[asterisk-users] network design philosophy and practice

[Gordon Henderson]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, 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.

Customer budget and choice...

I've installed in-line phones where there has been one drop point per 
desk, and installed a separate LAN for phones for a customer who wanted 
it. If I were dealing with anything less than a small office, or they 
needed Gb to the desktop, I'd get them to run a 2nd line for phones and 
put them on separate switches.

My biggest in-line client has 25 desks and were on a tight budget when 
they moved offices, so they have phones in-line with their PCs (diskless 
Linux workstations!) and we did some tests at install time and couldn't 
see any issues at the time (or hear any issues!) That was just over a year 
ago, and I was in-touch recently for an anual review and everything was 
going just fine for them.

Not had a pressing need to ever use VLANS (but I typically don't deal with 
clients who want/need that) but putting all the VoIP devices on one bank 
of switches and data on another works very well.

Gordon