not reflect the physical CPU usage since the Windows Operating System has no direct access to the physical CPU.
• You can use Unified CCE Serviceability Tools and Unified CCE reports to monitor the operation and performance of the Unified CCE system.
• The ESXi Server and the virtual machines must operate within the limit of the following ESXi performance counters.

For more information, please see Troubleshooting and Performance Monitoring Virtualized Environments vCenter Settings.

System Performance Monitoring Using Windows Perfmon Counters (top)

You must comply with the requirements described in the System Performance Monitoring section of the Unified Contact Center Enterprise Design Guide and in the Performance Counters section in the Serviceability Best Practices Guide for Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise.

Information for Partners About Unified CCE on UCS Deployment Certification and Ordering (top)

It is important that partners who are planning to sell UCS products on Unified Contact Center Enterprise read the following Doc Wiki page: UCCE on UCS Deployment Certification Requirements and Ordering Information.

This page contains essential information for partners about the following:

• Partner Certification Requirements
• UCS Server Ordering Information
• Important Notes on Cisco UCS Service and Support