[Asterisk-Users] asterisk with big number of extentions.

[Rich Adamson]

> We are thinking of making network of about 25000 extension numbers.
> These extension will be SIP phones. Asterisk will be connected to some VoIP 
> gateways through H323 which will allow to
> terminate calls.
> 
> Can Asterisk handle such kind of load?

No problem, as long as none of them make any calls. What you really wanted
to ask is, how many simultanous calls can a single * box handle, and that is 
a function of exactly "how" you configure/engineer it:
  1) sip phones that have canreinvite=yes use * for call setup only
  2) sip phones that have canreinvite=no force the rtp traffic through *
     consuming a greater amount of processing resources
  3) sip phones that are configured with different encoding (codec) schemes
     are forced through some translations somewhere. Is that * in your case?
     If so, see #2.
  4) some sip phones (or adapters) don't handle sip invites very well, and
     must pass all rtp traffic through *. If you use those, see #2.
  5) some sip phones lurking behind NAT boxes require all rtp traffic to
     pass through *. See #2.

> Can it be done on one server?

Probably not given the answer above.

> What kind of server do we need for making it work?

High reliability, fast processor, disk speed less important, high throughput
ethernet, and a good consultant or two to help. ;) See the wiki pages.

To properly engineer "any" pbx, you will have to start with some reasonable
call/traffic statistics, and engineer around those numbers. Asterisk is no
different.

Rich