Aspect Virtualization Guide

3.0
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Rev: B
Date: October 3, 2018
 Contents
About this Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Organization of this Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-1

2. Procurement Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-1

2.1 Aspect Product Virtualization Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-1
2.1.1 Server Virtualization Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-1
2.1.2 Desktop Virtualization Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-4
2.1.2.1 Supported Hosting Environments . . . . . . . . . . 2-7
2.1.2.2 Supported Client Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-8
2.1.2.3 Deployment and Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-9
2.2 VMware vSphere Feature Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-10
2.3 Hyper-V Feature Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-13
2.4 VMware vSphere Deployment Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . 2-14
2.4.1 VMware vSphere Clustered Environments . . . . . . . . 2-14
2.5 Hyper-V Deployment Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-15
2.5.1 Hyper-V Shared Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-16
2.6 Desktop Virtualization Deployment Considerations . . . . . . . 2-17
2.6.1 Citrix XenApp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-17
2.6.2 Citrix XenApp/Windows Remote Desktop Services . 2-17
2.6.2.1 Remote Desktop Session Host Resource
Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-17
2.6.3 Citrix XenDesktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-20
2.6.3.1 Supported Client Application Groupings . . . . 2-20
2.6.3.2 Computer Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-21
2.6.3.3 Storage Requirements - XenDesktop . . . . . . 2-22
2.6.3.4 Storage Requirements – VMware Horizon . . 2-23
2.6.3.5 Network Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-23

3. Solution Design and Implementation Considerations. . . . . . . . . 3-1

3.1 Storage Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-2
3.1.1 SAN Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-2
3.1.2 Performance and Availability Recommendations . . . . 3-3
3.1.3 Physical Disk Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-3
3.1.4 Storage Partitioning Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-4
3.1.4.1 Storage Partitioning Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-4

Virtualization Guide Aspect Confidential | iii

Contents

3.1.4.1.1 Non-High Availability Configuration . . 3-5

3.1.4.1.2 High Availability Configuration . . . . . . . 3-5
3.1.4.2 Aspect Performance Management/Analyze
Specific LUNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6
3.2 Physical Server Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6
3.2.1 General Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6
3.2.1.1 Time Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6
3.2.1.2 BIOS Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6
3.2.2 VMware ESXi Server Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6
3.2.2.1 Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown Option . . . 3-7
3.2.2.2 VMware Network Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . 3-7
3.2.2.2.1 General Network Information. . . . . . . . 3-7
3.2.2.2.2 Unified IP Telephony Adapter
Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-8
3.2.2.2.3 Advanced Voice Portal Considerations 3-8
3.2.2.2.4 Advanced List Management HA
Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-8
3.2.2.3 Storage Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-8
3.2.2.3.1 Advanced List Management
Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-9
3.2.2.4 VMware Cluster Configuration Rules . . . . . . . 3-9
3.2.2.4.1 vMotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-9
3.2.2.4.2 VMware High Availability . . . . . . . . . . 3-10
3.2.2.4.3 Virtual Machine Anti-Affinity Rules. . . 3-11
3.2.2.4.4 Virtual Machine Resource
Reservations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-12
3.2.3 Hyper-V Server Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-12
3.2.3.1 Configuring Windows Updates . . . . . . . . . . . 3-12
3.2.3.2 Hyper-V Network Requirements . . . . . . . . . . 3-12
3.2.3.3 Storage Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-13
3.2.3.3.1 Advanced List Management
Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-13
3.3 Virtual Machine Configurations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-13
3.3.1 Computer Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-14
3.3.1.1 VMware vSphere Specific Requirements . . . 3-14
3.3.1.1.1 Virtual Machine Reservation Rules . . 3-14
3.3.1.2 Hyper-V Specific Requirements . . . . . . . . . . 3-15
3.3.1.2.1 Processor Configuration . . . . . . . . . . 3-15
3.3.1.2.2 Memory Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-16
3.3.2 Virtual Network Adapter Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . 3-17
3.3.3 Virtual Hard Drive Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-18
3.3.3.1 VMware vSphere Specific Requirements . . . 3-18
3.3.3.2 Hyper-V Specific Requirements . . . . . . . . . . 3-18
3.3.3.2.1 Disk Controller Selection . . . . . . . . . . 3-18
3.3.3.2.2 Hyper-V Manager Considerations . . . 3-18
3.3.3.2.3 Disk Type Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-19

iv | Aspect Confidential Virtualization Guide

 3.3.4 Remote Desktop Access Requirements . . . . . . . . . . 3-19
3.3.4.1 VMware vSphere Specific Requirements . . . 3-19
3.3.4.2 Hyper-V Specific Requirements . . . . . . . . . . 3-19
3.3.5 Other Virtual Machine Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-20
3.3.5.1 VMware vSphere Specific Requirements . . . 3-20
3.3.5.2 Hyper-V Specific Requirements . . . . . . . . . . 3-20

4. Monitoring Virtual Machine Deployment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-1

4.1 VMware vSphere Metric Thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-1
4.1.1 ESXi Server Level Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-1
4.1.2 Virtual Machine Level Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-2
4.2 Microsoft Hyper-V Metric Thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-3
4.2.1 Hyper-V Server Level Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-4
4.2.2 Virtual Machine Level Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-5
4.3 Performance Management/Analyze Considerations . . . . . . . 4-5

Virtualization Guide Aspect Confidential | v

Contents

vi | Aspect Confidential Virtualization Guide

About this Guide

This document provides information related to the procurement, implementation and monitoring
of Aspect solutions running in environments that employ server virtualization and client
application virtualization.

For information about Training, Technical Support, commenting on the documentation, and a list
of additional documentation see the appropriate product Release Notes document on the
Aspect web site at http://www.aspect.com.

Audience
This guide is designed for the members of a Customer Information Technology Department (IT)
or a Customer Management Information System (MIS) department who are familiar with the
particular contact center environment in which the Aspect solution is to be installed. Readers are
required to have a basic understanding of, and familiarity with, the VMware vSphere, Microsoft
Hyper-V, Citrix XenApp and Storage Area Network (SAN) technology.

Organization of this Guide

This guide consists of these chapters:

• Chapter 1, Overview provides information on what prerequisites need to be performed prior

to installing and configuring the software.

• Chapter 2, Procurement Considerations provides pre-installation tasks that you must perform
prior to installing and configuring Aspect Workforce Optimization.

• Chapter 3, Solution Design and Implementation Considerations provides procedures on how

to install and configure Aspect Workforce Optimization.

• Chapter 4, Monitoring Virtual Machine Deployment provides procedures on how to install and
configure Aspect Workforce Management with Aspect Workforce Optimization.

Aspect Confidential | vii

About this Guide

viii | Aspect Confidential Virtualization Guide

 1
1. Overview

Server virtualization software, such as Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere, enables
multiple operating system instances (called virtual machines) to run in parallel on a single
physical machine.

Client application virtualization software, such as Citrix XenApp, provides an on-demand

application delivery solution that enables any Windows application to be virtualized,
centralized, and managed in the data center and instantly delivered as a service to users
anywhere on any device.

Desktop virtualization software, such as Citrix XenDesktop and VMware Horizon transform
Windows desktops and applications into an on-demand service available to any user,
anywhere, on any device. With XenDesktop, you can securely deliver individual Windows,
web, SaaS applications, or full virtual desktops, to PCs, Macs, tablets, smart phones, laptops,
and thin clients with a high definition user experience.

This guide outlines deployment and configuration rules for physical servers that will host
server or desktop virtualization software, as well as the SAN and virtual machines that host the
Aspect product components.

Virtualization Guide Aspect Confidential | 1-1

1. Overview

1-2 | Aspect Confidential Virtualization Guide

 2
2. Procurement Considerations

This section describes information related to the purchase of hardware servers and software
for the deployment of Aspect solutions in environments that support server and desktop/
application virtualization.

2.1 Aspect Product Virtualization Support

2.1.1 Server Virtualization Support

The following table describes which server virtualization software can be used in deploying
Aspect Products.
Note: To ensure the highest performance and stability of the virtualization software/
hypervisor, always validate that the physical server specifications meet the
requirements of the virtualization software provider and that the drivers for network
adapters, fibre channel host bus adapters, etc. are at the latest supported version for
the hypervisor.

Product Server Virtualization Support Versions Exclusions

Product Status

Aspect Unified IP 7.3 VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X • DCP
with including all • TMS
updates 1 2
Unified Command and
Control Administration Microsoft Windows with Supported Windows 2012 • Advanced Voice
7.3 Hyper-V Role including all Portal
updates • DCP
• TMS
• Telephony Adapter

The product Microsoft

Hyper-V Server is not
supported.

Virtualization Guide Aspect Confidential | 2-1

2. Procurement Considerations

Product Server Virtualization Support Versions Exclusions

Product Status

Aspect Unified IP 7.2 VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X • DCP
with including all • TMS
updates
Unified Command and
Control Administration Microsoft Windows with Supported 2008 R2 • Advanced Voice
7.2 Hyper-V Role including all Portal
updates • DCP
• TMS
• Telephony Adapter

2000 profile 3

Advanced List VMware vSphere Supported 5.5 Update 1

Management 7.3 and later 4 and
6.X including
all updates

Microsoft Windows with Supported Windows 2012 The product Microsoft

Hyper-V Role including all Hyper-V Server is not
updates. supported.

Advanced List VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X

Management 7.2 including all
updates

Microsoft Windows with Supported 2008 R2 Advanced List

Hyper-V Role including all Management Medium
updates and Large profiles. 5

Aspect Workforce VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X

Management 8.x, 18.x including all
updates

Microsoft Windows with Supported Windows 2012 The product Microsoft

Hyper-V Role R2; v8.3 and Hyper-V Server is not
later supports supported.
Windows 2016

Aspect Quality VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X Recording servers with
Management 8.x, 18.x including all embedded telephony
updates hardware.

Microsoft Windows with Supported Windows 2012 Recording servers with

Hyper-V Role including all embedded telephony
updates hardware.

Aspect Performance VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X

Management 7.0 including all
updates

Microsoft Windows with Not Supported

Hyper-V Role

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 Aspect Product Virtualization Support

Product Server Virtualization Support Versions Exclusions

Product Status

Aspect Analyze 8.0 VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X

including all
Aspect Performance updates
Management 8.1, 8.2,
8.3, 18.x Microsoft Windows with Supported Windows 2012 The product Microsoft
Hyper-V Role R2; v8.3 and Hyper-V Server is not
later supports supported.
Windows 2016

Aspect Contact Server VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X

CMI Service 6.4 including all
updates

Microsoft Windows with Supported 2008 R2

Hyper-V Role including all
updates

Aspect Unified VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X Datamart Real-time
Command and Control including all Server
Real Time Reporting updates
7.3
Microsoft Windows with Supported Windows 2012 Datamart Real-time
Hyper-V Role including all Server
updates
The product Microsoft
Hyper-V Server is not
supported.

Aspect Unified VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X Datamart Real-time
Command and Control including all Server
Real Time Reporting updates
7.2
Microsoft Windows with Supported 2008 R2 Datamart Real-time
Hyper-V Role including all Server
updates

Aspect Datamart VMware vSphere Not Supported

Microsoft Windows with Not Supported

Hyper-V Role

Aspect Unified VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X

Command and Control including all
Administration updates
Standalone 7.3
Microsoft Windows with Supported Windows 2012 The product Microsoft
Hyper-V Role including all Hyper-V Server is not
updates supported.

Aspect Unified VMware vSphere Supported 5.X and 6.X

Command and Control including all
Administration updates
Standalone 7.2
Microsoft Windows with Supported 2008 R2
Hyper-V Role including all
updates

Virtualization Guide Aspect Confidential | 2-3

2. Procurement Considerations

Product Server Virtualization Support Versions Exclusions

Product Status

Aspect CallCenter ACD VMware vSphere Not Supported

Microsoft Windows with Not Supported

Hyper-V Role

Aspect Spectrum ACD VMware vSphere Not Supported

Microsoft Windows with Not Supported

Hyper-V Role

1 For deployments using Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) storage, Aspect recommends 5.5 or later as significant per-
formances improvements for FCoE were added in version 5.5.
2
When deploying on Windows 2012 R2, 5.0 Update 2 is the minimum release that is supported by VMware for the OS.
3
Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 limits the maximum CPU cores assigned to a virtual machine to 4. The core machine of the 2000
profile requires 5 CPU cores.
4 VMware 5.5 Update 1 is the earliest release that supports Microsoft Clustering with shared disks for Windows 2012 R2.
5
Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 limits the maximum CPU cores assigned to a virtual machine to 4. The Advanced List Management
virtual machines for the medium and two tier large profiles require 8 CPU cores. Alternatively, Advanced List Management
medium and large profiles may be deployed on VMware vSphere or directly on physical servers.

2.1.2 Desktop Virtualization Support

Aspect supports the following types of virtualization for Aspect applications:

• Citrix XenApp - an on-demand application delivery solution that enables any Windows
application to be virtualized, centralized, and managed in the datacenter and instantly
delivered as a service to users anywhere on any device.

• Windows Remote Desktop Services – Enables one or more users to access an

application running on a remote server. Each of these users is given their own instance of
the application to execute.

• Citrix XenDesktop - a desktop virtualization solution that transforms Windows desktops

and applications into an on-demand service available to any user, anywhere, on any
device. With XenDesktop, you can securely deliver individual Windows, web, SaaS
applications, or full virtual desktops, to PCs, Macs, tablets, smart phones, laptops, and thin
clients with a high definition user experience.

• VMware Horizon - VMware Horizon View is a virtual desktop host platform for vSphere. It
is a collection of products and technologies designed to help information technology (IT)
administrators deliver desktops and applications and secure data on a variety of endpoint
devices. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is virtualization technology that hosts a
desktop operating system on a centralized server in a data center.

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 Aspect Product Virtualization Support

Supported Aspect Client Applications

The following table lists the specific Aspect client applications that supported on desktop
virtualization for the following product releases:

• Unified IP 7.2

Client Name Citrix XenApp Windows Citrix VMware

6.5 Remote XenDesktop Horizon 5.2,
Desktop 5.6 7.x
Services 2008
R2

Agent Applications

Unified Agent Desktop X X X X

Agent SDK API (SOAP)/AMP Tool Bar X X X X

LYRICall Agent X X X X

Aspect SIP Phone 2.0 X

Supervisor Applications

Unified Command and Control - X X X X

Administration

Unified Command and Control - Real Time X X X X

Reporting

Unified Command and Control - Producer X X X X

Advanced List Management - Web Client X X X X

Advanced List Management - Business X X X X

Objects

DataViews X X X X

Enterprise Monitor X X X X

Unified Director X X X X

Workforce Management Rich client X X X X

Workforce Management Empower X X X X

eSchedule Planner

Perform (RTA) Rich client X X X X

Developer/IT Applications

Unified Command and Control Unified X X X X

Resource Manager

LYRICall Designer X X X X

M3 Designer X X X X

Server Configurator X X X X

Table 2-1 Aspect Client Application Support for Desktop Virtualization

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2. Procurement Considerations

The following table lists the specific Aspect client applications that supported on desktop
virtualization for the following product releases:

• Unified IP 7.3

• Quality Management 8.X, 18.X

• Workforce Management 8.X, 18.x

• Analyze 8.0, Performance Management 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 18.x

Client Name Citrix XenApp Windows Citrix VMware

6.x, 7.x Remote XenDesktop Horizon 5.2,
Desktop 7.x 7.x
Services **

Agent Applications

Unified Agent Desktop X X X X

Quality Management Agent Desktop P P P X

Client

Aspect SIP Phone 2.0 X

Supervisor Applications

Unified Command and Control - X X X X

Administration

Unified Command and Control - Real Time X X X X

Reporting

Unified Command and Control - Producer X X X X

Advanced List Management - Web Client X X X X

Advanced List Management - Business X X X X

Objects

DataViews X X X X

Enterprise Monitor X X X X

Unified Director X X X X

Enterprise Dataware House BOXI Client X X X X

Aspect Performance Management X X X X

Workforce Management Rich client X X X X

Workforce Management Empower X X X X

eSchedule Planner

Workforce Optimization (Performance X X X X

area, Analyze v8.0 area)

Workforce Optimization (Workforce area) X X X X

Perform (RTA) Rich client X X X X

Workforce Optimization (Quality area) X X X X

2-6 | Aspect Confidential Virtualization Guide

 Aspect Product Virtualization Support

Client Name Citrix XenApp Windows Citrix VMware

6.x, 7.x Remote XenDesktop Horizon 5.2,
Desktop 7.x 7.x
Services **

Quality Management web client X X X X

Quality Management Mentor Desktop P X P X

Client

Developer/IT Applications

Unified Command and Control Unified X X X X

Resource Manager

LYRICall Designer X X X X

M3 Designer X X X X

Server Configurator X X X X

Table 2-2 Aspect Client Application Support for Desktop Virtualization

**Windows Remote Desktop Services 2008 R2 and 2012 R2 are supported through version
8.2.x. For versions 8.3 and 18.x, Windows 2012 R2 and 2016 are supported.
Note: P = Partial: No support for Windows 7.

2.1.2.1 Supported Hosting Environments

During the Aspect certification process, the desktop virtualization software was deployed
within virtual machines hosted on physical servers.

The following table details the hypervisor running on the physical servers as well as the
operating system running within the virtual machine hosting the desktop virtualization software
for the following product releases:

• Unified IP 7.2

Desktop Virtualization Supported Hypervisor Supported Operating System

Software

Citrix XenApp 6.5 Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2, 2016 Windows 2008 R2 (Server Desktop)

Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 Citrix XenServer 6.0.2 Windows 7 (VDI Desktop)

VMWare Horizon 5.2 ESXi 5.x, 6.x (VDI Virtualization) Windows 7 (VDI Desktop)

Table 2-3 Supported Hosting Environments

Virtualization Guide Aspect Confidential | 2-7

2. Procurement Considerations

The following table details the hypervisor running on the physical servers as well as the
operating system running within the virtual machine hosting the desktop virtualization software
for the following product releases:

• Unified IP 7.3

• Quality Management 8.X

• Workforce Management 8.X, 18.x

• Analyze 8.0, Performance Management 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 18.x

Desktop Virtualization Supported Hypervisor Supported Operating System

Software

Citrix XenApp 6.x, 7.x Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2, 2016 • Windows 2008 R2, 2012 R2 through
v8.2.x (Server Desktop)
• Windows 2012 R2, 2016 from v8.3
and 18.x

Citrix XenDesktop 7.x • Citrix XenServer 6.2 • Windows 7 (VDI Desktop)

• Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2, 2016 • Windows 8 (VDI Desktop)
• ESXi 5.5 (VDI Virtualization • Windows 8.1 (VDI Desktop)
• Windows 10 (VDI Desktop)

VMWareView 5.x, 7.x • ESXi 5.x (VDI Virtualization) • Windows 7 (VDI Desktop)
• ESXi 6.x (VDI Virtualization) • Windows 8 (VDI Desktop)
• Windows 10 (VDI Desktop)

Table 2-4 Supported Hosting Environments

2.1.2.2 Supported Client Devices

During the Aspect certification process for Citrix XenDesktop virtualization, the Citrix Receiver
3.1 software client was used to access virtual desktops from the following devices:

• Desktops

• Laptops

• Dell Wyse Terminals (Thin and Zero)

• Dell Tablets

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2.1.2.3 Deployment and Installation

Deployment considerations for Aspect client applications running in desktop virtualization
environments are outlined in section Desktop Virtualization Deployment Considerations.

Instructions for installing Aspect client applications in Citrix XenApp/Window Remote Desktop
Services environments are in the following documents:

• Aspect Unified IP Installation Guide – Appendix E

• Aspect Quality Management Desktop Client Installation Guide

• Aspect Unified Command and Control Administration Installation Guide

• Aspect Workforce Management Installation Guide

• Aspect Workforce Management – Empower Installation Guide

• Aspect Workforce Management – Perform Installation Guide

Instructions for installing Aspect client applications in Citrix XenDesktop environments are in
the following document:

• Application and Desktop Virtualization (VDI) - Install and Configuration Guide

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2.2 VMware vSphere Feature Support

The advanced features of the VMware vSphere virtualization software are not required in order
to run the Aspect product set, but they can enhance the high availability and efficiency of the
products within your IT infrastructure. VMware vSphere Features6 lists the advanced VMware
vSphere feature support for each Aspect products:

Feature Support Products Supporting Details

Status

Distributed Supported with Aspect Unified IP See the VMware vSphere Clustered
Resource restrictions Environments, VMware Cluster Configuration
Aspect Advanced List
Scheduler Rules on page 3-9, Virtual Machine Reservation
Management
Rules on page 3-14, Chapter 4, Monitoring
Aspect Quality Virtual Machine Deployment sections below for
Management detailed procurement, configuration and
monitoring rules when using this feature.
Aspect Workforce
Management

Aspect Performance
Management

Aspect Analyze

Storage Distributed Supported with Aspect Unified IP Must be set to Manual Mode due to vMotion
Resource restrictions restrictions (see vMotion section below).
Aspect Advanced List
Scheduler
Management

Aspect Quality
Management

Aspect Workforce
Management

Aspect Performance
Management

Aspect Analyze

Distributed Power Supported with Aspect Unified IP Do not set Automatic Power Management due
Management restrictions to vMotion restrictions (see vMotion section
Aspect Advanced List
(DPM) below).
Management

Aspect Workforce
Management

Aspect Performance
Management

Aspect Quality
Management

Aspect Analyze

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Feature Support Products Supporting Details

Status

vMotion (including Supported with Aspect Unified IP For optimal performance, Aspect products
Storage vMotion) restrictions. require dedicated access to hardware
Aspect Advanced List
resources. vMotion can disrupt this resource
Management
access resulting in longer queue times, violation
Aspect Quality of predictive dialing regulations and delayed
Management user transaction completions. For these
reasons, vMotion must only be used for planned
Aspect Workforce maintenance purposes when the products are
Management not processing transactions. However, Aspect
Aspect Performance services can be in the running state during the
Management vMotion.

Aspect Analyze The primary and HA instances of Advanced List

Management may not be vMotioned due to
VMware’s restriction on the vMotioning of
machines that use Microsoft Clustering with
shared disks.

vSphere High Supported with Aspect Unified IP See the VMware High Availability on page 3-10
Availability restrictions. section below for detailed configuration rules
Aspect Advanced List
when using this feature.
(VMware HA) Management

Aspect Quality
Management

Aspect Workforce
Management

Aspect Performance
Management

Aspect Analyze
vApp Supported with Aspect Unified IP Aspect virtual machines can be added to a DRS
restrictions. cluster for the purposes of making them a part
Aspect Advanced List of a vApp as long as the following settings are
Management applied:
Aspect Quality • Automation level set to Manual
Management • Power Management option is set to Off.
Aspect Workforce When creating a vApp, the default values
Management should be taken except for the following within
Aspect Performance the Start Order tab:
Management • Place all the virtual machines into a single
group.
Aspect Analyze
• For the Shutdown Action select Guest
Shutdown.

When creating virtual machines within the

vApp, select the custom option in the wizard so
that the required resources can be configured
properly for each virtual machine.

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2. Procurement Considerations

Feature Support Products Supporting Details

Status

vSphere Data Supported Aspect Unified IP Aspect Advanced List Management requires
Recovery Microsoft Windows Clustering which is not
Aspect Workforce compatible with vSphere Data Recovery.
Management

Aspect Performance
Management

Aspect Analyze

Aspect Quality
Management

VMware Snapshots Supported with All Snapshots are supported for testing patches
restrictions and upgrades and for performing backups.
Virtual machines must be stopped before
creating a snapshot for full backups. Virtual
machines do not need to be stopped prior to
snapshots for patches, upgrades or incremental
backups taken during low/no load. The
snapshots must only be utilized for short
periods of time and must be deleted before
running a production load. Extended use of
Snapshots could result in performance
degradation and potentially take up all available
disk space

VMware Site Supported with All Support for this feature requires the following:
Recovery Manager restrictions • The DR site must support the same IP
addresses and host names as the Primary
site.
• The Primary and DR sites cannot be
running simultaneously.
• All the snapshots take place while the VMs
are shut down.

If these requirements are not met, an Aspect

Professional Services engagement is required.

vSphere Not Supported All vSphere Replication requires databases to be

Replication quiesced to guarantee data consistency. During
the quiescent period Aspect database
transactions may be negatively impacted.

Additionally, vSphere Replication cannot

replicate the ALM disks used for SQL Server
clustering.

vSphereFault Not Supported The use of this feature is restricted to virtual

Tolerance machines configured for one CPU core. As
most of the Aspect product virtual machines
require more than one CPU core this feature is
not supported.

Table 2-5 VMware vSphere Features

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2.3 Hyper-V Feature Support

The following table lists the advanced Hyper-V features and whether they are supported in an
Aspect deployment:

Feature Status Details

Windows Clustering Not Supported Clustering of Hyper-V servers disrupts the built-in high
within Host Operating availability features of Unified IP.
System

Clustered Shared Not Supported Clustered Shared Volumes requires Windows Clustering
Volumes within the Host Operating System.

Quick/Live Migration Not Supported Live Migration requires Windows Clustering within the Host
Operating System.

Differencing Disks Not Supported Differencing disks add significant disk I/O requests resulting
in performance degradation of the application.

Snapshots/Checkpoints Supported with Snapshots are supported for testing patches and upgrades
restrictions and for performing backups. Virtual machines must be
stopped before creating a snapshot for full backups. Virtual
machines do not need to be stopped prior to snapshots for
patches, upgrades or incremental backups taken during low/
no load. The snapshots must only be utilized for short
periods of time and must be deleted before running a
production load. Extended use of Snapshots could result in
performance degradation and potentially take up all
available disk space

Table 2-6 Hyper-V Features

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2.4 VMware vSphere Deployment

Considerations
This section outlines requirements related to deploying Aspect virtual machines in VMware
vSphere environments.

2.4.1 VMware vSphere Clustered Environments

A number of Aspect products may share the same ESXi server as other non-Aspect
applications, including through the use of VMware Clusters. VMware Cluster Support8 details
which Aspect Products support VMware cluster environments.

Product VMware Cluster Exclusions

Support Status

Aspect Unified IP with Supported • Advanced Voice Portal

Unified Command and Control • DCP

Administration • TMS
• Telephony Adapter

These components utilize Voice Over IP which

requires consistent access to compute and
network resources to maintain voice quality
Aspect Advanced List Management Supported

Aspect Quality Management Supported Recording servers with embedded telephony

hardware.

Aspect Performance Management Supported

Aspect Analyze Supported

Aspect Contact Server CMI Service Supported

Aspect Unified Command and Control Supported Datamart Real-time Server 1

Real Time Reporting

Aspect Datamart Not Supported

Aspect Unified Command and Control Supported

Administration Standalone

Aspect CallCenter ACD Not Supported

Aspect Spectrum ACD Not Supported

1 Virtualization not supported due to an Oracle TimesTen licensing restriction.

Table 2-7 VMware Cluster Support

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The following procurement rules apply to Aspect virtual machines running in clusters/shared
ESXi server deployments:

• All ESXi servers running Aspect virtual machines must meet or exceed the minimum
specifications outlined in the Server Specification document provided by the Aspect
Platform Architects.

• VMware reserves up to 1 CPU core and up to 3GB of memory exclusively for the VMware
ESXi virtualization software on each ESXi server in the deployment. This means that these
resources will not be allocated to any virtual machine, and will provide the VMware ESXi
software the resources it needs for proper management and performance of VMware
virtual machines.

For example, on a server with 8 processor cores at 2.5 GHz (2500 MHz) and 24 GB of
RAM, the total capacity for the processors is 8 * 2500, or 20000 MHz. After VMware ESXi
Server is installed, plan to reserve 1 CPU core, or 2500 MHz. This means that the
maximum available amount of processor resources available to allocate to virtual machines
on this example server is 17500 MHz. For memory, plan to reserve 3 GB, so that the
remaining 21 GB is available to allocate to virtual machines.

• To ensure guaranteed network performance, in networks with less than 10 Gbps of

bandwidth, Aspect virtual machines must share the same physical network adapter
separate from non-Aspect VMs (up to 8 Aspect VMs maximum per physical network
adapter). If the bandwidth is 10gbps or greater or the Aspect VMs are configured for
dedicated network bandwidth using features such as VMware VNetwork Distributed Switch
or the Cisco Nexus 1000V, then that Aspect VMs can share the same physical network
adapters as non-Aspect VMs. Network bandwidth requirements are detailed in the Aspect
Network Preparation Guide.

2.5 Hyper-V Deployment Considerations

When deploying Aspect products that support Hyper-V server virtualization, be aware of the
following considerations:

• Aspect recommends the Hyper-V role to be installed via the Windows Server core
installation rather than the full install of Windows. Running the full install of Windows on the
host Hyper-V server has the following disadvantages:
• Extra Windows services not required to run virtual machines take compute, network and
disk I/O resource away from the virtual machines.
• Extra Windows services not required to run virtual machines are potentially vulnerable
to malicious security attacks.

• Storage Area Network (SAN) is supported for the storage of virtual machines, databases,
and recording data, although the Logical Units (LUNs) on the SAN cannot be shared
amongst multiple Hyper-V servers. Microsoft only allows SAN LUNs to be shared when
Windows Clustering in configured on the Hyper-V servers. Windows Clustering on the host
OS disrupts the built-in high availability features of Unified IP and is not supported at this
time.

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2. Procurement Considerations

2.5.1 Hyper-V Shared Environments

A number of Aspect products may share the same Hyper-V server as other non-Aspect
applications. The following table details which Aspect Products support Hyper-V shared
environments.

Product Support Status Exclusions

Aspect Unified IP with Supported • Advanced Voice Portal

Unified Command and Control • DCP

Administration • TMS
• Telephony Adapter

These components utilize Voice Over IP which

requires consistent access to compute and
network resources to maintain voice quality

Aspect Advanced List Management Supported

Aspect Workforce Management Supported

Aspect Quality Management Supported Recording servers with embedded telephony

hardware.

Aspect Performance Management Supported

Aspect Analyze Supported

Aspect Contact Server CMI Service Supported

Aspect Unified Command and Control Supported Datamart Real-time Server 1

Real Time Reporting

Aspect Datamart Not Supported

Aspect Unified Command and Control Supported

Administration Standalone

Aspect CallCenter ACD Not Supported

Aspect Spectrum ACD Not Supported

1 Virtualization not supported due to an Oracle TimesTen licensing restriction.

Table 2-8 Hyper-V Shared Environment Support

The following procurement rules apply to Aspect virtual machines running in shared Hyper-V
server deployments:

• All Hyper-V servers running Aspect virtual machines must meet or exceed the minimum
specifications outlined in the Server Specification document provided by the Aspect
Platform Architects.

• Hyper-V reserves up to 2GB of memory exclusively for the virtualization software on each
physical server in the deployment. This means that these resources will not be allocated to
any virtual machine, and will provide the Hyper-V software the resources it needs for
proper management and performance of virtual machines.

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• To ensure guaranteed network performance, in networks with less than 10 Gbps of

bandwidth, Aspect virtual machines must be attached to a dedicated physical network
adapter. Network bandwidth requirements are detailed in the Aspect Network Preparation
Guide.

2.6 Desktop Virtualization Deployment

Considerations
This section outlines requirements related to deploying Aspect applications in the following
desktop virtualization environments:

• Citrix XenApp

• Windows Remote Desktop Services environments.

• Citrix XenDesktop

• VMware Horizon

2.6.1 Citrix XenApp

• Aspect supports only hosted/installed application delivery and there is no support for
local/streamed application delivery.

• The clients listed in Aspect Client Application Support for Desktop Virtualization3 must be
published with a resource type of Application with the following exception.
• When deploying the Unified Agent Desktop, AMP or LYRICall with the Quality
Management Desktop Client for recording screen captures of the agent desktop, these
clients must be published together with a resource type of Server Desktop. If these
clients are not published together, the Quality Management screen recording feature will
not be able to find the agent desktop to be captured.

2.6.2 Citrix XenApp/Windows Remote Desktop Services

2.6.2.1 Remote Desktop Session Host Resource

Requirements
The following table outlines the general resource requirements (for example, compute, disk,
network) for the Aspect applications that may be streamed from XenApp through a Remote
Desktop Session or run directly from a Remote Desktop Session. Use this information to
determine the hardware requirements for the physical server hosting the Windows Remote
Desktop Session Host (via the Remote Desktop Services role). The actual resource
requirements may vary based on the specific installation environment.

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2. Procurement Considerations

Client Name Instances Per Memory Per Notes

CPU Core Instance (MB)

Agent Applications

Unified IP 7.2, 7.3; Quality Management 8.x

Agent SDK API (SOAP/AMP 10 100

Tool Bar (7.2 only)

LYRICall Agent (7.2 only) Delivered as web content so no additional

compute requirement beyond the browser
application

Unified Agent Desktop 10 100

Unified Agent Desktop with 5 200

Quality Management Desktop
Client

Supervisor Applications

Unified IP 7.2, 7.3; Quality Management 8.x, 18.x; Workforce Management 8.x, 18.x

Unified Command and Control 2 1000

- Administration

Unified Command and Control Delivered as web content so no additional

- Real Time Reporting compute requirement beyond the browser
application

Unified Command and Control 5 100

- Producer

Advanced List Management - Delivered as web content so no additional

Web Client compute requirement beyond the browser
application

Advanced List Management - Delivered as web content so no additional

Business Objects compute requirement beyond the browser
application

DataViews 1 100

Enterprise Monitor 2 100

Unified Director Delivered as web content so no additional

compute requirement beyond the browser
application

Workforce Management 2 1024

Windows client

Workforce Management Delivered as web content so no additional

Empower eSchedule Planner compute requirement beyond the browser
application

Perform (RTA) Windows client 3 1024

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Client Name Instances Per Memory Per Notes

CPU Core Instance (MB)

Quality Management Web Delivered as web content so no additional

client compute requirement beyond the browser
application

Quality Management Mentor 1 512

Desktop Client

Developer/ IT Applications

Unified IP 7.2, 7.3

Unified Command and Control 2 150

- Unified Resource Manager

LYRICall Designer 1 200

M3 Designer 1 200 Memory may vary based on complexity of

M3 scripts being developed.

Server Configurator 5 50

Workforce Optimization 1 1024

(Workforce area)

Workforce Optimization 1 1024

(Performance area)

Workforce Optimization 1 1024

(Quality area)

Enterprise DatawareHouse 1 1024

BOXI Client

Table 2-9 Remote Desktop Session Host Resource Requirements

For network bandwidth requirements for these applications please refer to the following
documents:

• Aspect Unified IP Planning Guide

• Aspect Workforce Management Planning Guide

Disk requirements are detailed in the agent and supervisor desktop requirements sections of
the following documents:

• Aspect Unified IP Hardware and Software Guide

• Aspect Quality Management Hardware and Software Guide

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2.6.3 Citrix XenDesktop

2.6.3.1 Supported Client Application Groupings

The following table outlines the permitted combinations of Aspect client applications that may
be installed together in a XenDesktop session.

Deployment Grouping Name Supported Client Applications

Interaction Management Agent Applications • Unified Agent Desktop

• AMP Tool Bar
• LYRICall Agent

Interaction Management Supervisor Applications • Unified Command and Control - Administration

• Unified Command and Control – Real Time Reporting
• Unified Command and Control – Producer
• DataViews
• Enterprise Monitor
• Unified Director

Interaction Management Developer Applications #1 • Unified Command and Control Unified Resource
Manager
• LYRICall Designer
• M3 Designer
• Server Configurator

Interaction Management Developer Applications #2 • M3 Designer

• Server Configurator
• Unified Command and Control - Administration
• Unified Command and Control – Producer

Interaction Management Administrator Applications • Unified Command and Control Unified Resource
Manager
• Unified Command and Control - Administration
• DataViews
• Advanced List Management - Web Client
• Advanced List Management - Business Objects
• Unified Director
• Aspect Quality Management web client

Aspect Quality Management Applications #1 • Aspect Quality Management Agent Desktop Client
• Unified Agent Desktop

Aspect Quality Management Applications #2 • Aspect Quality Management web client

• Aspect Quality Management Mentor Desktop Client

Aspect Quality Management Applications #3 • Aspect Quality Management Agent Desktop Client
• Unified Agent Desktop
• Aspect SIP 2.0 Softphone

Table 2-10 Supported XenDesktop Client Groupings

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2.6.3.2 Computer Requirements

The following table outlines the CPU and memory requirements for the deployment groupings
listed in Supported Client Application Groupings on page 2-20.

This information is used to determine the hardware requirements for the physical server
hosting the XenDesktop and VMware Horizon virtual desktop instances.

Aspect Application Required AVG Required AVG

Mhz/VM (CPU) Memory MB/VM

DataViews 600 100

Enterprise Monitor 600 100

M3 Designer 800 200

LYRICall Designer 500 200

Server Configurator 600 50

Unified Agent Desktop 500 100

Unified Command and Control - Administration 1500 1024

Unified Command and Control – Producer 400 100

Unified Command and Control – Real Time Reporting 800 100

Unified Command and Control Unified Resource Manager 600 150

Unified Director 400 100

Workforce Management Empower eSchedule Planner (Browser 600

Based)

WorkForce Optimization (Workforce Area) 2000 1024

Workforce Management Rich client 2000 1024

Perform (RTA) Rich Client 700 1024

WorkForce Optimization (Performance Area, Analyze 8.0 area) 2000 1024

WorkForce Optimization (Quality Area) 2000 1024

Quality Management Web client 400 512

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2. Procurement Considerations

Aspect Application Required AVG Required AVG

Mhz/VM (CPU) Memory MB/VM

Quality Management Mentor Desktop Client 1000 512

Quality Management Agent Desktop Client 1000 512

Enterprise DatwareHouse BOXI Client 2000 1024

Table 2-11 CPU and RAM Requirements for Virtual Desktops

The Number of Virtual Desktops Per CPU Core column represent the minimum number of
virtual desktop instances running under peak usage. Based on actual required usage, more
virtual desktops per CPU may be possible under the following conditions:
• CPU utilization on Host servers under 80%.
• No Host server memory ballooning.

On each physical server hosting the virtual desktops, the XenServer or ESXi hypervisor
requires up to 1 CPU core and up to 2-3GB of memory exclusively for virtualization software
overhead. These resources are not available for use by the virtual desktop instances. For
example, on a physical server with 8 processor cores at 2.5 GHz (2500 MHz) and 24 GB of
RAM, only 7 cores and 21GB of memory are available to the virtual desktop instances.

2.6.3.3 Storage Requirements - XenDesktop

The basic elements of storage for a virtual machine running a virtual desktop instance are as
follows:
• Golden/Master Image vDisk - a template with Windows 7 and Aspect Applications
installed and configured. This represents the base of all virtual machine instances. The
recommended size is 40GB.
• Personal vDisk Per User – disk where user customization can occur in an isolated
fashion from other users. The recommended size is 10GB.
• Identity Disk - disk where all the unique information about the virtual machine is stored
such as the active directory machine name. The recommended size is 16MB.

The following calculation determines the total storage necessary to support N virtual desktop
instances, with a Golden Image of size G, a Personal vDisk of size P and an Identity Disk of
size I. The calculation assumes that the required pooled deployment model is utilized and that
Thin Provisioning is not implemented.
Minimum Required Storage Space = G + (N*G) + (N*P) + (N*I).

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2.6.3.4 Storage Requirements – VMware Horizon

The basic element of storage for a virtual machine running a VMware Horizon virtual desktop
instance is as follows:
• Golden/Master Image - A template with Windows 8.0/8.1 and Aspect Applications
installed and configured. This represents the base of all virtual machine instances.

The recommended size of the Golden/Master Image is 40GB.

The IOPS requirement for each of the virtual desktops made from the Golden/Master Image is
calculated using the formulas below.

Total Raw IOPS Calculation per VMware Horizon VDI session:

Total Raw IOPS X

Percentage of workload that is read operations 0.4

Percentage of workload that is write operations 0.6

RAID IO Penalty for RAID 5 4

IOPS Per VDI session 30

The formula to find IOPS per VDI session is:

(Total Raw IOPS * Percentage of workload that is read operations) +
(Total Raw IOPS * Percentage of workload that is write operations * RAID IO Penalty)

Total Raw IOPS is calculated as follows:

(IOPS per VDI session) / (Percentage of workload that is read operations +
(RAID IO Penalty for RAID 5 * Percentage of workload that is write operations))
= 30/(0.4 + (4 * 0.6)) = 30/(0.4 + (2.4)) = 30/2.8 = = 10.7=~ 11

The Total Raw IOPS required for each VMware VDI session of Aspect client Applications is 11.

2.6.3.5 Network Requirements

When deploying virtual desktop instances the following network latency requirements are as
follows:
• The latency between each virtual client (i.e. Citrix receiver/View client) and the Host
servers/Hypervisors must be less than 300 milliseconds round trip.
• The latency between the Unified IP machines and the Host servers/Hypervisors must
be less than 30 milliseconds round trip.

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 3
3. Solution Design and Implementation
Considerations

This section outlines requirements for the setup of the physical servers, network, storage and
virtual machines included in the Aspect deployment.

Ensure that the following actions are completed before the Aspect product installation begins:

• Purchase hardware (physical servers, SAN) that is compatible with server virtualization
vendor and meets or exceeds the requirements documented in the Server Specification
document provided by the Aspect Platform Architects. For detailed information on VMware
vSphere, go to the vmware.com web site. For detailed information on Microsoft Hyper-V, go
to the microsoft.com web site.

• Purchase the virtualization software. Make the software purchase through the virtualization
vendor or one of its distributors or as a pre-installed/embedded option when buying a
physical server.

• If not pre-installed on purchased hardware, install the virtualization software on physical

machines targeted for the Aspect deployment. The installer must be familiar with and
trained on the virtualization software.

• Configure any Storage Area Network (SANs) required for the deployment. General rules for
SAN and storage partitioning configuration are outlined in Storage Design on page 3-2.
Additionally, the Aspect Baseline Installation Document provides details on the number and
size of the storage partitions that must be created for a particular deployment.

• Configure the physical servers running the virtualization software. For instructions, see the
section Physical Server Configuration.

• Create the virtual machines on each physical server running the virtualization software as
detailed in the Baseline Installation Document provided by Aspect.

• Install the required operating system on each of the virtual machines.

• For VMware vSphere deployments, install VMware Tools on all Aspect virtual machines.
For Hyper-V deployments ensure the latest version of the Integration Services is installed
on all Aspect virtual machines.

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3.1 Storage Design

This section contains information on physical disk and storage partitioning configuration for
storage available to physical servers running Aspect virtual machines. This information
applies to deployments utilizing VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V. Additionally, this
section contains information for both local physical server storage and SANs.

3.1.1 SAN Considerations

• SAN usage is required when deploying Aspect Advanced List Management with High
Availability as the high availability feature utilizes Microsoft Windows Clustering which
requires SAN.

• SAN usage is highly recommended for all other deployments types for the following
reasons:
• Disk space and disk performance requirements for Aspect deployments often exceed
the disk bay capacity of physical servers.
• Virtual machines hosted on a SAN can be quickly moved during ESXi server
maintenance periods and can be managed by VMware HA in clustered environments.

• To prevent possible data corruption, stop all Aspect virtual machines before shutting down
the SAN. This can be accomplished via the vSphere Client for VMware vSphere
deployments and the Windows Hyper-V Manager or the Microsoft System Center Virtual
Machine Manager for Microsoft Hyper-V deployments.

• If using iSCSI SAN, the network used for iSCSI network traffic must be separated from the
rest of the network traffic. The separate network ensures the highest priority for the delivery
of iSCSI traffic and also provides a level of security for that data.

• Set up two connection paths, iSCSI or Fibre Channel depending on the SAN, between the
physical servers and SAN to enable the highest data availability to the virtual machines.

• Ensure that the SAN logical units (LUNs) are zoned/masked so that they are only visible to
the physical servers that access them. Besides the performance benefit, this provides
security as well. Additionally, this is a requirement for the LUNs used for Microsoft
Clustering for Advanced List Management high availability.

• LUNs cannot be shared between Hyper-V servers. Microsoft only allows LUN sharing when
Windows Clustering is configured on the Hyper-V servers. Aspect does not support
Windows Clustering installed on the Hyper-V servers as this disrupts the built-in high
availability features of Unified IP. LUNs can be shared between virtual machines running on
Hyper-V servers as is required for Advanced List Management high availability via
Microsoft Windows Clustering.

• For Advanced List Management with the high availability feature, there are six disks
configured for use by Microsoft Windows Clustering. Each of these disks must have their
own logical unit (LUN). Additionally, the requirements for these LUNs are as follows:
• Microsoft Clustering requires a 1:1 ratio of LUN to Cluster Disk. This means that you
must provision a single LUN for each Cluster Resource (Drive Letter) to fully support an
ACTIVE/ACTIVE cluster.

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• You must configure each LUN so that the SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation bit (PER) is
enabled on the SAN (also a Microsoft Clustering requirement). Typically, the PER
setting appears as a configuration item on the SAN controller.

• When deploying Advanced List Management high availability in VMware environments

carefully review the VMware requirements for Microsoft Clustering as detailed in Setup for
Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service.

3.1.2 Performance and Availability Recommendations

To maintain the highest performance and availability to the virtual machines being stored,
implement the following:

• Schedule and run consistent backups of the Aspect virtual machines.

• There are a number thin provisioning rules to consider as thin provisioning assigns disk
space only on an as needed basis to virtual machines and not their maximum potential
capacity. Storage capacity must be properly monitored as exhaustion of disk space can
negatively impact running virtual machines.
• Thin provisioned storage managed through the SAN is allowed.
• Thin provisioned storage managed through the SAN, paired with the use of thin
provisioned disks in VMware is allowed but not recommended.
• Thin provisioned VMDKs in VMware, paired with a SAN without thin provisioned storage
capabilities are not allowed.
• Thin provisioned VMDKs in VMware, hosted on local storage (non-SAN) are not
allowed.
• Thin provisioned VHDs in Hyper-V are not allowed.

3.1.3 Physical Disk Considerations

Aspect provides information on the required Input/Outputs per second (IOPS) and disk space
requirements for the deployment in the Aspect Hardware/Software Requirements document.
Aspect recommends virtual or physical disk groups be used in a RAID 5 or 10 configuration for
maximum availability. The design can include mixing of RAID 5 and RAID 10 disk groups if
necessary. Keep in mind that the IOPS requirements provided in these documents do not
account for write penalties associated with various RAID levels (e.g. RAID 5, 10).

Non-Aspect applications may share the same SAN with the Aspect applications as long as the
SAN provides the total IOPS and disk space required by all the Aspect and non-Aspect
applications.

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3.1.4 Storage Partitioning Considerations

Storage partitions are a logical term used in this guide to represent portions of one or more
physical disks and LUNs that are part of the storage (SAN or server/direct attached) hosting
Aspect virtual machines. This partitioning is necessary to separate disk I/O workloads for
performance, availability and security. Storage partitions manifest themselves as VMware
vSphere data stores and Hyper-V Server logical drives.

This section describes the rules for creating storage partitions to host the virtual machines in
the Aspect application. The number of partitions will vary based on the size of the deployment
and whether high availability is configured.

3.1.4.1 Storage Partitioning Rules

All the virtual hard drives for an Aspect VM may reside together on the same storage partition.
The only exception is for the Advanced List Management VMs with the high availability
feature. High availability is achieved via Microsoft Windows Clustering which requires that the
each clustered Windows drive be on their own storage partition.

While multiple virtual machines may share the same storage partitions, in many cases the
number of Aspect virtual machines in the deployment will require the creation of multiple
storage partitions. Generally, the necessity to have multiple storage partitions is driven by four
factors:

• Company IT requirements may specify a maximum storage partition size.

• High availability - the more virtual machines that use a single storage partition, the more
impact on the system if the underlying disks of the storage partition have a failure.

• Number of virtual machines accessing the storage partition – There is a finite I/O queue
between each ESXi/Hyper-V server and the storage partitions they connect to. I/O
contention to the storage partition can occur if too many virtual machines on an ESXi/
Hyper-V server share the same storage partition. Therefore, the maximum number of
virtual machines that can share a storage partition is 10.
Note: In addition to operating system and Aspect application files, each storage partition will
be used to hold temporary virtual machine snapshot files during planned maintenance
periods. Aspect requires an additional 30-40GB per virtual machine per storage
partition to contain these snapshots. The specific snapshot requirements are detailed in
the Baseline Installation Document provided by Aspect.

The tables below provide the storage partitioning assignments for deployments with and
without high availability. Each table in the sections below contains the following information:

• Product: Which Aspect product(s) the assignment applies to.

• Use: Types of files that will be stored on the storage partition.

• Shared with multiple VMs: Can the storage partition be shared with more than one VM?

• Contents: Further details on types of files stored in the partition. Note that all partitions
must include space for snapshots.

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3.1.4.1.1 Non-High Availability Configuration

Product Use Shared with multiple Contents

VMs?

Unified IP Any Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
per storage partition. database, recordings, snapshots

Advanced List Any Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
Management per storage partition. database, recordings, snapshots

Workforce Management Any Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
per storage partition. database, recordings, snapshots

Quality Management Any Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
per storage partition. database, recordings, snapshots

3.1.4.1.2 High Availability Configuration

Product Use Shared with multiple Contents

VMs?

Unified IP Any Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
per storage partition. database, recordings, snapshots

Workforce Management Any Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
per storage partition. database, snapshots

Quality Management Any Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
per storage partition. database, recordings, snapshots

Advanced List Primary and Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
Management HA instances per storage partition. snapshots

Advanced List ALMDTC No VMware Raw Device Map file when using
Management fibre channel SAN storage

Advanced List ALMQuorum No VMware Raw Device Map file when using
Management fibre channel SAN storage

Advanced List ALMFiles No VMware Raw Device Map file when using
Management fibre channel SAN storage

Advanced List ALMSQLData No VMware Raw Device Map file when using
Management fibre channel SAN storage

Advanced List ALMSQLLog No VMware Raw Device Map file when using
Management fibre channel SAN storage

Advanced List ALMSQLFiles No VMware Raw Device Map file when using
Management fibre channel SAN storage

Advanced List Reporting and Yes. No more than 10 OS, applications, application log files,
Management DR instances per storage partition. database data files, snapshots

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3.1.4.2 Aspect Performance Management/Analyze Specific

LUNs
Due to the highly customized nature of Aspect Performance Management and Aspect Analyze
deployments, storage partitioning information will be detailed in the Baseline Installation
Document provided by Aspect.

3.2 Physical Server Configuration

3.2.1 General Configuration

The sections below outline physical server configuration items that pertain to both VMware
vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V deployments.

3.2.1.1 Time Synchronization

Ensure that the physical servers running virtualization software are configured to sync their
time with a time source. Failure to perform this operation will result in the virtual machines
starting up with a potentially invalid clock time and this could impact the operation of the
Aspect applications.

3.2.1.2 BIOS Settings

Ensure that the following BIOS settings are configured before running Aspect virtual
machines.

• Hardware Virtualization Assist – Enabled. The virtualization software will not run optimally
and in the case of Hyper-V, not at all, if this setting is left disabled.

• Hardware Data Execution Prevention – Enabled. This setting only applies to Hyper-V and
Hyper-V will not run if this setting is disabled.

• Power Management – Set for maximum power utilization. Depending on the vendor
maximum power may be achieved by disabling “C states” or enabling “OS Controlled” in
the BIOS. On ESXi servers this can be configured through the vSphere Client and set to
“High Performance”.

Refer to the physical server vendor documentation for how to set these bios parameters as
naming conventions vary from vendor to vendor.

3.2.2 VMware ESXi Server Configuration

The following section contains instructions for configuring VMware vSphere ESXi servers in an
Aspect deployment.

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3.2.2.1 Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown Option

For each ESXi server in the deployment, configure the virtual machine startup and shutdown
parameters as follows. This will ensure that when an ESXi server is started, the virtual
machines will also startup automatically. Additionally, if an ESXi server is shut down for
maintenance purposes, the virtual machines will have a controlled shutdown via the operating
system.

• Select the Allow virtual machines to start and stop with the system box.

• Ensure that you add all virtual machines in the deployment to the Automatic Start group.

• Set the Shutdown Action to Guest Shutdown.

3.2.2.2 VMware Network Requirements

This section provides network information related to deploying Aspect virtual machines in a
VMware vSphere environment. For general network requirements, please see the Network
Preparation Guide.

3.2.2.2.1 General Network Information

• Multiple Aspect virtual machines may share the same physical NIC. For 1 Gbps NICs, a
maximum of 8 is supported. For 10 Gbps NICs, there is no limit. These physical NICs must
be connected to the Local Network and each assigned to a vSwitch (the VMware concept
of a network switch).

• If Aspect virtual machines are running on ESXi servers that are also hosting non-Aspect
virtual machines, Aspect virtual machines must be deployed in an environment where
required network bandwidth can be guaranteed. This can be accomplished by connecting
the Aspect virtual machines to a physical NIC separate from the non-Aspect virtual
machines or features such as VMware VNetwork Distributed Switch or the Cisco Nexus
1000V. Network bandwidth requirements are detailed in the Aspect Network Preparation
Guide.

• To enable a secondary network path for high availability, Aspect supports NIC teaming.
Here a second physical NIC port may be associated with the virtual switch assigned to the
Aspect virtual machines in an active/active or active/standby configuration. Connect this
second port to a different network path than the first NIC port in the team to ensure the
highest network availability.

• If iSCSI SAN is utilized in the deployment, create a vSwitch with a VMkernel port that is
assigned to a physical NIC port on a dedicated iSCSI SAN network.

• If the iSCSI SAN supports multi-pathing, create an additional vSwitch with a VMkernel port
that is assigned to a physical NIC port on a dedicated iSCSI SAN network. Connect this
port to a different network path than the first iSCSI NIC port to ensure the highest network
availability.

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3.2.2.2.2 Unified IP Telephony Adapter Considerations

• For each Telephony Adapter (TA) virtual machine that resides on the ESXi server create a
vSwitch with a port group (suggested name “Private”) that is assigned to a physical NIC
port attached to the DCP ENET Private Network. If multiple TAs resides on the same ESXi
server, each must have unique vSwitch instances created with a port group. Subsequent
instances of the Private port group can be called Private 2, Private 3, and so on so that
their names are unique.

• Ensure that auto negotiate is specified for the network adapter properties associated with
this as the DCP only supports auto negotiated connections by design.

• For profiles supporting 250 or more agents, create a with a port group called “VOIP and
Control” and assign it to a physical NIC port attached to the TA and DCP ATNET dedicated
switch or VLAN. This separation is required to ensure quality of service for the VOIP based
calls and recordings.

3.2.2.2.3 Advanced Voice Portal Considerations

All Advanced Voice Portal machines running on an ESXi server must share a separate
physical NIC from the other virtual machines on the ESXi server. If there are multiple AVP
machines on the same ESXi server, they can share this dedicated NIC. This separation is
required to ensure quality of service for the VOIP processed through the Advanced Voice
Portal machines.

However, if the ESXi servers hosting the Aspect virtual machines are on a 10 Gbps network or
uses features where required network bandwidth can be guaranteed (such as VMware
Network Distributed Switch or the Cisco Nexus 1000V), the Advanced Voice Portal virtual
machines may then share the same physical NICs as other Aspect virtual machines on the
ESXi server.

3.2.2.2.4 Advanced List Management HA Considerations

For Aspect Advanced List Management deployments configured for high availability, Aspect
recommends that you create a second vSwitch on the ESXi servers running the Advanced List
Management primary and secondary virtual machines with a port group named Cluster
Heartbeat Network. You assign this vSwitch to a physical NIC port that connects to a network
separate from the Local Network assigned to the Virtual Machine Network. This enables the
partitioning of Windows Clustering traffic from other types of traffic on the network as Microsoft
recommends in the Failover cluster Step-by-Step Guide.

3.2.2.3 Storage Information

This section contains special SAN configuration requirements for VMware environments.

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3.2.2.3.1 Advanced List Management Considerations

When deploying Aspect Advanced List Management with High Availability, there are six
shared LUNs managed by Microsoft Windows Clustering:

• If the LUNs are stored on fibre channel SAN, then the following LUNs must be configured
as Raw Device Mapping (RDM) disks and must not be configured as VMFS data stores.
• Advanced List Management ALMDTC
• Advanced List Management ALMQuorum
• Advanced List Management ALMFiles
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLFiles
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLData
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLLog

• If the LUNs are stored on iSCSI SAN, then the following LUNs must not be attached to the
ESXi server. Instead they must be attached via the Microsoft iSCSI initiator component of
the Windows operating system to the Advanced List Management virtual machines
participating as Microsoft Windows Cluster nodes. This impacts the following LUNs.
• Advanced List Management ALMDTC
• Advanced List Management ALMQuorum
• Advanced List Management ALMFiles
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLFiles
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLData
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLLog

• When deploying Advanced List Management high availability in VMware environments

carefully review the VMware requirements for Microsoft Clustering as detailed in Setup for
Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service.

3.2.2.4 VMware Cluster Configuration Rules

This section outlines additional configuration rules that apply to deployments using VMware
vSphere cluster features. Table 2-7 on page 2-14 details which Aspect Products support
VMware cluster environments.

3.2.2.4.1 vMotion
vMotion enables a running virtual machine to be moved from one ESXi server to another. The
use of vMotion is restricted to times of planned maintenance. vMotion (including its use
associated with Distributed Resource Scheduler) must be configured as a manual operation
(manual or partially automatic mode). Additionally, the Aspect virtual machines must not be
processing any transactions when using vMotion. However, Aspect services may be in a
running state during the vMotion.

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3.2.2.4.2 VMware High Availability

For non-redundant deployments, all Aspect virtual machines that support VMware cluster
environments may be configured for restart by VMware HA. Non-redundant deployments do
not contain the Aspect built-in high availability features.

For redundant deployments the following rules apply when configuring VMware HA:

• Required: The following machines must be configured for restart by VMware HA with the
highest priority setting. This will ensure that the loss of an ESXi server will result in these
virtual machines being restarted on other available ESXi servers and maximum agent
capacity is maintained.
• Core expansion
• Agent-m3 expansion
• Quality Management recording servers

• Optional: The following machines may optionally be configured for restart by VMware HA.
This will ensure that report viewing and recording search/playback functions are restored
as quickly as possible after the loss of an ESXi server.
• Reporting datamart
• Recording datamart/core
• Quality Management recording database

• Optional: The following machines may optionally be configured for restart by VMware HA.
• UCC machine and UCC redundant machine.
• Multimedia and Multimedia redundant machine.
• CTI Server machine.
• Aspect Contact Server CMI machine.
• UCC Broker machine.
• UCC Adapter machine.
• Quality Management Primary machine.
• Quality Management Backup/Web/Media machine.

• Excluded: The core and core redundant machines must not be configured for restart by
VMware HA as this will interfere with the built-in availability capabilities of the product.
Specifically, audio connections between callers and the system will not be preserved
through failures.

• Excluded: The Advanced List Management primary and secondary machines must not be
configured for restart by VMware HA as this will interfere with the built-in availability
capabilities that leverage Microsoft Windows Clustering.

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3.2.2.4.3 Virtual Machine Anti-Affinity Rules

Deploy virtual machines using the following anti-affinity rules to ensure that the highest
availability is achieved for the Aspect application.

Unified IP 7.1, 7.2 Rules

• The redundant instance of a virtual machine must not reside on the same ESXi server as
their peer virtual machine instance. For example:
• Core machine must be separated from the core redundant machine
• UCC machine must be separated from the UCC redundant machine
• Multimedia machine must be separated from the multimedia redundant machine.
• Core expansion machine must be separated from the core expansion redundant
machine.
• Director expansion machine must be separated from the core redundant machine.

• The primary datamart, reporting datamart and recording datamart/core virtual machines
must reside on three separate ESXi servers so that SQL Server mirroring functions
properly.

• The core and core redundant virtual machines must not reside on the same ESXi server as
the recording datamart/core virtual machine so that the built-in high availability features of
Unified IP function properly.

• It is recommended that all agent-M3 expansion instances be evenly distributed across

available ESXi servers in the cluster. This will ensure that the lowest number of agents is
impacted by the loss of a single ESXi server.

• For the 7.2 2000 profile, the director core expansion machine must not reside on the same
ESXi server as the RTR expansion machine as this will impact the streaming of real-time
reporting data to users.

Unified IP 7.3 Rules

• The redundant instance of a virtual machine must not reside on the same ESXi server as
their peer virtual machine instance. For example:
• Core machine must be separated from the core redundant machine
• UCC machine must be separated from the UCC redundant machine
• Core expansion machine must be separated from the core expansion redundant
machine.

• The primary datamart, secondary datamart and the agent/m3/arbiter virtual machines must
reside on three separate ESXi servers so that SQL Server availability groups functions
properly.

• The core and core redundant virtual machines must not reside on the same ESXi server as
the agent/m3/arbiter virtual machine so that the built-in high availability features of Unified
IP function properly.

• It is recommended that all agent-M3 expansion instances be evenly distributed across

available ESXi servers in the cluster. This will ensure that the lowest number of agents is
impacted by the loss of a single ESXi server.

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3. Solution Design and Implementation Considerations

Advanced List Management Rules

• Advanced List Management primary machine must be on a separate ESXi server from the
Advanced List Management secondary machine.

Quality Management Rules

• Quality Management primary machine must be on a separate ESXi server from the backup/
web/media machine.

• It is recommended that all Quality Management recording server instances be evenly

distributed across available ESXi servers in the cluster. This will ensure that the lowest
number of recordings get impacted by the loss of a single ESXi server.

3.2.2.4.4 Virtual Machine Resource Reservations

To ensure that Aspect Virtual machines are guaranteed their required CPU and memory
resources when sharing the ESXi server with non-Aspect virtual machines, CPU and memory
reservations must be applied as detailed in Virtual Machine Reservation Rules. The non-
Aspect virtual machines must not have reservations set.

3.2.3 Hyper-V Server Configuration

The following section contains instructions for configuring Hyper-V in an Aspect Unified IP
deployment.

3.2.3.1 Configuring Windows Updates

The operating system must be configured for Manual Windows Updates or unexpected system
restarts may occur. Perform Windows Updates within the Host operating system only during a
planned maintenance period.

3.2.3.2 Hyper-V Network Requirements

This section provides general network information related to an Aspect deployment.

• In the Virtual Network Manager, create an External Virtual Network and associate with an
available physical network adapter. Optionally, the Allow management operating system
to share this connection option can be checked if there is only a single physical network
adapter available.

• The Virtual Machine Queues (VMQ) feature must be disabled on all network adapters
attached to the Hyper-V server. The VMQ feature can cause network performance issues
and intermittent disconnects for Aspect components as documented in Microsoft KB article
2902166.

• If the physical server is connected to a SAN via iSCSI, do not select the physical network
adapter used for iSCSI traffic when setting up Hyper-V Virtual Networks.

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• For Advanced List Management high availability deployments, Aspect recommends that
you create a second External Virtual Network named Cluster Heartbeat Network. Associate
this Virtual Network with a physical NIC port that connects to a network separate from the
Local Network. This enables the partitioning of Windows Clustering traffic from other types
of traffic on the network as Microsoft recommends.

3.2.3.3 Storage Considerations

This section contains special storage requirements for Hyper-V environments.
Note: To ensure maximum performance, the volume/logical disk used for the Hyper-V host
Operating System must not be used for hosting virtual machines.

3.2.3.3.1 Advanced List Management Considerations

When deploying Aspect Advanced List Management with High Availability, there are six
shared LUNs managed by Microsoft Windows Clustering:

• The following LUNs must not be attached to the Hyper-V server. Instead they must be
attached via the Microsoft iSCSI initiator component of the Windows operating system to
the Advanced List Management virtual machines participating as Microsoft Windows
Cluster nodes. These LUNs will then be presented as disk partitions on to the Advanced
List Management virtual machines participating as Microsoft Windows Cluster nodes. This
impacts the following LUNs:
• Advanced List Management ALMDTC
• Advanced List Management ALMQuorum
• Advanced List Management ALMFiles
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLFiles
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLData
• Advanced List Management ALMSQLLog

3.3 Virtual Machine Configurations

The following sections provide general information on configuration requirements for Aspect
virtual machines prior to the Aspect product installation. Detailed information on resource
allocation for each individual virtual machine in the deployment is in the Baseline Installation
Document provided by Aspect.

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3. Solution Design and Implementation Considerations

3.3.1 Computer Requirements

Computer requirements relate to the amount of CPU processor and memory that each virtual
machine is allowed to consume. CPU is configured as a virtual CPU (vCPU) and corresponds
to a CPU core, not a hyperthread. While hyperthreads do provide additional compute power,
the performance is not the same as the compute power of a CPU core.

The number of vCPUs and memory to configure for each Aspect virtual machine is specified in
the Baseline Installation Document provided by Aspect.

3.3.1.1 VMware vSphere Specific Requirements

3.3.1.1.1 Virtual Machine Reservation Rules

The VMware Reservations feature must be configured for all Aspect virtual machines under
the following conditions:

• The Aspect virtual machines are running on ESXi servers that are part of a VMware
vSphere cluster.

• The Aspect virtual machines are running on ESXi servers that are also hosting non-Aspect
virtual machines.

Reservations are required to ensure that a minimum level of resource is available before the
virtual machine can start. Reservations also ensure that the virtual machine will receive the
required amount of memory and CPU when the physical server is experiencing memory and/or
CPU contention.

Processor Reservations

Processor reservations can be set for virtual machines individually or for a group of virtual
machines when they are assigned to the same VMware resource group.

• For an individual virtual machine, the processor reservation must be set to 80% of 2000
MHz (the lowest speed processor benchmarked by Aspect) multiplied by the number of
cores configured for the virtual machine.

• If the Aspect virtual machines reside within a resource pool, the reservation will be set
within the resource pool configuration and not the virtual machine configuration. In this
case, the reservation must be 80% of 2000 MHz (the lowest speed processor
benchmarked by Aspect) multiplied by the cumulative cores configured for all the virtual
machines in the resource pool.

The number of cores for each machine is specified in the Baseline Installation Document
provided by Aspect.

For example, to set a processor reservation for an individual 4-core virtual machine, multiply 4
* (2000 * .8), which equals a 6400 MHz reservation.

Memory Reservations

Memory reservations can be set for virtual machines individually or for a group of virtual
machines when they are assigned to the same VMware resource group.

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• For an individual virtual machine, the memory reservation must equal 100% of the amount
of memory configured for the virtual machine.

• If the Aspect virtual machines reside within a resource pool, the reservation will be set
within the resource pool configuration and not the virtual machine configuration. In this
case, the memory reservation must be set to the cumulative memory configured for all
virtual machines in the resource pool.

The configured memory for each Aspect virtual machine is specified in the Baseline
Installation Document provided by Aspect.

For example, if a virtual machine requires 4GB of memory, then a memory reservation of 4GB
must be configured.

3.3.1.2 Hyper-V Specific Requirements

3.3.1.2.1 Processor Configuration

When configuring the processors for an Aspect virtual machine running on a Hyper-V server,
only the Number of logical processors field must be configured as shown in Hyper-V Virtual
Machine CPU Settings1. All other fields must be left at their default values. Making
adjustments to these other fields may deprive the Aspect virtual machines of the resources
they need and cause performance degradation.

Figure 3-1 Hyper-V Virtual Machine CPU Settings

Additionally, processor reservations must be configured when the Aspect virtual machines are
running on Hyper-V servers that are also hosting non-Aspect virtual machines.

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3. Solution Design and Implementation Considerations

Reservations are required to ensure that a minimum level of resource is available before the
virtual machine can start. Reservations also ensure that the virtual machine will receive the
required amount of CPU when the physical server is experiencing CPU contention.

To configure reservations set the Virtual machine reserve (percentage) value to 80 as

indicated in Figure 3-2 on page 3-16 - Setting Processor Reservations. This will ensure that
the virtual machine can always access up to 80% of its configured vCPUs.

Figure 3-2 Setting Processor Reservations

3.3.1.2.2 Memory Configuration

When configuring the memory allocation for an Aspect virtual machine running on a Hyper-V
server, only the Static management option must be selected and the amount of memory as
specified in the Baseline Installation Document supplied in the RAM field. This is shown in
Hyper-V Virtual Machine Memory Settings3. All other fields must be left at their default values.

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Making adjustments to these other fields may deprive the Aspect virtual machines of the
resources they need and cause performance degradation.

Figure 3-3 Hyper-V Virtual Machine Memory Settings

3.3.2 Virtual Network Adapter Requirements

Below are deployment rules related to virtual network adapter configuration in VMware
vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V environments.

• Always use the virtual network adapter types that provide maximum performance.
• In VMware vSphere deployments, use the VMXNET3 virtual network adapters for each
virtual machine.
• In Hyper-V deployments select the Network Adapter device type when configuring a
virtual network adapter for each virtual machine.

• Only one virtual network adapter may be assigned to each Aspect virtual machine with the
following exceptions:
• Aspect recommends that the Advanced List Management primary and secondary virtual
machines have a second virtual network adapter for the Microsoft Windows Clustering
heartbeat network. The configuration of this network on the physical server is described
in the Hyper-V Network Requirements sections.

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3.3.3 Virtual Hard Drive Requirements

The number of virtual hard drives as well as the amount of disk space to allocate to each
virtual hard drive per Aspect virtual machine is detailed in the Baseline Installation Document
provided by Aspect.

3.3.3.1 VMware vSphere Specific Requirements

When configuring virtual hard drives for Aspect virtual machines, choose the Thick Provision
option. While the Thin Provision option is possible when thin provisioning at the SAN level is
available, Aspect does not recommend this choice. VMware thin provisioned disks assign
minimal disk space to the virtual hard drive initially and then dynamically add disk space as the
virtual hard drive is utilized by the virtual machines. Unless properly monitored, there is a risk
that the data store hosting the disk could run out of disk space and negatively impact a running
virtual machine using that disk.

When configuring Aspect Advanced List Management High Availability, all virtual hard drives
not associated with Microsoft Cluster shared drives must be configured for the Eager Zeroed
Thick Provision option.

3.3.3.2 Hyper-V Specific Requirements

3.3.3.2.1 Disk Controller Selection

For each virtual machine, add a single SCSI Controller device through the virtual machine
settings tool. This is the highest performance virtual disk controller. All virtual disks, except for
the virtual disk that contains the operating system, must be assigned to this controller. When a
virtual machine is created the operating system virtual disk is automatically assigned to the
IDE Controller device.

3.3.3.2.2 Hyper-V Manager Considerations

If you are using the Hyper-V Manager tool to create virtual machines, all of the virtual disks for
the C/boot drive must be created prior to running the virtual machine wizard and therefore
cannot be used to create these disks. The Hyper-V Manager virtual machine creation wizard
configures the Operating System drive as a dynamic type virtual disk. All Aspect virtual disks
must be of type fixed for optimal performance. These pre-configured Operating System drive
virtual disks can be associated with virtual machines through the virtual machine creation
wizard.

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3.3.3.2.3 Disk Type Selection

When configuring virtual hard drives for Aspect virtual machines, only select the Fixed size
type as shown below. Both dynamically expanding and differencing disks cause additional disk
I/O overhead which can degrade the performance of the Aspect virtual machines.

3.3.4 Remote Desktop Access Requirements

3.3.4.1 VMware vSphere Specific Requirements

Do not use the console within the vSphere client for accessing the operating system within a
virtual machine during production time. This may impact the performance of the system.

3.3.4.2 Hyper-V Specific Requirements

Do not use the console available through the Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual
Machine Manager client for accessing the operating system within a virtual machine during
production time. This may impact the performance of the system.

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3.3.5 Other Virtual Machine Settings

3.3.5.1 VMware vSphere Specific Requirements

The following configuration settings apply to all VMware vSphere virtual machines in the
deployment:

• After configuring the virtual machines and installing the operating system, install VMware
Tools within each virtual machine. The vSphere Client can be used to determine whether
VMware Tools installed successfully within each virtual machine.

• Configure time synchronization within virtual machines using one of the two available
mechanisms:
• Select the Synchronize guest time with host option when configuring the virtual
machine.
• Enable an operating system specific time service (for example, Windows Time Service).

Use only one method. If using the operating system specific time service, ensure that the
Synchronize guest time with host option is disabled in the VMware Tools configuration.
Similarly, if the Synchronize guest time with host option in VMware Tools is enabled, ensure
that the operating system time service is disabled. See the VMware documentation for
information about time synchronization.

3.3.5.2 Hyper-V Specific Requirements

To ensure that when a Hyper-V server is started, that the virtual machines will start up
automatically and when a Hyper-V server is shut down for maintenance purposes, that the
virtual machines will have a controlled shutdown via the operating system, configure the virtual
machines as follows:

• For each virtual machine configure the Automatic Start Action to be Always start this
virtual machine automatically.

• For each virtual machine configure the Automatic Stop Action to be Shutdown the guest
operating system

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4. Monitoring Virtual Machine
Deployment

Once Aspect virtual machines are deployed, the resource utilization of the physical servers
hosting the virtual machines and the virtual machines themselves must be regularly monitored.
Alerts should be set for specific CPU and memory metrics to ensure that the Aspect virtual
machines consistently provide the highest performance. If the utilization thresholds detailed
below are exceeded, the Aspect application performance will degrade. These metrics are
detailed in the sections below.

4.1 VMware vSphere Metric Thresholds

This section details the specific resource metrics that must be monitored and thresholds to
apply alerts to. Values are supplied for the ESXi server and virtual machine metric levels.
These metrics can be viewed via the vSphere Client application under the Performance Tab.

4.1.1 ESXi Server Level Metrics

Metric Threshold Value Description

CPU/Usage 60% - for ESXi servers hosting Advanced Average ESXi server CPU utilization
List Management virtual machines

70% - for ESXi servers not hosting

Advanced List Management virtual
machines

Memory/Usage 90% Average ESXi server memory utilization

including memory requested but not used
by all the virtual machines
Disk/Read Latency 25ms Average amount of time to process a disk
read request
Spikes of >= 100ms are acceptable but
must not span more than one sample
period

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Metric Threshold Value Description

Disk/Write Latency 25ms Average amount of time to process a disk

write request
Spikes of >= 100ms are acceptable but
must not span more than one sample
period
Network/Received 0 Number of receive packets dropped on the
Packets Dropped physical NIC(s) assigned to the Aspect
virtual machines or the NIC(s) connected
to any iSCSI SAN networks.
Note: This is a real-time metric only

Network/Transmitted 0 Number of transmitted packets dropped on

Packets Dropped the physical NIC(s) assigned to the Aspect
virtual machines or the NIC(s) connected
to any iSCSI SAN networks
Note: This is a real-time metric only

4.1.2 Virtual Machine Level Metrics

Metric Threshold Value Description

CPU/Usage 75% Average virtual machine CPU utilization

CPU/Ready 10% Percentage of time that the virtual

machine was in a state to process
Value is calculated by taking the Ready
instructions but could not get scheduled to
metric expressed in milliseconds and
a physical CPU
dividing by 20,000 (this represents the
amount of milliseconds in the default real-
time sampling interval which is 20
seconds) and then dividing again by the
number of CPU cores assigned to the
virtual machines.

For example, if the vSphere Client reports

a Ready value of 25,000 ms and the virtual
machine is configured for 4 CPU cores,
the Ready percentage would be:

(25000/20000) / 4 = .31 = 31%

Memory/Usage 60% Average virtual machine active memory
utilization. This is used memory – not
requested memory.
Memory/Balloon 0 The amount of currently unused memory
in the virtual machine that has been
reclaimed by the ESXi server for other
virtual machines.

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 Microsoft Hyper-V Metric Thresholds

Metric Threshold Value Description

Memory/Swapped 0 The amount of physical memory in MB

swapped out of the virtual machine to disk
due to memory contention within the ESXi
server
Disk/Read Latency 25ms Average amount of time to process a disk
read request
Spikes of >= 100ms are acceptable but
must not span more than one sample
period
Disk/Write Latency 25ms Average amount of time to process a disk
write request
Spikes of >= 100ms are acceptable but
must not span more than one sample
period
Received Packets 0 Number of receive packets dropped
Dropped
Note: This is a real-time metric only

Transmitted Packets 0 Number of transmitted packets dropped

Dropped
Note: This is a real-time metric only

4.2 Microsoft Hyper-V Metric Thresholds

This section details the specific resource metrics that must be monitored and thresholds to
apply alerts to. Values are supplied for the Hyper-V server and virtual machine metric levels.
Hyper-V and virtual machines resource utilization can be monitored using the Windows
perfmon utility run within the Host OS of the Hyper-V server.

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4.2.1 Hyper-V Server Level Metrics

Metric Threshold Value Description

Hyper V “Logical Processor (_Total)\% 80% Total average CPU utilization for all
Gues Run Time running virtual machines on the Hyper-V
server.
Memory/Available Bytes 10% of physical memory Average memory utilization must not fall
below this threshold.
Memory\% Committed Bytes in Use 60% Percentage of commit limit (physical
memory + pagefile size) used by running
processes on the machine. When this
value exceeds 60% excessive memory
paging can occur which can degrade
performance. Additionally, process
requests for more memory may be denied
impacting system functionality.
Paging File(_Total)\% Usage 20% Indicates how much of the paging file is
being used. When this value exceeds 20%
excessive memory paging can occur
which can degrade performance.
PhysicalDisk/Avg. Disk Bytes/Read 25ms Average amount of time to process a disk
read request.
Spikes of >= 100ms are
acceptable but must not
span more than one
sample period
PhysicalDisk/Avg. Disk Bytes/Write 25ms Average amount of time to process a disk
write request
Spikes of >= 100ms are
acceptable but must not
span more than one
sample period
Hyper-V Virtual Network Adapter/Dropped 0 Number of transmitted packets dropped on
Packets Outgoing/sec the physical NIC(s) assigned to the Aspect
virtual machines
Hyper-V Virtual Network Adapter/Dropped 0 Number of received packets dropped on
Packets Incoming/sec the physical NIC(s) assigned to the Aspect
virtual machines

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4.2.2 Virtual Machine Level Metrics

Metric Threshold Value Description

Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor\% 75% Average CPU utilization for a running
Guest Run Time virtual machine. This metric is reported for
each virtual processor configured for the
virtual machine. None of the virtual
processor instances must exceed this
value.

Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual 100000000 Average time in nanoseconds that the

Processor\CPU Wait Time Per Dispatch virtual machine was ready, but could not
get scheduled to run on the physical CPU.
This metric is reported for each virtual
processor configured for the virtual
machine. None of the virtual processor
instances must exceed this value.

Hyper-V Dynamic Memory VM\Average 0 A value of zero indicates that the VM has
Pressure access to its required amount of memory.
A non-zero value indicates that memory
may be taken from this VM to give to
another VM when the Hyper-V server is
experiencing memory contention.

4.3 Performance Management/Analyze

Considerations
If you observe a CPU bottleneck within the Aspect Performance Management machines,
Aspect recommends that you allocate additional processors.

You can use this strategy:

1. Add a CPU core to the virtual machine running the Performance Management
components.

2. If the additional CPU does not improve the position due to CPU contention, set up another
virtual machine dedicated to a specific part of the deployment (for example, Analysis
Services).

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