[Asterisk-Users] IVR only system with scalibility with asterisk???

[PJ Welsh]

Top posting only:

This is great info. A couple of you have already replied with very helpfull and usefull information. Thank you very much!!

I am very excited to hear that I can test without purchasing the hardware. I googled and found a IAXClient at http://iaxclient.sourceforge.net/. Is that the program you mean?

It looks like * is a very good sofware to pursue and very powerfull (and fairly inexpensive) when hooked up with the Digium cards. I will download and begin trying *. I will likely just place an order for a single analog card just to get the ball rolling very soon.

I still would like to hear more about how people are integrating * with external scripts. It was mentioned that the docs may be a little sparse... examples would be GREAT (said in the voice of Tony Tiger).

On Thu, Sep 04, 2003 at 01:15:11PM -0500, Steven Critchfield wrote:
> 
...my original post deleted
> First you need to decide on how many ports you will need, how important
> ease of scalability is. For the number of ports, you need to decide how
> much tolerance you have for the people remotely to deal with a busy
> signal. So far you mentioned 45 people making 3-4 calls a day over a ~8
> hour day. The quick math says that 45 people with 4 calls is 180 calls a
> day. In a 8 hour day you have 480 minutes. From 480 minutes 1 port could
> handle the load if the call was under 2.5 minutes long and everyone
> waited till it became available. My guess is you don't want people on
> redial that often and waiting for the port to come open. Next, you move
> on to what is the acceptable idle amount of service available. If you
> scaled up to say 5 lines, and the call length is short, then you will
> have your service mostly idle, but it can handle peak times better. I'll
> let you continue this line of questioning internally.
> 
> Next to decide on hardware, if you think you may need more than 10
> lines, you need to move to digital trunks. You can start with a T100P
> and a channel bank until your costs justify switching over to a T1. The
> benefit is already having the hardware in hand and used to it while on
> spending a little more short term to get the FXO channel bank that you
> will either sell off later, or convert to FXS for internal extensions if
> you want to switch services. If you already have a PBX in house and can
> drop a T1 interface to you asterisk box, that is good too.
> 
> As for your application. You mention looking into perl modules, so I
> assume you have some perl familiarity. From AGI you can script up any
> database access and prompting you so wish to undertake. Essentially it
> will come out to be something like.
> 
> stream file(prompt)
> while (not enough digits)
> 	wait for digits 
> 	collect dialed digits
> validate(digits) # in this sub is where your database stuff works
> continue? # whatever here you planned on letting happen. 
> 
> 
> all this is easy and cheap. For your quick demonstration, I suggest
> setting up asterisk with a dummy interface, downloading the iaxclient
> and showing that your AGI app would be easy enough to write. You are
> then only into the project for time, but not any parts. Once you have
> that down, you would then purchase the parts needed to complete the
> project from Digium and deploy.
> 
> If you stick with a T100P interface then you should be able to handle
> 500 people with 5 minute calls mainly around the business work time and
> have a small window of safety to not overload the circuits to the point
> you will have busy signals often. If it is likely you could grow beyond
> 500 people soon, you may want to buy the T400P card and be able to
> deploy more digital trunks without taking the system down for more than
> an asterisk restart. 
> 
> -- 
> Steven Critchfield  <critch at basesys.com>
> 
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