[Asterisk-Dev] Re: PostgreSQL support in Asterisk 1.2?

[Andrew Kohlsmith]

On Friday 05 August 2005 19:25, Daniel Swarbrick wrote:
> Simple, put the DBMS on the same box as the PBX. Asterisk won't be
> asking anything too demanding of the DB, the DB itself will be quite
> small, so I don't see resource scarcity becoming a problem. I certainly
> wouldn't recommend putting the DB server on a different box - that
> introduces a whole swag of points of failure.

So now if you run a query (on purpose or not) and your DB chugs away and locks 
up the processor and you start dropping calls...  

I guess you can make asterisk realtime priority to avoid that, and so long as 
your nondeterministic DB doesn't tie up a lookup or whatnot it'll be fine.  I 
dunno it's just not that important to me, nor do I see it solving any real 
problems.

> You could argue that the filesystem could become corrupt, at which point
> your plain old flat config files also become a point a failure. Where do
> you draw the line?

Absolutely.  It's all about minimizing risk and points of failure (in my 
opinion).  It's a balancing act for sure.  Do you trust the HD or do you go 
to CF-based storage with a ramdisk?  Do you use redundant power and links?  
What about an entire failover cluster?

For my own personal use I'm using an old P2/400 to run 3 FXS channels over an 
SDSL link (no hard phone line).  For work, we have a pair of Asterisk boxes 
over an SDSL link.  One box is a P3 with a TE405 to the Norstar MICS and the 
other's a P4 with TE406 to the PSTN. There are no hardlines there either, 
faxes even go over the SDSL link.  No redundant power, no redundant links.  
Our VOIP calls will fail over to the PSTN if need be.

-A.