Deciding on a deployment environment

Pexip Infinity supports a wide range of network scenarios, from small, local, private deployments to large, global, cloud-based implementations. How many Conferencing Nodes you deploy, where they are located, and the hypervisors you use will depend on the makeup and requirements of your individual organization.

While your Pexip authorized support representative is the best person to advise you on the most appropriate deployment environment, below are some of the factors to consider.

On-prem or cloud?

On-premise deployments use your own network, hardware and hypervisors. You will need to source appropriate servers to host the Management Node and Conferencing Nodes (for more information see Server design recommendations. You will also need to consider whether the majority of users are connecting from within your private network or whether you will have users connecting externally, and therefore whether your Conferencing Nodes need to be publicly accessible. If you already have a mature IT network with datacenters in appropriate locations, this may be a suitable option.

Cloud deployments use Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure to host some or all of the Conferencing Nodes. This option does not require initial investment in hardware, but you will instead pay for usage.

You can also deploy Pexip Infinity using a combination of on-prem and cloud, with the Management Node and some Conferencing Nodes deployed within your own network, and other Conferencing Nodes deployed using a cloud service, for increased flexibility. You can even set up Dynamic bursting to the AWS cloud to give you temporary increases in capacity.

For more details on the on-prem and cloud options, see Network deployment options.

Hypervisor

For on-prem deployments, you will need to install a hypervisor on your servers before you can deploy the Management Node and Conferencing Nodes.

Pexip Infinity currently supports four hypervisors:

• VMware is an independent product with a range of features, dependent on the licensing options you chose.
• Microsoft Hyper-V is included with Windows Server and also offers a range of features.
• KVM and Xen are open-source options that are not as feature-rich.

For more information, see Supported hypervisors.

Number and location of Conferencing Nodes

The capacity of your Pexip Infinity deployment, in terms of how many calls can be handled at any one time, is largely determined by the number of Conferencing Nodes you deploy. To optimize the conferencing experience, we recommend that, where possible, you locate Conferencing Nodes close to each of your main user bases. For example, if the majority of your users are located in three main offices then you should consider concentrating the majority of your Conferencing Nodes among those locations. If however the majority of your users are spread across multiple geographic locations, if possible you should deploy Conferencing Nodes evenly among your datacenters.

For more information, see Capacity planning.