[asterisk-users] Multi-Tenant PBX with Asterisk

[Ishfaq Malik]

On Mon, 2012-07-30 at 15:06 +0530, Kannan wrote:
> Hi
> 
> 
> I came across couple of pointers on the Internet regarding solutions
> available for providing hosted PBX service.
> 
> 
> 1. Multiple PBXs: Using separate hardware to host each PBX. Pretty
> straightforward, but no hosting company wants to use it.
> 2. Multi-tenant PBX: Configuring multiple PBXs within the same
> instance of Asterisk. I.e. partitioning a single instance of Asterisk
> into multiple PBXs by way of configurations, using unique landing
> context for each tenant.
> 3. Virtual PBX: Multiple virtual machines within the same hardware,
> each host an instance of Asterisk.
> 
> 
> Which one of the method above is generally used by hosted PBX service
> providers?
> 
> 
> Isn't the second option with ARA a good choice for dynamic creation of
> multiple "small" PBX tenants?
> 
> 
> Is the last option alone or combination of options 2 and 3 good for
> cloud based hosted PBX service offering?
> 
We use 2 and I'd have to agree with most of what the previous replies
have said. You really need to nail down your conventions and stick to
them. We did this by creating our own custom front end so our
conventions are built in to the front end code.

ARA is really useful for this type of thing. If you're expanding to the
point that you need to add new servers for extra capacity, ARA enables
you to retain all your config on a single (pair of) machine(s). It also
means that, if you have the framework to allow it, your customers can
make changes to their own account themselves.


-- 
Ishfaq Malik <ish at pack-net.co.uk>
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