Deployment Options

Deployment overview

Wire allows you to choose from a variety of backend installations. For the turnkey deployment options, our current customers use Wire backend deployed on Wire infrastructure. But for compliance reasons, some customers can also choose Wire backend to be deployed on their cloud or private backend infrastructure. 

Sample backend architecture

Deployment scenarios

Customers use different ways of deployments. Wire supports the following combinations in various scenarios. 

If your organization has other needs, contact sales@wire.com.

Backend installation / deployment

The Wire backend can be deployed “into the cloud” (IaaS / SaaS), on-premise with World Wide Web connectivity, or in an offline environment. The installation of Wire in an offline environment creates a new “island” of Wire users specific to that individual installment. The offline approach offers advantages in terms of privacy and security. However, it creates complications in processes related to the installation, updating the Wire software, and applying patches and updates to the software components used to support Wire (for example, Kubernetes, Ubuntu/Debian, Docker, Cassandra, MinIO). 

Scaling users and conferencing capabilities

Wire supports cloud and on-premises installations of its backend. The sample architecture diagram above is designed to support a couple of thousand messaging (chat, IM) users (however, the setup may vary for organizations having different traffic patterns).
The guidelines below include scaling recommendations for supporting many conference call participants. Wire’s technical team can help you and your tech team with more information on your scaling needs. We can customize Wire’s backend system to meet your exact requirements.

Desktop and mobile apps distribution

Wire has publicly available mobile apps on both Google Play and Apple App Store. You can download the desktop applications directly from the website. These apps are configured to work with the Wire cloud infrastructure.

We can also help to reconfigure the apps to work with your private Wire infrastructure. Please contact us if you are interested.

However, if you have your own EMM/MDM, you can take control of your app distribution. You can set these settings in the team management console to disable or enable certain features as part of the distribution. For desktop and Android, Wire can also provide pre-compiled binaries that can be stored and downloaded from your servers. 

Upgrades and updates

Wire provides update packages for customers to get their on-premises instance of Wire up-to-date. Wire will package and deliver updates to the Wire backend as part of a once per 6-month refresh cycle. However, the cadence of critical bug and security vulnerability fixes is determined independently of the 6-month cycle, with the shortest supportable deployment cycle. 

Other deployment considerations

Calling ports for on-premises

For the highest reliability and quality Wire recommends allowing direct connectivity via UDP ports, but Wire also provides TURN servers to relay calls using UDP, TCP, or TLS. 
Find more information

Push notifications for on-premises

For all push notifications for custom clients on the custom Wire backend, you can choose from the following options:

• Option A: Proxy push notification through Wire AWS SNS architecture  
• Option B: Customer builds out their own AWS SNS architecture 
• Option C: No Push notifications; customer only uses WebSockets (supported by desktop apps and Android apps, but not iOS apps)

Conferencing bandwidth 

Wire recommends a minimum of 1GbE networking for conferencing servers. To better understand bandwidth requirements for your specific needs, read the following guidelines for estimation.

Single sign-on (SSO) and SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) 

Wire supports SSO and SCIM for easier user onboarding and adoption. For more details, read this documentation about SCIM, and this overview about SSO.

All guidelines in this document are looked at from a conferencing server point of view. For bandwidth requirements on the client-side, read about bandwith requirements. 

• 1 audio media stream is received per participant of a conference
• Up to 5 audio media streams are sent to every participant in calls with more than 5 participants. For conferences with fewer participants, up to n audio media streams are sent to every participant (n equals the number of participants).
• 1 video media stream is received per participant of a conference
• Up to 9 video media streams are sent to every participant of a conference of 9 or more participants. For a conference call with fewer participants, up to (n-1) video media streams are sent to every participant (n equals the number of participants).
• An audio media stream may use up to 50kbps
• A video media stream may use up to 350kbps
• The total bandwidth requirement depends on the number of concurrent conferences and the estimated number of participants per conference during peak times