Introduction
This document describes the General System Requirements and TCP Ports required to fully operate Variphy Insight.
Due to the API’s from Cisco, the features of Variphy Insight rely on different connectivity and authentication requirements when supporting Cisco Communications Manager (CUCM), Cisco Unity Connection (CUC), and Cisco Unified Contact Center Express (UCCX).
Further information about the installation and configuration of Variphy Insight can be found online in our User Guides Section.
This version of Variphy Insight is designed to integrate with the following Cisco Unified Communications/Collaboration products and versions:
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) : Versions 10.x through 14
Cisco Unity Connection (CUC): Version 8.6.1 through 14
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express (UCCX): Versions 8.5 through 12.5.x
This document assumes that Variphy will be installed in a “stand-alone” function, i.e. it will reside on an operating system and be the primary application running.
While Variphy can coexist with other applications running simultaneously in the same operating system, there may be port conflicts from previously installed applications that are running. Variphy’s default ports can be easily changed during the installation. However, for best performance, we strongly recommend that Variphy be installed on a standalone system
CUCM Billing Application Server
Access to the CDR files and their data can be made possible by configuring what’s referred to as a ‘Billing Server’ in Cisco UCM. A Billing Server is simply a remote computer or server running a (S)FTP server. Once a Billing Server (consisting of host name/IP address, FTP protocol, login credentials, and directory path location) has been successfully added in UCM, CDR files can be automatically sent, via (S)FTP, to the Billing Server(s).
Once the (S)FTP communication has been established from the CUCM Billing Server to the Variphy server, CDR files will be uploaded regularly as set by the Enterprise Parameter, CDR File Time Interval. By default, this is set to 1 minute, which means a new CDR file is created every minute for all calls ending within that minute and is subject to the automatic (S)FTP transfer to the Billing Server(s).
(S)FTP Application
Linux OVA: Variphy embeds the open source platform, OpenSSH, into the distributed OVA.
Windows: For the use of Call Analytics a (S)FTP server will be required to collect CDR files from CUCM. It is the customers responsibility to obtain a suitable FTP/(S)FTP server application to be installed co-resident with the Variphy application. Popular zero-cost (S)FTP server options include FileZilla Server, WinSCP, or SolarWinds.
Database Application
A database application, MySQL or Microsoft SQL, will only be needed if running the Call Analytics tool in order to store all call records delivered by CUCM.
Linux OVA: Variphy utilizes a pre-installed/configured instance of the open source platform, MySQL, within the distributed OVA. An external database application will not be needed unless desired.
Windows: For the use of Call Analytics a database will be built in your preferred MySQL or Microsoft SQL instance. These application will need to be downloaded and configured manually. Variphy does not
MySQL – https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/windows/installer/
Microsoft SQL Express – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55994
Variphy is currently supported on the following platforms
Hardware Platform: Physical or Virtual Machine. A VM is strongly preferred for ease of scalability. We currently support either Windows or Linux for Variphy Enterprise server builds. Linux, Windows, or Mac OS are supported for Variphy Professional license builds.
Depending on your requirements, not all the features of Variphy Insight may need to be installed and configured. A “Professional build” is essentially an installation of the software using any features other than CUCM/CDR Analytics reporting. A Professional build can be installed on a machine with significantly fewer resources, such as a consultant’s laptop, and is primarily used in conjunction with Professional licensing. This gives the user the ability to run various as-built reports in customer’s environments without specific cluster licensing. For CDR Analytics, however, Cluster-specific licensing is required for our primary Analytics Reporting features.
Supported Operating Systems and VM Platforms
Windows Server Enterprise Edition version 2008 R2 and later: This can be installed on standalone hardware, VMware, Azure, Hyper-V, or AWS. The Variphy application is host agnostic – as long as the windows server VM is compatible with a given host, the Variphy software will be also.
Variphy Linux OVA: We currently provide an Ubuntu 18.04 OVA appliance package that is easily deployed in your VSphere environment (supported on Vsphere 5.0 – 7.0). It comes with Variphy, SFTP, and MySQL components pre-installed, ensuring significantly faster deployment time than on a Windows server.
Mac OS X64 versions 10.8 and later: While suitable for Variphy Professional licensed installs, this is not recommended for the Variphy Enterprise server configuration.
If you will be using Call Analytics (CDR) reporting, then Insight, FTP server, and SQL server components are required. Installation to a dedicated server is highly recommended. If only using features other than CDR Analytics reporting, only the Insight application is required, and can be installed to any supported platform with significantly less system resources.
Variphy Data Types Requiring Storage/Memory
CDR Records : For each on-net (internal extension to extension) and off-net/PSTN call, 1 CDR record will exist in the system (and 1 CMR record if Call Diagnostics is also enabled). Calls that are forwarded, transferred, diverted, or joined to a conference bridge will create additional call records. While these records can all be linked by the call’s Global Call ID number, single call flow can produce several CDR records, one for each leg of the call.
For a data retention policy (e.g. 1, 3, or 6 months), it’s important to calculate the total number of CDR records that will exist in the system, for all on-net and off-net/PSTN calls. For example, For a 3 month CDR data retention policy and a total of 150,000 calls (both on-net and off-net/PSTN) per month, the system must be capable of storing a minimum of 450,000 CDRs.
Another important consideration with CDR data storage is available system memory. With MySQL server, it is recommended that for every Gigabyte of data in your CDR database, a GB of system memory should be available to cache that data. So a 10GB database would ideally have 10GB of system memory available for caching so that fetch queries can be run quickly. When MySQL does not have enough available memory to cache the entire database, performance can slow down and greatly increase the time require to run reports.
Since every customer’s data footprint is different, what we usually recommend is that you retain 3 months of data initially when deploying Variphy. Once you have the full 3 months of data we can better estimate storage and memory requirements for longer retention periods of 1 year or longer.
Snapshot: Each historical CUCM, Unity Connection, UCCX, or Unity Cluster snapshot stored in the system. The actual size of each snapshot will vary, depending on the size of the Cluster, but they typically do not exceed 200MB.
For example, in an installation containing 1 CUCM, 1 Unity Connection, and 1 UCCX Cluster, if snapshots are scheduled to be generated daily (7 days/week) and 1 week of snapshots should be retained, then a total capacity of at least 21 snapshots will need to be stored.
Please Note: These “snapshots” are merely informational and are pulled from Cisco clusters as read-only data for reporting purposes only. They can not be used to restore or revert a Cisco cluster configuration, as with a VM snapshot.
Audit Log Files: Each CUCM, Unity Connection, or UCCX Audit Log file from Cisco’s Real Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT) can be stored on the Variphy Server for easier access and searching. These files can be downloaded from RTMT and imported into Variphy either “on demand” or on an FTP download schedule within RTMT. Once the logs are imported, they can be searched by keyword, user id, user IP address, or event type.
By default in CUCM/Unity Connection/UCCX, each Audit Log File is 2MB in size. The time period covered by each Audit Log File will largely depend on the number of administrative moves, adds, changes, and deletes in CUCM/Unity Connection. The more administrative events, the smaller time frame each Audit Log File will span.
Server Requirements
The following “System Profiles” represent common system configurations showing the recommended data capacities for Variphy Insight. Please note that these guidelines are estimates, as your precise data sizes and storage requirements will vary depending on the number and size of your clusters, devices, call volume, and which features of Variphy you are actively using.
Please note that while the recommended memory allocation for Variphy Insight is 16G, it should be able to run on a minimum of 8GB in Standard deployments. However, you should expect to upscale system resources should your call volume or data retention needs increase.
System Profile Type: Standard (CDR reporting and a local single-cluster database)
| Available System RAM | 16+ GB | ||
| Available Hard Disk Space | 100 GB | ||
| Variphy Data Type | Capacity | Est. Total Size | Est. RAM Use |
| Snapshots | 90 | 36 GB | – |
| CDR Records | 5,000,000 | 10 GB | 5.5 GB |
| Audit Log Files | 250 | 500 MB | – |
System Profile Type: Large (For larger CDR databases or more than 1 CUCM cluster)
| Available System RAM | 32+ GB | ||
| Available Hard Disk Space | 200 GB | ||
| Variphy Data Type | Capacity | Est. Total Size | Est. RAM Use |
| Snapshots | 90 | 36 GB | – |
| CDR Records | 10,000,000 | 20 GB | 12 GB |
| Audit Log Files | 250 | 500 MB | – |
System Profile Type: Extra-Large (For large multi-cluster environments)
| Available System RAM | 64+ GB | ||
| Available Hard Disk Space | 500 GB | ||
| Variphy Data Type | Capacity | Est. Total Size | Est. RAM Use |
| Snapshots | 250 | 100 GB | – |
| CDR Records | 40,000,000 | 100 GB | 50 GB |
| Audit Log Files | 500 | 1GB | – |
Network Port Requirements
Installation Packages
All of our current software builds can be downloaded from http://variphy.com/support/download. There are currently installation/upgrade packages for all of the supported OS platforms, as well as a complete Linux OVA appliance using Ubuntu server that can be deployed in your VSphere environment.
If you are planning on deploying Variphy Insight on Linux, use of our OVA is highly recommended, as it is already optimized for use with Variphy, and requires significantly less deployment configuration than a manual install. If you have special requirements which dictate that you use your own Linux server build, please consult with our support team prior to attempting installation.
A current registration with our website is required in order to access the downloads section. If you don’t yet have an account, you can either register one at https://www.variphy.com/support/register. This will require a customer account number, which your account manager or support team can provide.
If you have additional questions or would like assistance with the installation, please submit a request to support@variphy.com. Please note that our normal support hours are Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time, excluding US holidays. After hours support may be arranged with advanced notice.
