[Asterisk-Users] Re: Hardware for handling large call volume

[Tom]

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004, John Todd wrote:

...
> My rule of thumb has been 100 G.729 channels for a dual 3.0ghz Xeon
> machine.  Cost: around $42 per channel (I buy SCSI systems with RAID,
> and that includes the $10 charge for the G.729 license.)  Your
> mileage may vary in both performance and price.  Cost for an
> AS5300-style solution: around $110 per channel, and that's on the
...

  I'm very interesting in a good per channel price, but $42 vs. $110 does
not seem to be comparing apples to apples.  You say the Asterisk system is
$4200 (100 x $42), less the $1000 for the G.729a license (100 x $10),
which works out to $3200 for hardware.  A Digium quad T1 card is about
$1500, meaning the server is around $1700?  Can you actually get a dual
Zeon 3Ghz with SCSI and RAID for $1700?  I assuming that you have at least
a GB of RAM installed, possibly more for 100 sessions.

  Now a Cisco HDV-2T1-48 card is $3500, with dual T1s and loaded with DSP
daughtercards.  That works out to $76/channel, and you need a free NM port
on a Cisco router to install it into.  It is certainly more expensive than
your $42/channel Asterisk setup, but for small sites is possibly less than
a Cisco AA5300, especially if you can install it into an existing router.

Tom