[asterisk-users] Which VoIP router and switch to use for medium size business

[Gordon Henderson]

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007, Henry Cobb wrote:

> On 3/10/07, Lacy Moore - Aspendora <aspendora at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/10/07, Henry Cobb <henry.cobb at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > So get a second broadband connection and run only voice on it.
>> 
>> Has anyone tried this?
>> 
>> I have been thinking about this.  We're getting so much spam that I
>> think it's taking up too much of our bandwidth.  I'm wondering how
>> much bandwidth all the script kiddies take up scanning things as well.
>
> That won't be a problem if you've got almost every port blocked at the 
> firewall.

Is is a problem, even blocking ports because by the time the packet gets 
to your firewall, it's already come over the wires to the firewall. Your 
firewall may well just dump it in the bit-bucket, but it's still taken up 
"wire time". Someone flooding large packets to your router really can 
screw you up no-matter what you do on your firewall. This is also why 
inbound QoS is only a reasonable-effort at the best of times...

I've found that spam email is much more a problem than the odd port probe 
though in terms of data flowing through a server/router )-:

> Buy two links of the same size from two different kinds of providers
> and put the tiny trickle of voice on the best link and your hordes of
> data on the non so good link.
>
> Then sign up for two different VoIP providers and use whichever is
> best on your best internet link as your primary with the other as
> backup.
>
> Then all you have to do is ensure that everything on the phone to
> internet route has UPS protection.  (A standby PBX PC wouldn't hurt
> either.)

And then some muppet in a JCB comes long and digs up both wires which are 
in the same trench ;-)

Gordon