First Launch and Setup Guide

EC2 HARDWARE TYPES

For most environments where you simply want to take advantage of the normal suite of FreePBX services (calling, voicemail, fax, conferences, etc), the General Purpose Instance types (T3, T3a, M6, M6a) will provide the best combination of performance and value. If you are using a minimum amount of “intensive” services like conference rooms and queues, the T3 or T3a types will suffice. If you are planning to host a lot of extensions, conference rooms, 3rd party software (see below), etc., you will want to take advantage of the more dedicated performance of “M-Types” (M6, M6a, M7i, M7a, M8i, M8a).

If you plan to use “extra” software on or alongside your AWS FreePBX instance, such as iSymphony or Queue Metrics, you need to be aware that each of these platforms have their own hardware requirements. For example, iSymphony is a PHP-heavy Java application that requires significantly more CPU and RAM resources in addition to what Asterisk and FreePBX need. iSymphony's RAM requirements can easily exceed 3 or 4GB on very large deployments and/or busy call centers. You may want to take advantage of the Compute Optimized “C-Types” (C7i, C7a, C8i, C8a), which provide extra CPU cores, or Memory Optimized “R-Types” (R7i, R7a, R8i, R8a), which provide extra RAM, depending on the software you are deploying alongside AWS FreePBX.

Here are some other special use cases where you will keep other considerations in mind:

1. If you are planning to run an Advanced Recovery or Warm Spare Cluster, DO NOT USE A “T-Type” INSTANCE! Clusters have higher consistent CPU loads than the T-types can provide due to their burst-based nature. You must use M-Type, C-Type, or R-Type instances for your Cluster nodes
2. Voice Recognition and Text to Speech heavy deployments will likely benefit best from the Compute Optimized C-Type instances
3. Call Centers with Outbound Dialers or a large number of Inbound Call Queues will likely benefit from the Memory Optimized R-Type instances

EC2 HARDWARE SIZES

This is the more difficult aspect to predict ahead of a deployment, as there are many factors that ultimately determine the size of instance (CPUs/RAM) you choose. You should also note that Compute Optimized C-Types and Memory Optimized R-Types have unbalanced hardware specs when compared to General Purpose T- or M-Types. Of course, once your server is in production, it is important to periodically check the resource usage on your FreePBX instance during times of PEAK CALL VOLUME to ensure you are using the correct size for your needs. An instance sized too small will lead to instability, audio issues, dropped calls, and even server crashes. An instance sized too large will waste money.

Assuming you don't have a super large deployment with your current phone solution, feel free to start with the M6a.large or M6a.xlarge instance type to get started. Once you have placed your instance in production, you'll want to monitor your resources during periods of peak call activity and adjust your instance size accordingly. Here are several ways to monitor your resources:

1. Check out the AWS Compute Optimizer, which will advise you as to whether you have over- or under-provisioned your AWS instances based on the most recent 14 days of resource usage. More information on the AWS Compute Optimizer can be found here
2. Connect to your instance via SSH and run 'htop' for a live view of CPU/RAM resources and running processes
   1. Alternatively view CPU usage on the FreePBX Dashboard Statistics widget CPU section and compare the 5 minute load average to the number of CPUs available to your instance (determined by instance size). For example, if your running on a T3.Small instance with 2vCPUs and consistently see your 5 minute load average rise above 2.0, then you are running your ALL of your CPU cores at 100% and will likely run into issues if you don't increase your instance size to one with more CPU cores
   2. Alternatively view RAM usage on the FreePBX Dashboard Statistics widget Memory section. If you are seeing greater than 70% of your RAM “In Use” during peak times, you could run into issues. This is especially true if using iSymphony​​
3. If using a T3|T3a Type, you will also want to view your CPU Credit Balance via the EC2 Console (select the Instance, choose the Monitoring tab below). If you are seeing your CPU Credit Balance reaching 0 during peak times, this means your CPU is bursting too much and is either being THROTTLED or you are being CHARGED EXTRA (if Unlimited mode is on). It is recommended that you increase to a larger T3|T3a size or switch to the M5|M5a Type in these cases

If you have any doubts as to the best Instance Type and Size for your needs, we're here to help! Submit a Ticket and we'll gladly discuss your needs to come up with a tailored recommendation for your company. For more information regarding resizing instance types on AWS EC2, please click here.

STORAGE RECOMMENDATIONS

Our AMIs launch with a default storage configuration as follows:

The default size for each Volume is 50GiB, but you are welcome to expand either volume at launch or at any time after (requires a full instance power off/on). If you are planning to record all calls or are launching a very large deployment, you will want to expand at least the Spool volume to something larger, based on your anticipated call volume.

We do NOT recommend changing from the default General Purpose EBS Storage options.

CREATING A NEW CONTRACT

Once you have decided on an appropriate instance type, click the Launch an Instance link below (opens in a new tab/window) to open our AWS Marketplace Page. Then click Continue to proceed:

Once on our Product page, choose the Try for Free button.

If this is the first time you are trying our product, you will be offered a 30-day trial with no Software charges (hardware/storage charges still apply). If you've used our product before, you will not be offered the 30-day trial and will be charged for each instance from launch unless you already have an Annual Contract to cover it.

CONTRACT TYPES

In either scenario, you must also choose how you wish to pay for your Software. We offer two options:

You can either leave the default Usage Based Hourly option selected or manually select the Usage Based with Annual Contract option. If you select the Annual Contract option, you must scroll down and select the Type.Size and Quantity of contracts you wish to purchase. For example, if you are launching a Warm Spare or Advanced Recovery deployment with 2 Instances, you'd select a single Type.Size with a Quantity of 2

In either case, when finished making your selections, scroll to the bottom to see a full summary of your Contract, which will show any up-front costs for Annual agreements you may have selected.

Finally, click the Subscribe button to proceed to Launch.

You'll need to select Launch from EC2 Console and choose your desired Region, then click the final Launch from EC2 button.

These are already set for you as part of the initial Launch step, so you can leave this section alone.

This is where you will select your desired Type.Size for the instance, as discussed above.

You must select one of your existing Key Pairs or create a new one for your AWS FreePBX Instance. This allows you to connect to the instance via SSH to perform advanced configuration, maintenance, upgrades, and repairs/recovery.

We provide a default Security Group and AWS defaults to auto-launching in any Availability Zone in the Region you are launching in. However, you may want to change these if you already have an AWS FreePBX Security Group configured for your other instances that you wish to use here and/or if you are setting up Advanced Recovery or Warm Spare deployments and need to ensure that each instance is in a separate AZ.

If you are wanting to place the Instance in a specific Availability Zone, choose Edit at the upper-right corner of Network Settings, then you can access the Availability Zone drop-down:

Our default AMI provides two 50GiB Volumes: One for the Root Volume, where the OS and all of the software lives. One for Spool (mounted as /var/spool/), where Voicemail Greetings/Messages, Call Recordings, Faxes, etc. are stored. A Spool Volume can be safely transplanted between instances in a recovery situation.

If you are planning for a very large deployment with lots of Call Recordings being generated, you may want to expand the Spool Volume (shown as the second EBS Volume below) to larger than the default 50GiB.

There are a lot of settings here. The two we want to point out to you are the Stop Protection and the Termination Protection. They both have the same purpose: To prevent accidential Stopping or Termination of the Instance. We recommend that you set at least the Termination Protection option to Enabled. This provides you a little piece of mind that you are not going to accidentially destroy your deployment. If you need to Terminate the instance in the future, you can simply disable the Termination Protection before proceeding.

If you don't already have an Elastic IP allocated and available to be assigned to this new Instance, you'll need to Allocate one. AWS restricts NEW Accounts to only 5 Elastic IPs per Region. These limits are lifted over time. Also note that AWS currently only allocates IPv4 Addresses and you do not get to pick your IP unless you are using an advanced setups like BYOIP, IPAM, or AWS Outpost.

Choose the Allocate Elastic IP Address in the upper-right corner to obtain a new IP.

In the Elastic IP Addresses list, select your desired Elastic IP, then Actions > Associate Elastic IP Address. On the next page, select the Instance field and a searchable drop-down will appear. Select your new AWS FreePBX Instance from the list. Then you'll need to click the Private IP Address field and select the one and only entry that shows up. Finally, select the Allow this Elastic IP address to be reassociated checkbox before clicking the Associate button at the bottom-right of the page.