asterisk users - Aug 2003 - To Switch or not to Switch... that is the question....

Hi,

when using multiple * boxes, there appear to be 2 choices as to how to go about
sharing cards and dialplans

1) using switch

2) using dial fail fall-through ie

exten => 1,1, dial(xyz)
exten => 1,2, dial(otherpbx/xyz)

As i see it switch could end up being recurrsive resulting in a wild ooc pbx ..
anyone got any opinions ?

Andy

>Hi,
>
>when using multiple * boxes, there appear to be 2 choices as to how 
>to go about sharing cards and dialplans
>
>1) using switch
>
>2) using dial fail fall-through ie
>
>exten => 1,1, dial(xyz)
>exten => 1,2, dial(otherpbx/xyz)
>
>As i see it switch could end up being recurrsive resulting in a wild 
>ooc pbx .. anyone got any opinions ?
>
>Andy
Well, using dial fail-over is also unpredictable.  If you get an 
out-of-service message on the PRI, you'll simply dial the same number 
twice.  If you are using an X100P, and the line has no dial tone, 
you'll dial twice.  Is there is a ring-no-answer, you'll dial twice. 
This is due to the total lack of information out of Dial as far as 
error messages (other than "0", "1", or "busy")
and at some point
needs to be handled at some point more gracefully to make Asterisk 
more useful in complex dialing plans.

IMO: Use "switch" for now, and triple-check your configs to prevent
loops.

JT