asterisk users - Sep 2003 - Installation Configuration Questions

I am new to Asterisk (and phone systems for that matter) and was looking for
guidance.

My company is looking at installing a new phone system/PBX in our new
location and I am trying to convince them to go with the Asterisk PBX.  I
see on http://www.asterisk.org/index.php?menu=features
<http://www.asterisk.org/index.php?menu=features>  what features are
available but my biggest problem right now is trying to size the system,
decide what type of redundancy I should build in and what type of bandwidth
will be required, so I can estimate system costs.  I have a need for a 100
user system. 

Does anyone have a standard equation to design a system by?  Or rough
estimate?

Thanks in advance for any assistance or direction.

Dana
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20030916/10649592/attachment.htm

First off. NO HTML EMAIL!!!!!

Now to your questions.

On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 14:33, Dana Rawson wrote:
> I am new to Asterisk (and phone systems for that matter) and was
> looking for guidance.
> 
> My company is looking at installing a new phone system/PBX in our new
> location and I am trying to convince them to go with the Asterisk
> PBX.  I see on http://www.asterisk.org/index.php?menu=features what
> features are available but my biggest problem right now is trying to
> size the system, decide what type of redundancy I should build in and
> what type of bandwidth will be required, so I can estimate system
> costs.  I have a need for a 100 user system. 
> 
> Does anyone have a standard equation to design a system by?  Or rough
> estimate?
Well we can start by dealing with your users. You can go with analog
phones. On the analog side anything over a SMALL handful need to slide
up to T1 + channel banks. T1 is 24 channels, and therefore you need to
get 5 of these to cover your needs. 5 will get you to 120 users. 5 ports
of T1 will run you a minimum of $2,000 (TE410P + T100P) + 5 channel
banks whose price range depends on sourcing of the units and timing. On
Ebay, you can occasionally find good channel banks for $200-300 if your
timing is right, otherwise they run around $800 or so. New they are a
bit more pricey.

If you went SIP, It has been mentioned here recently that you could get
Grandstream Budgetone phones for $70 each and possibly some wiggle room
for a bulk order. So 100 users would be $7,000 and a big bad ethernet
card a a couple of good switches.

Now for your inbound lines. You will need to know what your trunk usage
is. Is your company phone intensive? Do you know how many lines you
currently have? I'd bet you have probably 2 T1s or so already. So plan
on at least a TE410P for incoming lines. Or maybe 2 T100Ps so you can
split your load across 2 machines.

For redundancy you can make 2 decent machines receive calls and a third
machine do all the routing to SIP phones. This should alleviate the load
on any single machine trying to do too much on both the T1 port and the
ethernet port. Not to mention, you may have the telco forward calls from
one trunk to the other in case of failure. So you could feasibly take
one gateway machine down at a time and still process calls.

There is still a lot to think about, and this will just scratch the
surface for you. If you need much more than this and are in a hurry to
get there, there are consultants on this list that would be more than
happy to help you out. 

BTW, I'm not a consultant.
-- 
Steven Critchfield  <critch@basesys.com>

Steven,

Thanks for the response. 
> First off. NO HTML EMAIL!!!!!
Sorry.  Thought Rich text was acceptable.
> Well we can start by dealing with your users. You can go with analog
phones. On the analog side anything over a SMALL 
> handful need to slide up to T1 + channel banks. T1 is 24 channels, and
therefore you need to get 5 of these to cover 
> your needs. 5 will get you to 120 users. 5 ports of T1 will run you a
minimum of $2,000 (TE410P + T100P) + 5 channel
> banks whose price range depends on sourcing of the units and timing. On
Ebay, you can occasionally find good channel 
> banks for $200-300 if your timing is right, otherwise they run around $800
or so. New they are a bit more pricey.

This may be a stupid question, but are you speaking of the internal network
here?  Also, what if I was going digital?  I'm looking to go with IP phones.
Hoping to go with SIP.
> If you went SIP, It has been mentioned here recently that you could get
Grandstream Budgetone phones for $70 each and 
> possibly some wiggle room for a bulk order. So 100 users would be $7,000
and a big bad ethernet card a a couple of good 
> switches.
SIP is what we would be refering to as the 'digital' option, yes?
Thinking
about Snom as these appeared to be decent phones.  I've been looking for
phones, are the Grandstream phones of decent quality?  Was also planning on
power over ethernet.
> Now for your inbound lines. You will need to know what your trunk usage
is. Is your company phone intensive? Do you know 
> how many lines you currently have? I'd bet you have probably 2 T1s or
so
already. So plan on at least a TE410P for 
> incoming lines. Or maybe 2 T100Ps so you can split your load across 2
machines.

For my inbound line I will be going with 2 ISDN PRI simply based on volume.
> For redundancy you can make 2 decent machines receive calls and a third
machine do all the routing to SIP phones. This 
> should alleviate the load on any single machine trying to do too much on
both the T1 port and the ethernet port. Not to 
> mention, you may have the telco forward calls from one trunk to the other
in case of failure. So you could feasibly take 
> one gateway machine down at a time and still process calls.
Are we talking 'server' class machines?  Would I need a separate machine
for
voice mail?
> There is still a lot to think about, and this will just scratch the
surface for you. If you need much more than this and 
> are in a hurry to get there, there are consultants on this list that would
be more than happy to help you out. 

The more I read the more it makes sense.  However, I do need this fully
functional by 01Dec03 so I may be in need of consultants if what you say is
applicable.  Are there any books available that would cover this (linux PBX
installation) and that you would recommend reading?

Thanks, again!!