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

[Steven Critchfield]

On Thu, 2003-09-04 at 14:10, PJ Welsh wrote:
> 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?

yes. While it isn't ready for prime time use, it is a easy way to start
it up from a windows or OSX system. It works much easier than a SIP or
H323 soft phone. 

> 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.

If you read through the archive you will find that an analog card is
prone to signaling problems. Basically it is not something you would
want to depend upon for a business. Not to mention that is is 1/5th of
the cost of a T100P card that you will probably need to move up to in
the short term to handle the load you will generate during parts of your
day.   

> 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).

There is quite a bit available via the archive. Not to mention there are
a few people on this list that are selling services based on asterisk
and may for a small fee give you a great jump start on hardware and/or
software setup/creation. If you ask directly for this help, I'm sure
someone will contact you shortly to offer assistance.

> 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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> > Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com
> > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
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-- 
Steven Critchfield  <critch at basesys.com>