asterisk users - May 2005 - Connecting 20+ asterisk servers together

I have 20+ asterisk servers and need to network them together so a phone on
any of the servers can call a phone on any other server without any trouble.

I can think of IAX trunks between every server. So every server will have an
IAX trunk to every server and then prefix bases routing in the dialplan for
each server (I can give a number to each server and use that as a prefix for
that server). But I think this is a maintainance nightmare and also a very
bad approch does anyone have any better ideas, Also should the phones be able
to send rtp between each other or only through the Asterisk server since if
its through the asterisk server and say an IAX trunk then the max number of
calls can be controlled right. 

Can dundi or the switch statement help me get out of this mess ?


-- 
regards
Vikram (http://www.vicramresearch.com)

why not try using extensions from a database on all servers. That way 
regardkess of the * server, the destination phone is the same.

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+RealTime


Vikram Rangnekar wrote:
>I have 20+ asterisk servers and need to network them together so a phone on
>any of the servers can call a phone on any other server without any trouble.
>
>I can think of IAX trunks between every server. So every server will have an
>IAX trunk to every server and then prefix bases routing in the dialplan for
>each server (I can give a number to each server and use that as a prefix for
>that server). But I think this is a maintainance nightmare and also a very
>bad approch does anyone have any better ideas, Also should the phones be
able
>to send rtp between each other or only through the Asterisk server since if
>its through the asterisk server and say an IAX trunk then the max number of
>calls can be controlled right. 
>
>Can dundi or the switch statement help me get out of this mess ?
>
>
>  
>

On Mon, 2005-05-09 at 12:25 +0200, Vikram Rangnekar
wrote:
> I have 20+ asterisk servers and need to network them together so a phone on
> any of the servers can call a phone on any other server without any
trouble.
> 
> I can think of IAX trunks between every server. So every server will have
an
> IAX trunk to every server and then prefix bases routing in the dialplan for
> each server (I can give a number to each server and use that as a prefix
for
> that server). But I think this is a maintainance nightmare and also a very
> bad approch does anyone have any better ideas, Also should the phones be
able
> to send rtp between each other or only through the Asterisk server since if
> its through the asterisk server and say an IAX trunk then the max number of
> calls can be controlled right. 
> 
> Can dundi or the switch statement help me get out of this mess ?
I would think dundi would somehow be involved in your solution, but I'm
not sure as I've not had a chance to play with it yet.

I read a few docs on it when it was first released, but never did get a
decent understanding of how it might be used in the real world.

ie, are we likely to see ITSP's joining their userbase together using
dundi? Is that a useful way to use it, or is enum/something else better?

Is there some generic asterisk (eg iaxtel) system of dundi servers? Is
it scalable to thousands of systems?

etc..

Regards,
Adam
-- 
 -- 
Adam Goryachev
Website Managers
Ph:  +61 2 9345 4395                        adam@websitemanagers.com.au
Fax: +61 2 9345 4396                        www.websitemanagers.com.au

Vikram Rangnekar wrote:
> I have 20+ asterisk servers and need to network them together so a
> phone on any of the servers can call a phone on any other server
> without any trouble.
If you use RealTime for registration of UA's, then every machine can contact
every UA regardless of which macine the UA originally registered to.

-Matthew

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vikram Rangnekar [mailto:vicky@freebsdcluster.net] 
> Sent: 09 May 2005 11:26
> To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Connecting 20+ asterisk servers together
> 
> 
> I have 20+ asterisk servers and need to network them together 
> so a phone on any of the servers can call a phone on any 
> other server without any trouble.
> 
> I can think of IAX trunks between every server. So every 
> server will have an IAX trunk to every server and then prefix 
> bases routing in the dialplan for each server (I can give a 
> number to each server and use that as a prefix for that 
> server). But I think this is a maintainance nightmare and 
> also a very bad approch does anyone have any better ideas, 
> Also should the phones be able to send rtp between each other 
> or only through the Asterisk server since if its through the 
> asterisk server and say an IAX trunk then the max number of 
> calls can be controlled right. 
> 
> Can dundi or the switch statement help me get out of this mess ?

Am I right in saying this is for remote sites rather than 20 servers for
load 
balancing reasons?

As I am about to start hooking up a small number (< 5) sites together
with Asterisk 
servers at each site and am not entirely sure of the best approach.

I was thinking of having extensions for each site something like:

1xxx = site 1
2xxx = site 2
 
then for example server1 would have:

switch => IAX2/user:pass@server2/context

Matching on 2xxx.

But this doesn't sound particularly elegant specially once you start
trying to scale it.
If you do get any other ideas I would be interested to know so that I
can start this 
structure out properly.


Again if this is remote sites, how are the phones going to talk directly
to each other, VPN?
Passing the RTP data over VPN direct to the phones will mean you don't
get the 
benefits of the IAX trunking to reduce bandwidth which would be a shame.
I would be interested to know how people find VPN's for passing audio,
specially if IPSec etc is being used.  I would imagine the quality is
fairly bad on anything except the fattest of pipes.

Is worth noting call monitoring will force the RTP to the servers
regardless, I don't know
if that's an issue for you?


Sorry not a lot of answers there just questions :-D

Cheers

alex


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Vikram,

Instead of trying to be over-ambitious and try to connect 20 Asterisk
boxes together, why don't you try top connect three (3) of them together
first.

There may lie a plausible solution for you. If this is done, you may go
and string four of them together and so on and so forth.

Take the first step now.

Seshu Kanuri

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Vikram
Rangnekar
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 6:26 AM
To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Connecting 20+ asterisk servers together

I have 20+ asterisk servers and need to network them together so a phone
on any of the servers can call a phone on any other server without any
trouble.

I can think of IAX trunks between every server. So every server will
have an IAX trunk to every server and then prefix bases routing in the
dialplan for each server (I can give a number to each server and use
that as a prefix for that server). But I think this is a maintainance
nightmare and also a very bad approch does anyone have any better ideas,
Also should the phones be able to send rtp between each other or only
through the Asterisk server since if its through the asterisk server and
say an IAX trunk then the max number of calls can be controlled right. 

Can dundi or the switch statement help me get out of this mess ? 
--------------------------------------------------------
 
NOTICE: If received in error, please destroy and notify sender.  Sender does not
waive confidentiality or privilege, and use is prohibited.

+++ Sam Njenga [09/05/05 13:55 +0300]:
> why not try using extensions from a database on all servers. That way 
> regardkess of the * server, the destination phone is the same.
> 
> http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+RealTime
> 
I think you might be on track but again I dont know how stable realtime is
and if its been in production also I dont want the asterisk servers to query
a central database even for local extensions. But ya a list of extensions
with the ip of the server they reside on is the right way to go.


-- 
regards
Vikram (http://www.vicramresearch.com)

+++ Vikram Rangnekar [09/05/05 12:25 +0200]:
> I have 20+ asterisk servers and need to network them together so a phone on
> any of the servers can call a phone on any other server without any
trouble.
> 
> I can think of IAX trunks between every server. So every server will have
an
> IAX trunk to every server and then prefix bases routing in the dialplan for
> each server (I can give a number to each server and use that as a prefix
for
> that server). But I think this is a maintainance nightmare and also a very
> bad approch does anyone have any better ideas, Also should the phones be
able
> to send rtp between each other or only through the Asterisk server since if
> its through the asterisk server and say an IAX trunk then the max number of
> calls can be controlled right. 
> 
> Can dundi or the switch statement help me get out of this mess ?
> 
I dont really know DUNDi so I cant talk about it much I'll read up on it
today.

But The possible solution I thought was make one Asterisk box the CENTRAL
extensions server (Maybe 2 boxes) and have switch statements in all the other
servers dialplan to point to that one or two servers.

That main dialplan server will contain extensions for each server along with
their ip's

exten=>_1.,1,Dial(IAX2/${EXTEN:1}@192.168.0.1)
exten=>_2.,1,Dial(IAX2/${EXTEN:1}@192.168.0.2)

Now when a new server has to be added only the extension plan on that main
central server will have to be updated.


-- 
regards
Vikram (http://www.vicramresearch.com)

On Mon, 9 May 2005, Vikram Rangnekar wrote:

[Deleted]
> Can dundi or the switch statement help me get out of this mess ?
Dundi will make this trivial.

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