Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview
Release 1.1
November 2009
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4 Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009
Contents
Chapter 1: System Platform overview....................................................................................7
Index.........................................................................................................................................11
Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009 5
Contents
6 Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009
Chapter 1: System Platform overview
Avaya Aura™ System Platform technology delivers simplified deployment of Unified
Communications and Contact Center applications. This framework leverages virtualization
technology, pre-defined templates, common installation, licensing, and support infrastructure.
System Platform is a new technology that enables simplified deployment of Avaya's products
and solutions. Avaya Aura™ System Platform is not a product. It provides a common framework
that leverages virtualization technology and common installation, licensing and support
infrastructure to deliver and deploy Avaya's applications effectively.
The advantages of System Platform include:
• Ability to install pre-defined templates of one or more Avaya software applications on a
server in a virtualized environment
• Simplified and faster installation of software applications and solutions
• Simplified licensing of applications and solutions
• Management console with common Avaya look and feel
• Remote access and alarming for Avaya Services and BusinessPartners
• High Availability (HA) option for failover using active / standby server
• Coordinated backup and restore
• Coordinated software upgrades
System Platform is engineered by Avaya to enable real-time communications solutions to
perform effectively in a virtualized environment. System Platform effectively manages the
allocation and sharing of server hardware resources, including the CPU, memory, disk storage,
and network interfaces. In order to continue delivering the high reliability of real-time
communications that Avaya's customers expect, System Platform is being delivered solely
through an appliance model, which includes an Avaya Server, System Platform, and the Avaya
software applications.
Easy Installation
Using solution templates on System Platform significantly reduces the installation time. During
the installation, the installer program installs the predefined solution template, which takes
considerably less time then installing the applications individually. The installation process is
very simple and does not require skilled staff. It is also possible to remotely install System
Platform. System Platform makes remote installation possible using product-specific
templates.
Solution Templates
A solution template is a set of one or more applications to be installed on System Platform.
Installers must download these templates using Product Licensing and Delivery System
(PLDS) (http://plds.avaya.com) before installing the template software. PLDS allows Avaya
customers, Business Partners, and associates to manage software licensing and to download
Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009 7
System Platform overview
software for various Avaya products. You can verify and re-configure the template parameters,
including network and server details. You can also re-configure the template-specific
parameters using the System Platform pre-installation Web page. An installation wizard is
embedded within the template that enables you to either upload an existing Electronic Pre-
installation Worksheet (EPW) or, if you do not already have a valid EPW file, it enables you to
create one during the installation of the template.
Note:
You must install System Platform before installing the solution template software on a single
server.
Remote Serviceability
System Platform can be serviced remotely, eliminating the need for a service technician to visit
your site (the customr's site).
System Platform utilizes Secure Access Link (SAL), which is Avaya’s serviceability solution for
support and remote management. SAL provides remote access and alarm reception
capabilities for Avaya and participating Business Partners.
SAL uses your existing Internet connectivity to facilitate remote support. All communication is
outbound from your environment using encapsulated Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
(HTTPS) over port 443. SAL requires upload bandwidth (customer to Avaya/Partner) of at least
90 KB/s (720 KB/s) with latency no greater than 150 ms (round trip).
Business Partners without a SAL Concentrator must provide their own IP-based connectivity
(for example, B2B VPN connection) to deliver remote services.
Important:
Business Partners and customers must ensure that SAL is always configured and registered
with Avaya during installation. Avaya support will be delayed or not possible if SAL is
improperly implemented or not operational. System Platform and SAL do not support
modem connections.
High Availability Failover
All the System Platform applications can have high availability through redundant hardware
and software setup. The secondary node is constantly updated with any configuration changes.
In the event of a failure of the primary server the secondary server restores all functionality to
the system in a matter of minutes. See System Platform High Availability Failover Overview
section in Installing and Configuring Avaya Aura™ System Platform.
Note:
This feature is available only for the solution templates supporting this feature.
Virtual Machines
System Platform includes a base, which is the host, operating system, and a virtual machine
(cdom) that is used to manage the platform. A particular product or solution then provides a
8 Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009
template (pre-built and installed set of virtual appliances) which can be installed on top of the
platform. After template installation, the system looks similar to the diagram:
System Domain (Dom-0)
In addition to exporting virtualized instances of CPU, memory, network and block devices, the
system exposes a control interface to manage how these resources are shared between the
running domains. Access to the control interface is restricted to one specially-privileged virtual
machine, known as domain 0 or System Domain.
Console Domain
Console Domain (also called cdom) is a virtual machine, which is a part of System Platform
and has many platform elements, including the System Platform management console.
The Console Domain is capable of deploying and running the following plugins:
• Virtual Appliance (VA) plugins, which interact with virtual appliances for operations
such as backing up and restoring data, providing sanity hearbeats, and getting version
information
• Pre-installation plugins, which accepts user configurable parameters at the time of
installation
• Post-installation plugins
• Backup plugin
• Restore plugin
• Patch plugins, which install or install patches in the system
Networking in System Platform
System Platform uses software bridging to support networking for virtual machines. Software
bridging works like a network switch inside the system. During installation, System Platform
creates two software bridges, namely, avpublic and avprivate.
The avpublic bridge is connected to a physical interface (eth 0) and is intended to be the default
connection to your LAN. Most virtual machines have a virtual interface on the avpublic bridge –
this is how the virtual machine connects to your network. So virtual machines on avpublic are IP
contactable through eth0, so that when eth0 is connected to your network, all of the machines
on that software bridge are pingable.
The avprivate bridge is not connected to any physical interface and is intended for
communication among the virtual machines in a single server. The IP addresses used on
avprivate are not contactable from your network.
Some templates require additional connections to your network. In some cases, this results in
System Platform creating another software bridge. This bridge contains the name specified by
Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009 9
System Platform overview
the template, and this name is displayed during template installation or in the Network
Configuration page.
If a virtual machine has high or real time traffic requirements it can be assigned a dedicated
NIC in the template file. This means the virtual machine is assigned another physical NIC on
the system (for example, Avaya Aura™ Media Services uses eth3) and does not use avpublic.
See the respective template documentation for more information.
For using a dedicated NIC, you must have a separate cable connection to your network. Also
make sure that both Ethernet interface (eth0) and the dedicated NIC are connected to the
network before those machines can communicate through an IP in the same way that they
would do when dealing with separate physical machines. For example, in Midsize Business
Template, Console Domain is on the avpublic bridge and Media Services has a dedicated NIC
(eth 3). So you must connect eth0 and eth3 to the network before pinging the Media Services
virtual machine from the Console Domain.
10 Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009
Index
L
legal notices .................................................................2 S
N System Platform
notices, legal ................................................................2 overview .................................................................7
O
overview
System Platform ....................................................7
Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009 11
Index
12 Avaya Aura™ System Platform Overview November 2009
