[Asterisk-Dev] ZAP Channel Maxout.

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004, Kevin P. Fleming wrote:

> outside of Asterisk. Some options (in my personal order of preference):
> Veraz Networks I-Gate 4000 PRO (up to 64,000 DS0, 100% redundancy (yes, 
> 100%), transcoding to your choice of codec, MGCP control)
> 
> Sentito IVG (up to 4,608 DS0, 100% redundancy (at the DS1 level, 
> requires M13 muxing down from DS3), transcoding to your choice of codec, 
> SIP control)
> 
> Nuera GX-21 (up to 1,632 DS0, nearly 100% redundancy, transcoding to 
> your choice of codec, MGCP control)
> 
Don't forget Lucent TNT and APX. TNT handles 680 DS0s, APX >4000 in 8U
chassis, transcoding to all codecs and SIP/H323/MGCP control. And they are
order of magnitude cheaper than all of the above. [and particularly, APX 
solution will be even cheaper than similar T400P-based solution]

> All of these are carrier-grade products, designed for the type of system
> you are building. Digium's DS1 hardware, and Asterisk, are not (as much
> as I them <G>). Without building in redundancy, are you really willing
> to lose 12 DS1s just because a server stopped running properly (288
> channels)? If you want to make that system redundant, you have to
> purchase automatic A/B switches to route the DS1s to failover hardware,
> which is difficult to do well.
I absolutely agree with it. Terminating so many DS0s is not where Asterisk 
or linux shines.

> Another reply hit it on the head: if this is what you want to do, your
> equipment budget should be commensurate to the task. If you are wanting
> to build some racks full of 4U commodity servers and use TE410P cards
> for all of this, I have a feeling you are trying to save money on the
> wrong end of the equation :-)
Even if your budget says TE410P, you should still consider solution like a 
TNT.

-alex