[asterisk-users] Billing/Call Control engine : AGI scripts/ AstMan API

[Benjamin Jacob]

Hello ppl,

Have implemented a really nice Billing engine using AGI scripts. So far 
it works fine, tho haven't yet put it in the torture cell.

The AGI scripts have been written in PHP, using MySQL for the billing 
and profile information.
The major disadvantages I see using AGI scripts :
1. A new process(invocation of PHP scripts) on every new call.
2. MySQL connections on every instance of the PHP AGI script. (I am not 
too sure, if connections can be maintained across processes, am no PHP 
guru. I think, if I write in C/C++ can use shared memory for maintaining 
the connection).

So, to overcome these issues, I was thinking of using AstMan APIs along 
with astmanproxy, with the setup being something like this :

Asterisk <---------> astmanproxy <-----------------> Billing 
Engine(control/access)

Has anyone ever tried this?
The one seriously big work with this approach would be to have an FSM 
built into my billing engine, maintaining call states, etc. That seems 
to be quite a daunting task to be done in a short time.

Any ideas anyone?or any similar experiences, in terms of performance, 
scalability, etc. w.r.t both AGI scripts and AstMan API?

TiA
- Benjamin Jacob.






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