[asterisk-users] network design philosophy and practice

[Kristian Kielhofner]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Drew Gibson <drew at oanda.com> wrote:
> Bill Michaelson wrote:
>> I'm wondering how prevalent the practice of physically segregating
>> voice and data networks is in the Real World.
>>
>> What are the factors that typically lead to such a decision?
>> DIscussions of pros and cons are most welcome by me.
>>
>> Experiences, anybody?
>>
>
> We chose to go with a segregated network and certainly don't regret the
> choice. Voice and data are on separate ports at the desk, avoiding QoS
> issues completely and reducing confision amongst users who still expect
> separate Phone and Computer plugs on the wall.
> The traffic does run through the same switches and inter-switch trunks
> but always on distinct VLANs.
>
> My experience with connecting the desktop computer through the phone has
> been very poor. Audio breaks up when the computer does large data transfers.
>
> "Yes, Sir. I'll just look that up in our
> datab...ba....ba.....ba....sssss.....ssssss......ssssss......se"
>
> In addition our users require gigabit to the desktop. The phones are 100Mb.
>
> Worst part is the few Cisco phones we have insist on "searching for
> VLAN" (which doesn't exist) for 5 minutes on startup. Hopefully they
> will be replaced through attrition but despite being over-priced,
> over-featured and proprietary, Cisco do build robust kit. Sigh.....
>
> regards,
>
> Drew
>

Drew,

  Disable CDP on the phone and that will go away.  I know you said
you're not using VLANs but...

  You can use CDP and set your voice-vlan on Cisco switches.  Or...
you can install cdp-tools on a Linux box and have it advertise a voice
vlan for you!

http://gpl.internetconnection.net/

  I added the voice vlan support to cdp-tools. ;)

-- 
Kristian Kielhofner
http://blog.krisk.org
http://www.submityoursip.com
http://www.astlinux.org
http://www.star2star.com