Our UC Server is on one MAS 3.0 Server (VM) and our AWC is on a different MAS 3.0 Server (Mitel Physical Appliance - Dell Hardware).
The VM comes pre-configured with 4GB RAM. The Physical server comes with 8GB RAM. The UC Server VM gets heavier usage than the AWC.
My concern is that the Physical memory usage of the VM starts in the 80% range and creeps up over time to over 90% and the green graphic goes red. To see this on your web server manager, go to "System Information" on the left menu and then scroll down to the bottom of the screen.
With twice as much memory and little usage, the physical server memory usage is well under 50%.
As a licensed Mitel customer, I decided to take advantage of their email question queue - quickquestionusa@mitel.com and ask about this issue. My motivation for this is future based since MAS 4.0 is a virtual solution that includes AWC. So how will the memory requirements be on it!!?? Will the MAS 3.0 VM allow me to add RAM? It appears locked down.
I was disappointed by the reply which was this:
"I believe 4 gig is the max for a 32 bit OS. I don't think you will be able to add memory even if VMWare allowed it. Reboot server and check memory. If there is a sharp decrease and it increases back up it may be a memory leak that tech support would have to check into. If after reboot it continues to use this much memory it could be normal. As long as there is no problems with slow processes just ignore."
My reply was this:
"Thanks for the same day response. I’m afraid your response raises a question: Are you sure that MAS 3.0 is a 32 bit os with a 4 GB limit? I don’t think this is the case, because, as you can see below, the AWC is the same MS 3.0 OS running with 8GB of RAM!
The only difference is that one is physical and one is virtual, and I have virtual machines with more than 4GB of ram.
Not that I won’t give your suggestion a try, but I have to question the premise.
Thanks for taking a second look."
Mitel's response didn't address this issue, but instead looked at the total memory issue. Not sure if this will be readable:
"This is the answer I was provided by product support:
The MSL memory usage chart shows the following:
Memory Usage
Type Percent Capacity Free Used Size
Physical Memory 81.54%
92.16 MB 407.00 MB 499.16 MB
- Kernel + applications 6.09%
30.41 MB
- Buffers 17.01%
84.90 MB
- Cached 36.27%
181.03 MB
Disk Swap 0.47%
851.94 MB 4.05 MB 855.99 MB
-/+ buffers/cache 358.09 MB
You see the "Buffers" and "Cached" lines, which tell you about the amount of memory that the kernel is using for file system buffers, etc.
This sort of cached data will be freed by the kernel when an application tries to allocate more than what is "free", which is why the "-/+ buffers/cache" line is really the important line to pay attention to when you're checking out the free memory on a system.
So in this example, 358MB is how much memory is technically available for allocation should an application need it. The "buffers" (84.9MB) and "cached" (181.03MB) memory will be released by the kernel if they are needed. The total of 358 comes from the "Free" memory (92.16) + the Buffers (84.9) + the Cache (181.03)."
Anyone catch any of that? Me neither! But I think what he's saying (or passing on) is that physical memory is just one measurement. There's also diskswap and other factors.
So, I asked him to please double check the issue of the 4GB limit at which point he kind of threw up his hands and said that an engineer would be best suited to help me and who was my sales rep?
Sigh. I already know I won't get help there and I told him just kick the question to another engineer or a field engineer, but that getting my sales rep involved will do no good.
So, there's the technical issue of finding an answer to what should be a straightforward question. And there's the Mitel Service issue of getting a straight answer from tech support.
They always manage to make me feel like a difficult customer.
Thoughts on this?
