Hey Everyone, We are in the works of planning a new * installation for our company. We have 20 users in our main office and 5 users in a remote office a couple of states away. Our call volume for the main office will be anywhere from 5-10 concurrent calls. The remote office will have about 3 heavy users with two users making calls occasionally. Right now we have an existing PBX. We have a T-1/PRI coming into the main office and a DSL connection at the remote office. We have a Cisco 2610/PIX 501 at the main office a cheesy linksys router at the remote site. We are planning on purchasing new Cisco IP phones for everyone. My main question is this: What type of hardware/network design would be best for this situation? Would a full T-1 at the remote site work with a VPN between the offices? Or would a higher bandwidth DSL work with a VPN? Or should we move to a Point-to-Point connection? What type of hardware would be best for the end-to-end communication in regards to QoS? I know the PIX 501 doesn't support it. Would it be best to have two * servers in each office or for that call volume at the remote office does it make sense? I was thinking of a Dell Power Edge server with 4GB of ram and a dual processor.. is that enough? Sorry for all the questions! - Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20060307/248ec564/attachment.htm
Hey Everyone, We are in the works of planning a new * installation for our company. We have 20 users in our main office and 5 users in a remote office a couple of states away. Our call volume for the main office will be anywhere from 5-10 concurrent calls. The remote office will have about 3 heavy users with two users making calls occasionally. Right now we have an existing PBX. We have a T-1/PRI coming into the main office and a DSL connection at the remote office. We have a Cisco 2610/PIX 501 at the main office a cheesy linksys router at the remote site. We are planning on purchasing new Cisco IP phones for everyone. My main question is this: What type of hardware/network design would be best for this situation? Would a full T-1 at the remote site work with a VPN between the offices? Or would a higher bandwidth DSL work with a VPN? Or should we move to a Point-to-Point connection? What type of hardware would be best for the end-to-end communication in regards to QoS? I know the PIX 501 doesn't support it. Would it be best to have two * servers in each office or for that call volume at the remote office does it make sense? I was thinking of a Dell Power Edge server with 4GB of ram and a dual processor.. is that enough? Sorry for all the questions! Jason Adams Sumo Systems 57 E. Wilson Bridge Rd Suite 200 Worthington, OH 43085 Phone | 614.433.9906 ext: 102 Fax | 614.433.9931 E-mail | jadams@sumosystems.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20060308/21ec802b/attachment.htm
> > > Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 18:26:12 -0500 > From: "Jason Adams" <jadams@sumosystems.net> > Subject: [Asterisk-Users] System Design > To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion" > <asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> > Message-ID: > <725FFB0CA3F44B4FB0CE715CABA2A52106E332@sumosrv.sumosystems.local> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Hey Everyone, > > We are in the works of planning a new * installation for our company. > We have 20 users in our main office and 5 users in a remote office a > couple of states away. Our call volume for the main office will be > anywhere from 5-10 concurrent calls. The remote office will have about > 3 heavy users with two users making calls occasionally. > > Right now we have an existing PBX. We have a T-1/PRI coming into the > main office and a DSL connection at the remote office. We have a Cisco > 2610/PIX 501 at the main office a cheesy linksys router at the remote > site. > > We are planning on purchasing new Cisco IP phones for everyone. > > My main question is this: What type of hardware/network design would be > best for this situation? Would a full T-1 at the remote site work with > a VPN between the offices? Or would a higher bandwidth DSL work with a > VPN? Or should we move to a Point-to-Point connection? What type of > hardware would be best for the end-to-end communication in regards to > QoS? I know the PIX 501 doesn't support it. > Would it be best to have two * servers in each office or for that call > volume at the remote office does it make sense? I was thinking of a > Dell Power Edge server with 4GB of ram and a dual processor.. is that > enough? > > Sorry for all the questions! > > > - Jason > > -------------- next part -------------- >Jason- You're right, that's a lot of questions. Let me try to net it out a little for you. First off, it sounds as if you're using the Internet to connect the two offices. Understand- nothing presently there will provide QOS over the Internet- from that perspective, your existing equipment is just fine. If you're considering making changes, and budget is not an issue, a private WAN setup- Frame Relay, for instance, that provides low latency between the two points, is what you're looking for, as you can perform QOS on it. Speedwise, however, depending on the level of compression you go with, at 5 simultaneous calls (my assumed maximum with 5 remote users- YMMV), you really dont need anything faster than a 256K connection between the two points- assuming the latency can be kept in the 60ms range or less. DSL, specificall aDSL is notoriously awful for high-bandwidth VoIP applications, as it's asymetric (faster download than upload in general), and the speed will vary at random based on the carrier and time of day. If you compress, you can get away with 128K for the voice portion of the link (Remember, that's 256K for the Voice side, not counting whatever other traffic is going on at the time)- and if you trunk IAX, you can potentially get even smaller. The big question is- at 20 users and 5 users- how many calls are going on across the VoIP link? Secondly, consider your PSTN connections. Are you using a PRI at the main office, and some POTS lines at the remote? Do you need to use a VoIP provider for all of it? Want to get rid of those POTs lines and use the PRI for the remote office as well? All of which will change the equations as far as how much bandwidth and what kind of hardware you need in each office. Finally, hardware. That dual CPU machine is a cadillac for 20 users- even 25 users. I won't go in to my opinion of Dell, that's a theological discussion- but I'd sandbox that setup on something far smaller- a 1Ghz Celeron should be more than up to the task for Asterisk, depending on what else you're doing at the time, even with transcoding going on. I personally would recommend two low cost servers- look in to astlinux and a Soekris box for the remote office (might be pushing it, but again, it depends on your apps and transcode requirements), and a cheap commodity machine for the main branch- it should be just fine for what you're looking to do. Trunk the two machines together, and you've got all the power in the world- Dundi or IAX switched dialplans will take care of most of the headache for you. If you want to dig deeper into details, I'd be happy to offlist- I'm posting this here as more of a general selection/architecture guide. -Paul Davidson PlanCommunications, LLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20060308/519e71c1/attachment.htm
Lot of questions, lots of variables, but I'll touch base on a few things. 5-10 concurrent calls is hardly anything. A plain T1 will more than handle that, even at ulaw or alaw (non)compression. Throw in a decent codec, and 10 calls won't even put a dent in your T1. Heck, it'd handle all 20 users in your main office, and the 5 users in your remote office with G729, no problem. How reliable is the remote office's DSL connection? I'd make sure you have a static ip for it (dynamic ips are just slightly problematic, especially if you have slightly flaky service, coupled with a slightly flaky modem). If it's reliable, then just keep that. What's the connection speed? Need to know the upload and download. If it's ADSL, then the upload will be a fraction of the download, and will be the limiting factor. Since I don't know your specific setup, I can't tell you specifically what to do. I'll make some guesses though. Keep DSL. No need to use VPN just for asterisk. Make sure each end has a static ip (dynamic ip will work, but is harder to setup and more prone to errors). Have each asterisk box register to the other. For normal incoming and outgoing calls, just have the asterisk box at that particular location handle it (no need for the remote office to connect to the main office's asterisk box, then call out via iax or sip for a long-distance phone call). You can create "local" extensions that when dialed, will ring a person on the other asterisk box. I.e., a user at the main office can dial 2001, and get a user at the remote office. If you deal with call queues you can group users from both offices together, no problem. A T1 or a point to point connection at the remote office would work, but is probably unecessary. If their DSL connection is flaky and unreliable, then start looking at both options. I'd probably go with whichever is cheapest, be sure to factor in equipment costs (you can generally lease equipment with a T1 line, but not with a point to point connection). As far as server specs, if all it's going to run is asterisk, then that's overkill even if it was handling all the calls. If you think you need that much server but are on a budget, then get one setup for dual processors but with just one installed, and less ram but that has room to add more. If budget's not a problem, I say go for it! That system should last you for quite a while. As for QOS, sorry I can't help you there. You could get a cheap router that has QOS built-in, or run a separate low-end server just for QOS. Personally my asterisk box also serves as my nat server, so I just run QOS directly on it. It's probably not something you want to do in an office environment, but it's better than no QOS at all. Hopefully someone else will give you some good advice on QOS equipment. Joseph Tanner On 3/7/06, Jason Adams <jadams@sumosystems.net> wrote:> > Hey Everyone, > > We are in the works of planning a new * installation for our company. We > have 20 users in our main office and 5 users in a remote office a couple of > states away. Our call volume for the main office will be anywhere from 5-10 > concurrent calls. The remote office will have about 3 heavy users with two > users making calls occasionally. > > Right now we have an existing PBX. We have a T-1/PRI coming into the main > office and a DSL connection at the remote office. We have a Cisco 2610/PIX > 501 at the main office a cheesy linksys router at the remote site. > > We are planning on purchasing new Cisco IP phones for everyone. > > My main question is this: What type of hardware/network design would be > best for this situation? Would a full T-1 at the remote site work with a > VPN between the offices? Or would a higher bandwidth DSL work with a VPN? > Or should we move to a Point-to-Point connection? What type of hardware > would be best for the end-to-end communication in regards to QoS? I know > the PIX 501 doesn't support it. > Would it be best to have two * servers in each office or for that call > volume at the remote office does it make sense? I was thinking of a Dell > Power Edge server with 4GB of ram and a dual processor.. is that enough? > > Sorry for all the questions! > > > > - Jason > _______________________________________________ > --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > > >
This doesn't directly answer your question, because every integration scenario is different, but one of the nice things about Asterisk is that the barrier to entry to get a system working and play around with it is very low. What you might want to consider doing is get your Asterisk box working, minus the PRI card, get the Cisco phones running (you're going to buy them anyway) and put them in place, side by side with the current phones, and just have the everyone play with them. That alone will answer a lot of your questions about how to engineer it without commiting to a particular way. However, in your remote office, I would ditch the crap router and at least use a Monowall http://m0n0.ch/wall/ <http://m0n0.ch/wall/> because you can prioritize traffic with it, it's super easy to set up, and you can make it work with odds and ends you have laying around. If you have more than one static IP, you can even do a Monowall to Monowall VPN and leave your PIX in place, and then run the VoIP over the VPN. Monowall supports IPSec VPN's, so you can interface it with a lot of other firewalls out there, including Pix. Running VoIP over a VPN is sometimes problematic (but sometimes it works great!) so again you can try it out without committing. Sometimes it makes sense to have a remote Asterisk server at the other end and route calls via IAX, IAX is like a VoIP dream protocol, but on the other hand it adds complexity where complexity is undesirable. You should try it both ways: Stick in a remote Asterisk server on the other end, route calls via IAX, and also have some Cisco's register with your main Asterisk server over SIP (both with and without the VPN) The Dell will probably be fine, compatibility issues with Digium TDM cards nonwithstanding (there are some - ask Digium when you buy) and in your case, overkill. I'm running a Netfinity Xeon 550 (yup, 550 Mhz) with 2 Te110P cards right now supporting 180 users in 32 locations in a 50 mile radius. Looking at the console right now I have 36 of 46 channels open to my PRI's, 50 mixed SIP and IAX calls, and top says about 16% with load average about .53. And I'm recording all the calls. On my remote IAX sites (30), I have between 2 to 5 users that do SIP to a local IAX server, then IAX here to the main office and out the PRI. What's running on the remote servers? Frigging P-II 233's. That's all. The reason it works is because I am careful with codec selection so there's no transcoding. And the call quality is just fine, thank you. Ask the boss for a couple of weeks to experiment, get the gear, and test. That will give you the optimum result, instead of my jackass opinion. hth -----Original Message----- From: Jason Adams [mailto:jadams@sumosystems.net] Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:26 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: [Asterisk-Users] System Design Hey Everyone, We are in the works of planning a new * installation for our company. We have 20 users in our main office and 5 users in a remote office a couple of states away. Our call volume for the main office will be anywhere from 5-10 concurrent calls. The remote office will have about 3 heavy users with two users making calls occasionally. Right now we have an existing PBX. We have a T-1/PRI coming into the main office and a DSL connection at the remote office. We have a Cisco 2610/PIX 501 at the main office a cheesy linksys router at the remote site. We are planning on purchasing new Cisco IP phones for everyone. My main question is this: What type of hardware/network design would be best for this situation? Would a full T-1 at the remote site work with a VPN between the offices? Or would a higher bandwidth DSL work with a VPN? Or should we move to a Point-to-Point connection? What type of hardware would be best for the end-to-end communication in regards to QoS? I know the PIX 501 doesn't support it. Would it be best to have two * servers in each office or for that call volume at the remote office does it make sense? I was thinking of a Dell Power Edge server with 4GB of ram and a dual processor.. is that enough? Sorry for all the questions! - Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20060308/38780581/attachment-0001.htm
Colin Anderson wrote:> This doesn't directly answer your question, because every integration > scenario is different, but one of the nice things about Asterisk is that > the barrier to entry to get a system working and play around with it is > very low. What you might want to consider doing is get your Asterisk box > working, minus the PRI card, get the Cisco phones running (you're going > to buy them anyway) and put them in place, side by side with the current > phones, and just have the everyone play with them. That alone will > answer a lot of your questions about how to engineer it without > commiting to a particular way. > > However, in your remote office, I would ditch the crap router and at > least use a Monowall http://m0n0.ch/wall/ because you can prioritize > traffic with it, it's super easy to set up, and you can make it work > with odds and ends you have laying around. If you have more than one > static IP, you can even do a Monowall to Monowall VPN and leave your PIX > in place, and then run the VoIP over the VPN. Monowall supports IPSec > VPN's, so you can interface it with a lot of other firewalls out there, > including Pix. > > Running VoIP over a VPN is sometimes problematic (but sometimes it works > great!) so again you can try it out without committing. > > Sometimes it makes sense to have a remote Asterisk server at the other > end and route calls via IAX, IAX is like a VoIP dream protocol, but on > the other hand it adds complexity where complexity is undesirable. You > should try it both ways: Stick in a remote Asterisk server on the other > end, route calls via IAX, and also have some Cisco's register with your > main Asterisk server over SIP (both with and without the VPN) > > The Dell will probably be fine, compatibility issues with Digium TDM > cards nonwithstanding (there are some - ask Digium when you buy) and in > your case, overkill. I'm running a Netfinity Xeon 550 (yup, 550 > Mhz) with 2 Te110P cards right now supporting 180 users in 32 locations > in a 50 mile radius. Looking at the console right now I have 36 of 46 > channels open to my PRI's, 50 mixed SIP and IAX calls, and top says > about 16% with load average about .53. And I'm recording all the calls. > > On my remote IAX sites (30), I have between 2 to 5 users that do SIP to > a local IAX server, then IAX here to the main office and out the PRI. > What's running on the remote servers? Frigging P-II 233's. That's all. > The reason it works is because I am careful with codec selection so > there's no transcoding. And the call quality is just fine, thank you. > > Ask the boss for a couple of weeks to experiment, get the gear, and > test. That will give you the optimum result, instead of my jackass opinion. > > hth >It's good to see people using "low-end" hardware with Asterisk. Running applications on Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/whatever is always refreshing to me in the days of 3.2ghz desktops. I don't know about all of you, but as the "computer guy" in my family, I am constantly asked by aunts, uncles, cousins, etc if the computer they bought will be fast enough for the internet, word, burning cds, etc. When they show me the hardware specs I have to laugh to myself. Why? Lately it's been 3+ Ghz cpus and 1gb of RAM or more. With 10K SATA drives. Fast enough? You have got to be kidding me! I immediately think of what that machine would be capable of if it were used in a non I/O bound server application with Linux... I am still AMAZED at what a well configured Linux machine can do on low end hardware. Not just with Asterisk, but with Apache, MySQL, whatever. As far as Asterisk goes, I think it is a safe bet that most setups are overpowered to the point of ridiculous. Want to know what you should buy for your office? Find some old junker that can barely run Windows 2000, install Linux and Asterisk and see what you can do. Read up on how to optimize a few things and you should be set (reliability not withstanding). If not, do the math and find out what you need to buy (or what else to re-use). From what I can remember, this is how Linux got a foothold back in the 90's. Daring admins would take a recyled Windows desktop and make a print server, file server, web server, etc. Thanks to Asterisk, admins of the 21st century can make a revolutionary PBX/telephone appliance/phone switch/alarm clock/etc! -- Kristian Kielhofner
Thanks for all of your replies! I was thinking the server was a little overboard, but I want this to last and also be expandable. We might be adding users/offices within the next year so I wanted to plan ahead. The DSL speed at the remote office is 1.5 to 6.0 Down and 384 to 608 up. The DSL does have a static IP address and it's pretty rock solid in regards to stability. I was planning on buying the G729a codec from Digium for use on all calls. In regards to: <snip> For normal incoming and outgoing calls, just have the asterisk box at that particular location handle it (no need for the remote office to connect to the main office's asterisk box, then call out via iax or sip for a long-distance phone call). </snip> Would the remote office * need a couple of POTS lines to make those local calls? Once again thanks for all of your replies! They are definitely clearing things up for me. - Jason -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Tanner Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 6:54 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] System Design Lot of questions, lots of variables, but I'll touch base on a few things. 5-10 concurrent calls is hardly anything. A plain T1 will more than handle that, even at ulaw or alaw (non)compression. Throw in a decent codec, and 10 calls won't even put a dent in your T1. Heck, it'd handle all 20 users in your main office, and the 5 users in your remote office with G729, no problem. How reliable is the remote office's DSL connection? I'd make sure you have a static ip for it (dynamic ips are just slightly problematic, especially if you have slightly flaky service, coupled with a slightly flaky modem). If it's reliable, then just keep that. What's the connection speed? Need to know the upload and download. If it's ADSL, then the upload will be a fraction of the download, and will be the limiting factor. Since I don't know your specific setup, I can't tell you specifically what to do. I'll make some guesses though. Keep DSL. No need to use VPN just for asterisk. Make sure each end has a static ip (dynamic ip will work, but is harder to setup and more prone to errors). Have each asterisk box register to the other. For normal incoming and outgoing calls, just have the asterisk box at that particular location handle it (no need for the remote office to connect to the main office's asterisk box, then call out via iax or sip for a long-distance phone call). You can create "local" extensions that when dialed, will ring a person on the other asterisk box. I.e., a user at the main office can dial 2001, and get a user at the remote office. If you deal with call queues you can group users from both offices together, no problem. A T1 or a point to point connection at the remote office would work, but is probably unecessary. If their DSL connection is flaky and unreliable, then start looking at both options. I'd probably go with whichever is cheapest, be sure to factor in equipment costs (you can generally lease equipment with a T1 line, but not with a point to point connection). As far as server specs, if all it's going to run is asterisk, then that's overkill even if it was handling all the calls. If you think you need that much server but are on a budget, then get one setup for dual processors but with just one installed, and less ram but that has room to add more. If budget's not a problem, I say go for it! That system should last you for quite a while. As for QOS, sorry I can't help you there. You could get a cheap router that has QOS built-in, or run a separate low-end server just for QOS. Personally my asterisk box also serves as my nat server, so I just run QOS directly on it. It's probably not something you want to do in an office environment, but it's better than no QOS at all. Hopefully someone else will give you some good advice on QOS equipment. Joseph Tanner On 3/7/06, Jason Adams <jadams@sumosystems.net> wrote:> > Hey Everyone, > > We are in the works of planning a new * installation for our company.> We have 20 users in our main office and 5 users in a remote office a > couple of states away. Our call volume for the main office will be > anywhere from 5-10 concurrent calls. The remote office will have > about 3 heavy users with two users making calls occasionally. > > Right now we have an existing PBX. We have a T-1/PRI coming into the > main office and a DSL connection at the remote office. We have a > Cisco 2610/PIX > 501 at the main office a cheesy linksys router at the remote site. > > We are planning on purchasing new Cisco IP phones for everyone. > > My main question is this: What type of hardware/network design would > be best for this situation? Would a full T-1 at the remote site work > with a VPN between the offices? Or would a higher bandwidth DSL workwith a VPN?> Or should we move to a Point-to-Point connection? What type of > hardware would be best for the end-to-end communication in regards to > QoS? I know the PIX 501 doesn't support it. > Would it be best to have two * servers in each office or for that call> volume at the remote office does it make sense? I was thinking of a > Dell Power Edge server with 4GB of ram and a dual processor.. is thatenough?> > Sorry for all the questions! > > > > - Jason > _______________________________________________ > --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > > >_______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users