1-12
Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide
OL-4590-03
Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant
Creating Server Clusters
• Whether you enable automatic failover for Personal Assistant server redundancy. Failover ensures
that if a server goes down, another server takes over the responsibilities of the failed server. If you
configure failover, you should enable only half of the ports that would otherwise be supported on a
server.
• The number of Cisco CallManager clusters in your network, and the distribution of WAN links
between them.
Because you can easily add and remove servers from a cluster, you do not have to be precise on your first
estimate. As users become familiar with Personal Assistant, and their use of Personal Assistant
increases, you can add servers to accommodate the increased usage.
Estimated Number of Simultaneous Sessions
Table 1-2 explains the estimated number of simultaneous sessions supported on each server platform,
based on server model and session type. However, depending on your particular system usage, these
values can vary considerably. Use the information in Table 1-2 as a starting point to estimate your server
needs.
When evaluating the information in Table 1-2, keep in mind that:
• Media port sessions indicate how many simultaneous sessions use speech-recognition features such
as dialing by name, browsing voice mail, and initiating conference calls. In these sessions, users are
directly interacting with Personal Assistant.
• Interceptor port sessions indicate how many simultaneous sessions involve Personal Assistant
intercepting incoming calls for users. In these sessions, once users have configured their dial rules,
they do not directly interact with Personal Assistant. Personal Assistant seamlessly routes the
incoming calls based on the dial rules.
• As an initial guideline, we recommend that you estimate approximately 25 users per
call-interception session, and approximately 50 users per speech-recognition session.
• These estimates represent the system capacities and might not necessarily reflect the number of
licenses you have purchased.
Using the Session Estimates in Your Planning
To estimate how many ports you need to support your users, consider the following example:
1. Determine the number of users, for example 1750.
Tab l e 1-2 Estimated Number of Simultaneous Sessions
Server Installation
MCS-7825 Series MCS-7835 Series
Interceptor Ports1
1. We recommend that you estimate approximately 25 users per session using interceptor ports.
Media Ports2
2. We recommend that you estimate approximately 50 users per session using media ports.
Interceptor Ports1Media Ports2
Personal Assistant server and
speech-recognition server installed
on different systems
50 sessions 24 sessions 70 sessions 36 sessions
Personal Assistant server and
speech-recognition server installed
on the same system
22 sessions 20 sessions 30 sessions 24 sessions