Cisco Cisco Customer Voice Portal 8.0(1) Design Guide

You may use the Application Content Engine (ACE) as an alternative to the Content Services Switch 
(CSS) for server load balancing and failover. As a load-balancing device, ACE determines which server 
in a set of load-balanced servers, should receive the client request for service. Load balancing helps 
fulfill the client request in the shortest amount of time without overloading either the server or the server 
farm as a whole. 

Refer to the Cisco ACE 4700 Series Appliance Server Load-Balancing Configuration Guide to learn 
more about load-balancing with ACE.

To migrate from CSS to ACE, use the ACE2CSS Converter tool. Refer to:

 

To configure Unified CVP for ACE. refer to the Configuration and Administration Guide for Cisco 
Unified Customer Voice Portal available at: 

You must have an ACE license to use ACE under load conditions. The minimum licensing requirements 
for ACE are:

1-Gbps throughput license (ACE-AP-01-LIC)

A non-default SSL feature license, if you intend to use ACE for SSL

Application Acceleration License (ACE-AP-OPT-LIC-K9) which allows more than 50 concurrent 
connections on ACE

Refer to the your ACE product documentation and ACE release notes for more licensing information.

There are two features for the VXML Server that assist with load balancing:

Limiting Load Balancer Involvement

Enhanced HTTP Probes for Load Balancers

Refer to the configuration options ip_redirect and license_depletion_probe_error in the User Guide for 
Unified CVP VXML Server and Cisco Unified Call Studio, available at: 

The media server component is a simple web server, such as Microsoft IIS or Apache, and is an optional 
component that can provide prerecorded audio files, external VoiceXML documents, or external ASR 
grammars to the gateway. Because some of these files can be stored in local flash memory on the 
gateways, the media server can be an optional component. However, in practice, most installations use 
a centralized media server to simplify distribution of prerecorded customer prompt updates. Media 
server functionality can also include a caching engine. The gateways themselves, however, can also do 
prompt caching when configured for caching. Typical media servers used are Microsoft IIS and Apache, 
both of which are HTTP-based.

As with ASR/TTS Servers, Media Servers may be deployed simplex, as a redundant pair, or with CSS 
in a farm. Note that the VoiceXML Gateway caches .wav files it retrieves from the Media Server. In most 
deployments, the Media Server encounters extremely low traffic from Unified CVP.