[asterisk-users] [Serusers] why combine ser with asterisk

[SIP]

Asterisk is an excellent PBX system, and makes a very good endpoint in 
the SIP chain for all sorts of things -- IVR systems, voicemail 
applications, automated messages, etc.

It has an extremely well-written CDR engine, so many people mesh it with 
billing applications to produce accurate accounting information. It also 
is fully aware of the media stream, which means it's capable of cutting 
off a call mid-stream, injecting audio into the call, etc, etc. 

Programming for Asterisk addons can be easily done in just about any 
language, and it meshes well with the overall structure. Programming for 
SER is... not so simple.

As for running them both on the same box, the biggest problem would be 
resources. Unlike SER, Asterisk is not designed to be a carrier-grade 
SIP proxy. If you're actually proxying the media stream, you'd be 
hard-pressed to squeeze more than 150 simultaneous calls out of Asterisk 
on even the beefiest of hardware. Add SER to the same box, and you will 
quickly run into resource problems in medium-sized environments. It also 
doesn't have a lot of the SIP proxy functionality that SER has.

If you're careful, you can configure Asterisk NOT to handle the media 
stream and still use it for prepaid solutions (using astcc or 
asterisk-b2bua), and this will save you bandwidth (but you'll still 
likely run into NAT issues that need to be dealt with somehow) and still 
let you use Asterisk as an in-between point.

Together, Asterisk and SER make a very powerful combination for 
providing a full suite of services to clientele, and each plays well off 
the other's strengths.

N.



Nhadie wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> What's the advantage of combining ser with asterisk? I always see 
> comments like using ser with asterisk is a very good solution etc. etc.
> the thing i liked with ser is that it does not do codec translation, 
> which saves me cpu usage and also bandwidth. if i combine it with 
> asterisk, would it not use codec translation?
>
> i also read that there is also a problem when ser and asterisk is run on 
> the same machine, why is it so?
> if use prepaid billing solution for asterisk like astcc, would i then be 
> able to provide prepaid service?
>
> soryy for asking too much, i'd just like to really understand it. Thank 
> You in advanced.
>
> Regards,
> Nhadie
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