[Asterisk-Users] SIPPROXD for SIP thru NAT

[John Todd]

>Quoting Humberto Atristain <hatristain at megahospedaje.com>:
>
>>  Just for you to know I´ve tried the Jasomi Peer-point centrex with an
>>  ATA-186 behind 4, yes (FOUR) NATS, WORKS Fantastic , BUT
>>  is very expensive :(
>
>I've looked at Jasomi before, but can you tell us more ? How expensive are
>those boxes ?

My very, very cursory discussions with them ended when the intro 
price of ~$X000 (USD) was discussed, PLUS the cost of doing the 
custom software I needed. (I exclude X as a courtesy to Jasomi, but 
suffice to say it was enough to buy at least half a dozen WELL 
equipped Asterisk boxes.)  Asterisk can do what I need for 
single-layer NAT, plus many other features at a much lower price, 
which is really all I needed.  Plus, with some of the features I 
think Mark hammered out this evening, I'm doing some tricks that 
previously only Session Border Managers could do.  Notably, tagging 
inbound requests from certain external SIP proxies and forwarding 
them to contexts based on the proxy IP address, thus allowing for 
service levels based not on caller, but on proxy, so individual rules 
for each caller didn't have to be created in a gateway situation.

>How could we reach Jasomi level firewall-robust service (perhaps in * ?)

Hard question to answer.  Personally, as an example, I have had my 
own home SIP hardphones behind NAT for months with Asterisk as a 
"mediator" for various external SIP gateways as well as analog. 
Since the NAT translation features were introduced, I have had few 
(no) problems with that functionality.  I only have one layer of NAT, 
though, and I don't have a "firewall" (whatever your definition of 
"firewall" is.)   However, I have configured ATA-186 devices from 
behind semi-paranoid Checkpoint firewalls with no difficulty, so I'm 
confident in saying that I've made it work in a firewalled 
environment with 100% reliabilty, at least with Cisco hardphones.

If you're asking about proxy-to-proxy functionality, I have no idea. 
But if all you're concerned about is NAT'ed UA's, then I'd say that 
Asterisk is there right now.  There are other issues which make make 
it less reliable than the Jasomi solution (there are others in this 
market, as well) but that is not the specific question you asked. 
Firms like Jasomi should be shaking in their boots, as the flood of 
Asterisk is now up to about their ankles, and the water is very cold, 
and it promises to fill the room very quickly.  It will be hard to 
compete with a multi-thousand dollar box where an open-source 
solution can work as well for 1/6 the cost, except in those 
(admittedly many) situations where enterprise customers are simply 
clueless or full of FUD.  Don't get me wrong; I don't think that 
Asterisk will ever "control" the market completely, despite the 
slogans on Mark's whiteboard.  :)  I won't re-hash the "open source" 
vs. "commercial" product argument here.  Competition is good, no 
matter what the force is pushing the process.  However, the market 
for NAT traversal devices is pretty specialized and technical, and 
Asterisk will make big inroads with the savvy technicians who install 
that equipment.  I'm a case in point - I didn't buy a Jasomi box 
because I knew Asterisk could do the job for the requirements I had. 
Jasomi will simply have to differentiate themselves on the other 
features of their platform to make an appeal to the buyers.

Sorry for the long-winded talk; I have nothing better to do while 
waiting for downloads/compiles right now.  :)

JT


>Florian
>_______________________________________________
>Asterisk-Users mailing list
>Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com
>http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users