asterisk users - Apr 2009 - Bridging Avaya IP systems and Cisco IP system

Hi all,

Has anyone put * in between an Avaya and Cisco system to connect two
offices together?

I was thinking about adding a SIP trunk on each side and getting
Asterisk to pass calls between them. There is a leased line for
bandwidth.

Any tips/ideas on whether this is possible or dumb?

Thanks.

On Apr 3, 2009, at 7:40 AM, Gavin Henry wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Has anyone put * in between an Avaya and Cisco system to connect two
> offices together?
>
> I was thinking about adding a SIP trunk on each side and getting
> Asterisk to pass calls between them. There is a leased line for
> bandwidth.
>
> Any tips/ideas on whether this is possible or dumb?
>
> Thanks.

Gavin -
   The short answer is yes, this is possible, and is done quite  
often.  How exactly you configure it is of course the trick - there  
are many possible different methods by which you might accomplish this  
feat, depending on what your existing resources are and what your end  
goal is.  T1? PRI? H.323?  You may consider IAX2 for trunking and save  
a lot of bandwidth as compared to SIP, if bandwidth is a concern.  If  
you're using T1 or PRI, you'll need a hardware card to do this.

   I'd start with setting up a basic Asterisk server from source and  
getting two SIP phones working on it.  I'd not suggest using one of  
the GUI-enabled versions - that may be more layers of stuff than   
you're looking for given your stated goal.  Figure it out, read the  
O'Reilly Book (Asterisk: The Future of Telephony) and you'll probably  
figure out fairly quickly how to use Asterisk as a black-box trunking  
interface for your systems.


JT

---
John Todd                       email:jtodd at digium.com
Digium, Inc. | Asterisk Open Source Community Director
445 Jan Davis Drive NW -  Huntsville AL 35806  -   USA
direct: +1-256-428-6083         http://www.digium.com/