asterisk users - Nov 2003 - Anyone using * in a live production environment?

Hullo again, all :)

If you're using * to run telephony in a real business environment, can I
trouble you to write a short paragraph about the setup, and how you've
found the migration / daily use?

I'm simply trying to add weight to the business case for new * installs,
especially for those who have a very conservative management structure.

Like I say, I'm not looking for a case study, just a few lines to try
and get a grip on the number of real installations.

Thank you :)

Gavin.

Gavin Hamill wrote:
>Hullo again, all :)
>
>If you're using * to run telephony in a real business environment, can I
>trouble you to write a short paragraph about the setup, and how you've
>found the migration / daily use?
>
>I'm simply trying to add weight to the business case for new * installs,
>especially for those who have a very conservative management structure.
>
>Like I say, I'm not looking for a case study, just a few lines to try
>and get a grip on the number of real installations.
>
>Thank you :)
>
>Gavin.
>
>  
>
Hi Gavin,

If its possible could I get a copy of the business case??

Thanks..

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Gavin Hamill <gdh@acentral.co.uk>
>Hullo again, all :)
>
>If you're using * to run telephony in a real business environment, can I
>trouble you to write a short paragraph about the setup, and how you've
>found the migration / daily use?
>
>Thank you :)
>
>Gavin.
>
Ok here is a short paragraph on our use of Asterisk in the real world.

1 inbound PRI ISDN 23/24 channel - Local phone service with 60 DID numbers. 1
Long Distance T1 line for inbound 800 numbers and all outbound long distance
calls.
running on P4 1.7G 512mg 20 gig HDD with 2 T400P boards. Ethernet on MB Intel
845G board.
Hardware:
4 Adtran 750 with 24 FXS channels each.
1 Adtran 600 with 4 FX0 and 12 FXS ports.
1 ZetaFax server with US robotics modem.
1 HP Fax as backup
4 Inbound RAS lines for users
2 outbound RAS modems for dial out support lines.
40 452 phones (Really bad choice for phones)
10 390 phones (Again better then 452 but still bad phones)
Cisco ATA 186 (nice works great)
Cisco 7960 (Nice phone but worst phone to setup and maintain)
4 SIP phones X-Ten Lite with Telex USB connection to PC (Works great)

Overall system is working with Support queues(AGI login user accounts) and
meeting rooms.  Voicemail system is not very good need some way to configure the
boxes. They really need to redo this application for more standard settings. We
have MOH working without any problems.   Major down is no Graphical interface. 
No actual working manager. Got to get them to fix the Zombie lines. (I feel
it's mainly do to our 390 and 452 phones.

It works needs some fine tuning but it works.  I have nothing good to say about
the Aastra phones 390 or the 452.  They are not really good for heavy use like
we need!  The Cisco 7960 is nice to look at but in the real world it's hard
to get working and setup. If you don't know about Linux or are able to use
scripts it's a real mess to keep up! This is where it's being held back
as a real world player!

This is the basic setup. Next step is outside offices connection.

On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 03:48, Gavin Hamill wrote:
> Hullo again, all :)
> 
> If you're using * to run telephony in a real business environment, can
I
> trouble you to write a short paragraph about the setup, and how you've
> found the migration / daily use?
> 
> I'm simply trying to add weight to the business case for new *
installs,
> especially for those who have a very conservative management structure.
> 
> Like I say, I'm not looking for a case study, just a few lines to try
> and get a grip on the number of real installations.

I'm not trying to flame you for this message, but this is something that
is asked about quite often and doesn't exactly prove anything. Just
because I successfully pulled off an installation doesn't mean you will
be successful. There is obviously working systems out here otherwise
there wouldn't be this much traffic on this list.

Maybe what needs to happen to keep this question from coming up over and
over again would be to get this on the wiki. Someone want to create the
page and then post the link to that specific page to be filled in?
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch@basesys.com>

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Ken Godee <ken@perfect-image.com>
>Ariel Batista wrote:
>> Ok here is a short paragraph on our use of Asterisk in the real world.
>> 
> _______________________________________________
>
>What kind of resources are being consumed on the server?
>CPU,MEM,DISK,etc....
I am not a Linux person (Trying to learn) so I am not able to check this out!
But I do have over 12 gig of disk space still available.  If you have some
program or setting I can run on the server to give me this info I would love to
see it!

Ariel Batista wrote:
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> From: Ken Godee <ken@perfect-image.com>
> 
>>Ariel Batista wrote:
>>
>>>Ok here is a short paragraph on our use of Asterisk in the real
world.
>>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>
>>What kind of resources are being consumed on the server?
>>CPU,MEM,DISK,etc....
> 
> 
> I am not a Linux person (Trying to learn) so I am not able to check this
out! But I do have over 12 gig of disk space still available.  If you have some
program or setting I can run on the server to give me this info I would love to
see it!
> _______________________________________________
Quick and dirty from console prompt you can use "top"
 From a desktop you can try ie.. "xosview"
Or install something like "gkrellm"
http://www.gkrellm.net

Gavin Hamill wrote:
>Hullo again, all :)
>
>If you're using * to run telephony in a real business environment, can I
>trouble you to write a short paragraph about the setup, and how you've
>found the migration / daily use?
>  
>
Well, it's not technically a business, but we are running "*" for
our
research lab with the following hardware:

    4 analog POTS lines
    ADTRAN TSU-600
    FXO and FXS Plugins
    20 GS budgetone 100, 2 Analog phones
    Asus A7V, 900MHz Athalon, 256 MB Ram, 60GB hard disk
    100BaseT Ethernet environment using BayStack 450 switches
    Digium T100P
    RH9
    APC Smart-Ups 700

Notes: The choice of the channel bank was based on the possibility of 
future expansion for handling several other labs (and the fact that I 
got is and 6-V.35 cards, which I', not using) for $99 on e-bay). The 
installed infrastructure for the phone system at our University dictated 
our choice of POTS lines. We were also not given any choice about the 
Baystack switches . The Budgetone phones are probably not the ideal 
solution for a larger installation (yet), but met our needs perfectly, 
perform very well and are easy to set up and install.  The analog phones 
are to provide emergency service during power failures.  The UPS is 
sized small because we have emergency power failover after about 30 
seconds. The CPU and MOBO choices were based on experience with the 
products. A word of warning: Echo WILL be a potential problem on any 
system that has a transition point from POTS 2-wire lines to a  TDM 
environment (see my previous posting).  Here are some suggestions about 
dealing with it:

    1) Use the highest possible CPU speed.
             Why: The single greatest problem with software echo 
cancellation is the computational intensity of the autocorrelation 
needed to determine the amount of echo at each discrete delay time.  If 
the CPU is slow, the canceller will not be able to keep up with the real 
time nature of the computations.

    2) Enable MMX options (assuming that you have a CPU which supports it).
             Why: Same as in item 1.  In my case, this provided the 
single greatest improvement.

    3) Lower the number of taps in the echo canceller.
             Why: While this may seem counter intuitive, since the 
number of taps determines the amount of delay the canceller can deal 
with, most of the time the delay you hear is much longer than the delay 
seen by the echo canceller.  Decreasing the number of taps reduces the 
size of the autocorrelation and reduces the comptational load.  This 
allows the canceller to learn faster and keep up more easily.

    4) Turn off the KDE, etc.
        Why:  Saves computation cycles for the echo cancellation.  This 
is no joke, you can get on the phone, start up the desktop and hear the 
echo return.

    5) Attempt to balance the hybrid at the 2-line to 4 line interface.
            Why:  99% of the time, this is where the echo originates and 
this is where is should be fixed.  Unfortunately, this is not for the 
faint of heart, but if your line card has a hybrid balance adjustment 
(many don't), use it.  Also, with multiple simultaneous calls, this may 
be the only real solution.  Part of the problem arises from the use of 
lower impedance telephone wiring nowdays. The typical characteristic 
impedance of Cat5 twisted pair is about 100 ohms and many line cards are 
optimized for a 600 ohm line. This is made worse if the DC resistance of 
the wiring to the CO switch is relatively low.  I haven't tried this 
myself, but you might try something as simple as a 500 ohm variable 
resistor in series with the ring line and adjust for minimum echo.  If 
it gets worse, you haven't lost anything, just take the resistor out of 
the line. If it works, measure the value of the resistor when set for 
minimum echo and replace it with a fixed value resistor.

    6) Try messing with Tx and Rx gains.
          Why: This is a reincarnation of the technique used to cancel 
echo on long lines in the early part of the 20th century. The idea is 
that the perception of echo gets worse as echo volume increases and as 
delay increases.  You can sometimes reduce echo to an "acceptable"
level
if you attenuate it enough, especially if the echo canceller takes care 
of part of it.  The problem is that you will likely run into 
unacceptably low volume levels.  That's why this technique was abandoned 
by the PSTN: You've all seen the movies of people in the 1920's yelling 
into phones on long distance calls!

Finally, while I had to do some head scratching and a lot of reading to 
get the system set up, I would have to say that the installation went 
without any major problems.  Once configured, it runs flawlessly and 
requires very little maintainence.

Steve Besch

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Ken Godee <ken@perfect-image.com>
>Ariel Batista wrote:
>
>>>
>>>What kind of resources are being consumed on the server?
>>>CPU,MEM,DISK,etc....
>> 
>Quick and dirty from console prompt you can use "top"
> From a desktop you can try ie.. "xosview"
>Or install something like "gkrellm"
>http://www.gkrellm.net
Thank you just ran the Top.  I have 5.4 % CPU, System is 4.2 % Memory use is
234045 with 254690 free!  Swap file says 0 used. Which means I have too much
power for it!  P4 1.7Gig with 512M RAM and over 12gig free still on a 20 gig
HDD.

On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 15:29, Olle E. Johansson wrote:
> Thank you, Steven!
> 
> http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=Asterisk+setup+success+1
> 
> > 	ADIT 600
> What is that?
Channel bank from Carrier Access.
> 
> > 	Zhone Zplex 10b
> And that?
Channel Bank from Zhone.


-- 
Steven Critchfield  <critch@basesys.com>