[Asterisk-Users] IBM to Run VoIP On Linux

[WipeOut]

Can I add to this and say that another thing that could be hindering the 
takup is "Single System" VoIP scalability and a certain amout of 
"Enterprise" flexibility..

Let me explain those two..

Before you start reading these and thinking "This guy is mad!!" let me 
just say that I love Asterisk and use it every day, but if M$ and IBM 
are getting into the game there is cause for concern.. The features I am 
going to talk about are very much "Future Dreams" becasue to impliment 
them would probably mean re-creating the entire code base from the groud 
up so I don't expest to see the features ant time soon.. I do think that 
these sorts of featured will be in the IBM and M$ IP PBX's and that is 
why I think Asterisk needs them..

So lets get started..

I know that many Asterisk servers can be connected together to scale the 
size of the system but this is still a problem because it is a headache 
to manage.. What is needed to get the big enterprise players on board is 
the ability to manage the PBX as a single entity no matter how many 
"servers" there are.. "servers" should simply be add on modules to the 
overall PBX to improve its VoIP call volume handling power.. I think the 
only way to achive this would be to make Asterisk a "clustered" software 
that sits a level above the "servers".. The VoIP phones will see one 
"Asterisk Server" that listens on a single IP address per subnet on the 
network but behind that single system image could be one, two or fifty 
servers providing the processing power for all the calls, and as power 
is needed you simply have to add servers.. If you need more PRI lines 
just add a Digium card to a server and enable that server as a "gateway" 
node in the cluster..

With in this model the voicepath between the "servers" in the cluster 
needs to be dynamic so the shortest path is always used (IAX can 
probably handle this quite well already), and CDR must be accurate maybe 
one or two of the nodes needs to allocated the task of being the CDR 
server and all other servers will feed back to the central server with 
the call logging information..

In "Enterprise" flexibility I am taking about user and phone management 
and services..

On the phone management side (and I know many don't seem to like the 
idea) but a platform independent full featured management interface is 
needed.. If its done in Java or web based running on the Asterrisk sever 
itself, similar to how webmin has its own web server, does not matter 
but we live in a world now where admins like GUI management tools..

Leading on from that is an "Operator Interface" for receptionists and 
phone operators to be able to manage calls.. See which lines are busy, 
connect calls and the various other things that these interfaces do..

Next a monitoring interface (somthing similar MRTG would probably do 
it..) showing server loads and statistics so system management and 
upgrading is easy to see and plan for..

Then the need to support hot desking.. By this I mean that the phone and 
the user need to be seperate entities on the system.. then the user can 
sit down at any phone  on any desk run through a login procedure (either 
on the phone or in some easily accesible interface) and all their calls 
will then be routed to that phone.. I know there are hacks and work 
arounds to getting this kind of functionality using queues and the 
Asterisk DB and various other options but it needs to be a standard 
working system..

Finally an automatic provisioning system.. New user joins the company, 
click a button on the management interface and give them their extension 
number and extension password.. no editing files and restarting servers 
or anything like that its all done behind the scene..

So did I just thumb suck these concepst out of this air?? not totally..

Last year I did a contract at a large comnpany in London and was working 
on a user provisioning system.. This company has thousands of users in a 
single building (and a single PBX) in London, and thousands more accross 
the country.. It was a provisioning system so I needed to talk to the 
telecoms guys to see if we could automatically provision the phone 
extensions from the central application.. So a lot of my ideas here come 
from what I saw they had and things they said they would like to have..

Anyway I will stop rambling on now..

I still think Asterisk is great for SOHO and medium businesses, and when 
the Digium multiport analog or a BRI card (I know ISDN cards can be used 
but it would be nice to have one that provided Zaptel timing and one 
that would probably be a lot cheaper than the current active ISDN 
options.) comes out it will be great for the small companies as well..

Later..

John Todd wrote:

>
> Yes, it is a well-kept secret, which is a shame since it obviously 
> fits so many different requirements.  Here are some late-night musings 
> as to why new users coming to Asterisk is only a stream when it should 
> be a river:
>
> 1) No >1.0 release.  In fact, no release structure at all really. 
> (Hold your flames: I know this is to be remedied soon, along with 
> backtrack patches for security/stability.)
>
> 2) No books (yet.)  This also is going to be remedied soon.
>
> 3) Advocates fall (generally) into two camps:
>      a) IT staff who have much more on their minds than being VoIP 
> advocates, and who normally are told what to do.  Even if they have 
> experience with * in testbed situations, the larger vendors come in 
> and throw whitepapers/jargon/FUD at executive staff, who make 
> telephony decisions, thus overruling clueful staff.
>
>      b) CLEC or other telephony-oriented people who will try very hard 
> to prevent anyone from knowing what they use, or how they use it, 
> since that is a competitive disadvantage if others should start to use 
> the same software-driven architectures.  There are some obvious 
> exceptions to this, but you'll very rarely see (ever?) any posts by 
> the two or three major IPCSP's that use Asterisk as part of their core 
> systems.
>
>   There are of course others who do not fall into one of these two 
> camps, and those are the people being the "zealots" getting 
> conversions to Asterisk.  Personally, as an example, I have over two 
> dozen institutions, companies, and very clueful individuals that I've 
> introduced to Asterisk simply based on chatting with them. (excluding 
> clients, who already have intentions on installing Asterisk.)  The 
> time it takes to explain why Asterisk is so useful is quite 
> labor-intensive, actually, and the educational process takes some time 
> even with the most clueful engineering types, simply because there are 
> so MANY things to take into consideration with Asterisk and any 
> telephony questions in general.
>
> 4) Hardware vendors are still blowing enough "QOS" issues around that 
> it obscures open-source VoIP solutions.  "VoIP won't work" is still a 
> claim I hear EVERY DAY, until I disagree and tell that person that I'm 
> disagreeing with them over a VoIP call that crosses a continent twice, 
> across the public Internet (and three carriers.)  This is obviously 
> not Asterisk-specific, but it's certainly an issue that scares people 
> away from OSS solutions that don't include "magic hardware."
>
> 5) I would say that it's becoming less of a secret, so don't give up 
> hope.  The almost-unmanageable flood of newbie posts to the Asterisk 
> lists in the last two months or so is evidence that success is 
> sometimes more of a headache than one would want.
>
>
> In short, nothing in the above 4 "worry" items scares me, and Asterisk 
> is and will become the telephony platform of choice for a large 
> percentage of conversions to VoIP in the coming years.  Fret not: 
> you'll be the apache of VoIP soon enough.
>
> JT
>
>
>
>> Asterisk has got to be about the best kept secret in telephony.  I've 
>> seen
>> numerous articles on slashdot about VoIP, even in relation to Linux and
>> only *once* has the post even mentioned Asterisk.  Am I missing 
>> something,
>> or is Asterisk clearly a good potential player in any kind of 
>> linux-based
>> soft-switch idea?
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Dave Cotton wrote:
>>
>>>  For those who don't wake up at 5.00 am and start reading /.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid7_gci935769,00.html 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  --
>>
>>  > Dave Cotton <dcotton at linuxautrement.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>