[asterisk-biz] Routing large call volumes (400 concurrent calls+)

[Josh Krueger]

On Sep 20, 2007, at 12:45 PM, Steve Totaro wrote:

> Mitul Limbani wrote:
>> Hi Chris,
>>
>>
>> Quoting Chris Bagnall <chris at minotaur.it>:
>>
>>> Greetings list,
>>>
>>> I've recently been approached by a traditional PSTN LCR provider who
>>> are trying to break into the VoIP market and set themselves up. They
>>> have good contacts with some of the large carriers here in the UK  
>>> who
>>> are happy to install interconnects into the datacentre in which they
>>> have rackspace.
>>>
>>> They're in a tricky position: they won't be generating anywhere near
>>> enough volume to justify one of the big Cisco gateways (or similar),
>>> but they will have sufficient volume to make PRI cards in asterisk
>>> servers rather inefficient.
>>>
>>> Initially the main carrier offered to install 16 E1s as a starting
>>> point for them, but:
>>> a) as their call volume increases, having lots of E1 ports and  
>>> cables
>>> seems incredibly inefficient compared to an E3 or TDMoE.
>>> b) I can't help but feel asterisk might not be the most appropriate
>>> solution for something of this scale
>>
>> I believe you can put up 16 E1s on to a single server and which  
>> runs asterisk.
>> If you require any assistance on that front, do contact us.
>>
>> Thanks & Regards,
>> Mitul Limbani,
>> Founder & CEO,
>> Enterux Solutions,
>> The Enterprise Linux Company (TM),
>> www.enterux.com
>
>
> Obviously you cannot put 16 E1s on a single server.  And at least  
> in the
> US, getting 16 T1s makes no sense.  It costs just as much as a T3  
> (28 T1s)
>
> You can do it, I would inquire about an E3 (I suppose there has to be
> such a thing).  A T3 comes as two coaxial cables, one send, on receive
> and would attach to a MUX to break out your E1s.
>
> Seven servers should do the trick.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
>

I agree fully.. To a point.

Heres the thing, Ive worked on a platform that had well over 30 T1s  
across 10-15 servers for inbound. And another 10-15 T1s for outbound.  
Outbound were muxed into a T3. Having the inbound as individual E1s  
makes much more sense especially when they may be dealing with  
multiple carriers. 2-3 E1s from each carrier across the servers, etc  
etc. This takes care of failover if a server dies. Now if its all one  
carrier a demuxed E3 would be perfect.

7 servers is right at the mark I would have recommended (media  
gateways should be midrange 1u servers, gateways 1u or 2u with  
redundant power supplies). 5 with a quad port E1 card in each and 2  
to be SIP gateways and handle final CDR records, load balancing, etc.  
Will also need detailed logging on the first 5 servers as well. To  
have this all work happily, you will probably need some custom code.

Asterisk is fine for handling this type of application. If you have  
any questions, feel free to contact me off list.