Vicente Aguilar
2006-Aug-11 02:53 UTC
[asterisk-users] High Availability with PRI failover
Hi After a month or so using Asterisk we've had or first downtime period due to a faulty RAM chip on the server, so we're starting to think about the possible high-availability solutions. We still haven't gone completely VoIP: we're using Asterisk in conjunction with our old PBX and analog handsets, placing calls via a PRI. No outgoing SIP calls yet and just a copule of VoIP local terminals for testing, Asterisk is currently handling the advanced services like call center queues, conference rooms, voicemail, time-based call forwardings and the like. Our current setup looks like this, using a TE210P (2xPRI) card on the server: Telco <--PRI--> Asterisk <--PRI--> Legacy PBX In the event of another server failure, we don't see the real problem as having several servers and doing failover between them (been there, done that), but physically (and automatically!) plugging both PRIs to the active server. As far as I can tell, we've got two options: 1) Use some kind of physical layer switch on the E1 lines, like the Jughanns ISDNguard or any of the other products referenced on the voip-wiki, like this: +--> Asterisk 1 <--+ Telco <-PRI-> SWITCH SWITCH <-PRI-> PBX +--> Asterisk 2 <--+ We would need to boy the switch(es?), and one TE210P per Asterisk server. And this option would only handle an active/passive server scenario, if we needed to scale up in capacity these switches wouldn't fit on a load-balancing setup, am I wrong? 2) Use a Redfone's foneBRIDGE and heartbeat/ultramonkey/whatever to manage the automatic failover between the different Asterisk servers, like in: Telco <--PRI-+ +-> Asterisk 1 foneBRIDGE <-- TCP/IP --> Asterisk 2 Legacy PBX <--PRI-+ +-> Asterisk n I prefer this option, conceptually it looks simpler and the total price wouldn't increase if we need more servers. Besides, the price of one foneBRIDGE is similar to that of one ISDNguard plus two TE210P, so the cost of the simplest case (2 Asterisk servers) is almost the same for both options. Anybody has first-hand experience with any (or both) of these options? Are there any other possibilites that I'm missing? Some other foneBRIDGE-like product I still haven't heard of? Thanks in advance -- Vicente Aguilar <vjaguilar@renr.es> Departamento de Sistemas Tlf.: 965 98 71 92 Recursos en la Red, S.L.U. http://www.renr.es
Senad Jordanovic
2006-Aug-11 03:05 UTC
[asterisk-users] High Availability with PRI failover
asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com wrote:> Hi > > After a month or so using Asterisk we've had or first downtime period > due to a faulty RAM chip on the server, so we're starting to think > about the possible high-availability solutions.Hi If you can afford it, below will give you total fault tolerant solution. http://www.bicomsystems.com/products/C/P/319/255_2797/ Senad www.bicomsystems.com
Jean-Michel Hiver
2006-Aug-14 02:50 UTC
[asterisk-users] High Availability with PRI failover
>Anybody has first-hand experience with any (or both) of these options? >Are there any other possibilites that I'm missing? Some other >foneBRIDGE-like product I still haven't heard of? > >Thanks in advance > >Another option would be to get a "carrier grade" VoIP <-> PRI gateway. I have an Audiocodes 4 E1s (extensible to 8 E1s) working here, and it'll use whatever channels are up so if I have a red alarm on one of the T2s it's not a big deal. Features power redundancy and network redundancy as well, which is nice. Built in codec translation and adequate echo cancellation is a plus. It also means you can add more servers without adding PRI cards (since you communicate with the gateway using SIP). Of course this doesn't protect you from the gateway going down, but usually these things are fairly robust, solid state devices... they're a little bit expensive, but in my experience worth every penny. Cheers, Jean-Michel.