[asterisk-users] I need a second opinion on a new phone system deployment

[Nunya Biznatch]

Thanks again to everyone that's responded thus far. I have once again 
bundled the questions and answers into a single email, and am responding 
below.


On 6/14/2013 9:43 AM, Nunya Biznatch wrote:
> Howdy All,
>    They say opinions are like belly buttons, everybody has one. 
> (that's the "clean" version of the saying). So I'm asking for yours. I 
> hope you see it as a fun exercise.
>
> I'm designing a phone system from the ground up. Will be about 
> 1000-1300 seats mixed 80/20 VoIP/Analog. 58-acre campus environment 
> with 23 buildings. Userbase is emergency services organization, 
> 24/7/365 operation. Down time is not an option, but "blips" are 
> acceptable. Repair time is immediate. We need failover for the 
> failover essentially. However, money is a major factor, so I have to 
> do it all for nothing. So here's what I'm thinking. Please throw in 
> your 2 cents.
>
> Network will be separate for phones. Fiber infrastructure available 
> between buildings as well as copper. Internet access will be limited 
> to a single administrative console on a temporary basis, and then only 
> when remote 3rd party support is required. Access for 3rd party 
> support will be supervised through remote access tools such as VNC, 
> GoToMeeting, etc... etc... System will have zero access to local data 
> network. This means all ancillary support servers such as DHCP, DNS, 
> NTP, FTP, etc...etc... will be specific to the phone system. Yes, I 
> know some responders at this time will become fixated on me gaining 
> this connectivity. It ain't gonna happen. It's not an option. Period, 
> end of story. These are the parameters I must work within. Trying to 
> "fix" that will be a non-starter.
>
> The phone system will upgrade an existing TDM-based system. Mitel 
> SX2000 with NuPoint Voicemail. This will not be a dump-trunk 
> replacement. I expect at least a one to two-year transition, meaning 
> we will have time to find problems,  work bugs, and learn over time, 
> with minimized impacts. It also means we'll be supporting two systems 
> for some time.
>
> PBX is 97% serving your basic phone on the desk. Nothing special. 
> Customers expect the usual list of features. There will be a goodly 
> number of hints required for BLF on maybe 150 phones. There is one 
> office of about 30 phones in a call-center environment that will need 
> that service. They would be considered low volume (but don't tell them 
> that).
>
> My Skills... I am not a Linux kung fu master, but I have built and 
> managed my share of Linux servers on mutiple Linux flavors. I am a 
> DCAA, having been through formal training, and have been playing with 
> Asterisk for years, but always in fits and spurts and never in a live 
> environment so I am by no means a kung fu master there either. I have 
> started dabbling with virtualizations via XEN, but I am not 
> comfortable enough with it to go live this first round. I can see 
> myself implementing it in about three years once we're totally 
> comfortable with what we have, so I can then have time to get that 
> skill sorted. I was a network engineer for the US no3. telecom for a 
> number of years, 10-years in comm-electronics in the military before 
> that. Telecom my entire career. I've got the kung-fu to handle the 
> network side of the house, and having administrated multiple PBXs for 
> decade-plus, I've got the concepts down.
>
> No plans to build databases for things like directories, etc... I'm 
> not greatly confident in those skills, and to date, haven't found 
> anything that really stands out that would make me require that. You 
> may think otherwise, so please chime in. I say that, but at the same 
> time I recognize I may require a GUI interface once fully deployed to 
> allow lower-skilled people to follow the motions to complete simple 
> moves, adds, and changes. I'm fighting the uphill battle that is the 
> "GUI is new, CLI is old" mentality.
>
> System will use G.722 for VoIP Phones.
>
> So there's the groundwork. Here's the hardware plan.
>
> Plan is to build my own servers following industry standards (ATX) and 
> using industry standard equipment. Why? Spares? Whether redundant or 
> not, I will still have spares for the most common elements on the 
> shelf so equipment can be returned to service as quickly as possible. 
> This will also allow me to be comfortable with more "basic server" 
> configurations and help keep cost down. For example, Servers with 
> single power supplies vs. dual. Also, components will be standardized 
> for all equipment to aid in supply requirements.
>
> First the layout.
>
> 2-servers acting as gateways. Each handling 2 PRIs for outside trunks. 
> They'll also handle the analog ports. Failover will be in the form of 
> degraded trunk access if one should fail, but the second will be able 
> to support services in degraded fashion.
>
> 2-servers acting as VoIP PBX. A primary and a spare. Meaning one will 
> be capable of handling the load of the entire system, and the other 
> will pickup when the other dies, an active/passive cluster. Will also 
> take care of voicemail. Use of heartbeat, pacemaker, etc... etc...
>
> 2-servers for support services. DNS, DHCP, FTP, NTP, etc... 
> etc...Basically, everything the phones need to run plus system 
> monitoring via something like Nagios.
>
> 1-Desktop for administration of everything. Provided from corporate. 
> Basic Desktop.
>
> Looking at Intel Xeon E3-1230 ivy-bridge processors. 8GB DDR 1333 for 
> Gateways and 16GB for PBX and support servers. 1TB drives in RAID 10 
> via LSI 3ware 9650 cards for PBX, 250GB for Gateways. Supermicro 
> X9SCM-F mobo.
>
> OS of choice is Debian. Primarily because it appears to have the best 
> availability for non-Internet installations.
>
>
> Now the Infrastructure
>
>
> 2-network switches in the phone room. Each set of "primary" servers to 
> one, and "secondary" servers to the other, and each switch connected 
> to the other. Each switch will have a different path to the network. 
> RTSP implemented for dual path to the campus. Only one location on 
> campus will have or require dual paths to the network.
>
> Most buildings on campus have cat-3 for voice installed in the 
> mid-90s. Wired at the same time as the data network, I can generally 
> conclude they're the same length. It's terminated to 110-blocks on 
> walls. Some cabling is only 2-pair. I know I will find surprises. 
> Essentially, I plan to re-use this cable, knowing in some 
> circumstances I will need to make special patch cables. These 
> connections will be forced to 10BaseT at the switch.
>
> I require PoE to the wire closets, no power sourced at the desktop. I 
> require a minimum eight-hours emergency power which will be in the 
> form of UPS in most cases. Why so much backup? Well if you ask, we can 
> start a new discussion about NEBS compliance, E911 Federal, local, and 
> state requirements, etc... etc...
>
> So why not use existing data network? The current data network 
> consists primarily of 10+ year-old 100BaseT switches, no PoE. Barely 
> any backup power. I don't believe they're using QoS. The network 
> office is a separate department from the phone office. I question 
> their skills, and above all, network folks treat phones like 
> computers, not like multi-million dollar lawsuits when they don't work 
> in an emergency. We could make another thread out of this huh? To use 
> existing data network would require hundreds of thousands in Cisco 
> 6500 and 4500 series switches. Network has already stated they'd want 
> phone on separate ports from computer, and I agree. (Yet another 
> thread). Thousands of computers across 23 buildings, and it must be 
> Cisco by corporate policy, where phone is a different animal that 
> doesn't have this limitation. You can see we're talking hundreds of 
> thousands in just switching gear. Then UPS requirements to support a 
> big hog of a switch vs a teeny 48-porter w/PoE, and you just cranked 
> up one-time and long term cost for that as well. Trying to replace the 
> network to support the phones is cost prohibitive and a non-starter. 
> Maybe we can talk about it in 5 years once they've replaced everything.
>
> I plan to purchase lower-cost Layer-2 smart switches from vendors such 
> as DLink, Xyxel, Dell, etc... Many players in the market for 48-port 
> switches with PoE and multiple SFP.
>
> I think that's probably enough... I apologize for the large email but 
> I couldn't think of a better way to get a qualified peer opinion 
> without laying out the facts.
>
> Thanks in advance for your review and consideration...!!!
>

*Michelle Wrote*
"For redundant/failover of Asterisk checkout HAAST at 
www.generationd.com <http://www.generationd.com> The HAAST product sits 
between Linux and Asterisk, monitors for failures etc, and then fails 
over to another Asterisk box.  It effectively creates a low-cost 
cluster, moving IP's etc to active peer.  It runs with most Linux and 
Asterisk distro's, and avoids the issues of single point of failure. etc."

*Then Carlos Wrote*
"Interesting product that I was very interested in, but the licensing 
has one huge glaring problem.  Be sure to read the FAQ carefully.  If 
your hardware fails and you replace almost anything in the machine, you 
have to pay for the product again."

*Then Chris Wrote*
"Not to mention that installing Pacemaker/Heartbeat/Corosync or your 
other HA solution of preference isn't particularly difficult, and is 
agreeably free. "

*Answer to All - *Michelle, I sincerely appreciate the response. 
However, I tend to lean toward what Chris is saying usually because I'll 
try the low cost option first if it appears viable. I do that in-part, 
because of the little "Gotchas" commercial software tends to have such 
as the one Carlos mentioned. I've looked at the product before, but not 
closely since I knew there was something out there for essentially free 
that may do the job. If I get into it and down the road determine I need 
something more or more refined, I would look at commercial options.


*Phillip Wrote*
"Have you given thought about how users are to access their voicemail, 
change their forwarding and look into the called/received list of calls 
status? For all these things you are likely to need a web interface, 
which means your phone network will need to have at least a defined 
bridge between the data network and the phone network."

*Answer - *Yes. It's all going to be accomplished at the phone, just as 
they are currently accustomed to. No UC can even be considered. Even our 
current voicemail supports fax and voicemail to email, but we can't use 
it due to the separation of data network from phone. I hope in the 
future, once this system is deployed and running smooth, I can look 
toward convincing the network folks a little pipe between the two isn't 
going to hurt. This is one of the things that excites me about Asterisk. 
It seems like you could add a new feature every six months for the next 
ten years. Unlike today where you get what you get, then you don't throw 
a fit. ...and pay for it.


*Phillip Wrote
*"And then you will need to give a lot of thought about how to do the 
provisioning. What phone type/model are you planning to employ?"

*Answer - *I'm leaning toward Polycom Soundpoint. They have the most 
complete range of products and accessories available. I've tested an 
Aastra 57i, Cisco 7962, Mitel 5320, and a number of the Polycoms. Every 
single phone has their limitations. I've got to give credit to Mitel 
here. They have the absolute best phones I've run into thus far, and 
accessories such as cordless handsets that nobody else has considered. 
However, they're a closed product, with no support for plugging into a 
non-Mitel switch, and they want to charge for licensing and firmware. 
Bummer. I've considered the Digium products, and they look very solid, 
but I need sidecars. Aastra 57i I really like, but they use that 
non-wideband, wideband instead of true G.722. I think I could live with 
that, but their handset sounded like I was talking in a tunnel. Cisco 
makes a nice phone, and would trick the users into thinking they're 
driving a Cadillac when the reality is it's nothing but a glitzed-out 
Chevy, but the Cisco's require extra work up-front to convert them to 
SIP that I'd just as soon avoid, and to be legal I need to buy a 
SmartNet contract for each phone similar to Mitel. I have to submit to 
public bid my specifications, then let the market sort out what vendor 
I'm left with, but I have my favorites. I would like to support any 
phone a customer wants, but that would be an insane nightmare to manage. 
In any case, the evil plan is to use the servers providing all the 
ancillary services as my phone servers as well, storing the configs, etc...


*Phillip Wrote
*"Keeping the gateway machine speparated from the PBX is a very good 
decision: If you intend to used PCI(e) cards then you will once in a 
while get into driver issues hell, and there are might be older Asterisk 
version that work well with the drivers, yet your PBX Asterisk requires 
for whatever reasons a newer Asterisk version."

*Answer - *Call it crotchety old phone guy that makes me want to have 
trunks separate from PBX. If you're gunnin' for 5-9's, you're not gonna 
get it if you have to kill the entire switch every time you want to work 
on the trunks. Thanks for the validation. Thanks for the heads up on the 
cards. My plan is to get a solid system, then leave upgrades to 
something like every couple years unless it's critical security. I say 
that, but I know the geek-side of me wants to have the newest, biggest, 
baddest, fastest driver I can dump onto it. It's a bad habit to get 
into. Three years between upgrades seems to be a fairly accepted 
practice in the phone world.


*Phillip Wrote
*"Personally I would look very closly at Patton gateways, though, PCI 
cards I cannot really recommend do the never-ending driver quests, 
version issues and other OS dependencies."

*Answer - *Thanks for the recommendation. I've used Patton products in 
the past and have been happy. However, I look, and man they seem to be 
pricey. Competitive to the other appliances I've looked at, but more 
costly than what I'm looking at doing short-term. I may find myself 
looking to make life easier in the future by replacing a couple server 
boxes with appliances, but in the short-term, I've got to keep it as low 
cost as possible since it will be a big purchase. I know I'm trading 
labor for cost, but where I work, my labor is "free".


*Daniel Wrote*
"If you do it correctly (g722 as primary codec and fallback to g711) and 
only accept g711 on the pri machines it costs you next to nothing. You 
can't buy a new machine to slow for the job of filling those channels by 
just bridging. But like others noted, you should really look into some 
device to handle that for you. My choice of hardware is Patton 
SmartNodes. They aren't cheap but in the past 8 years I have only seen 1 
die (bad PSU)."

*Answer - *Thanks for the second response. If you see some glaring 
ignorance in my email please let me know. I've not been able to try this 
out in real life, so maybe you're seeing something I'm missing. Yup, 
those gateway boxes will have no other job than to accept analog from 
analog phones, or G.711 from the PRI, then convert it all to G.722, then 
push it up to the PBX. My assumption, and maybe where I'm messing up, is 
the PBX would merely passthru at that point unless it was voicemail. 
Does that sound right? Essentially, I'm transferring the job of 
transcoding to the gateway boxes, and leaving the PBX and voicemail work 
to the PBX.


*Daniel Wrote
*"You didn't mention it yet, but will there be recordings of calls? 
Monitoring calls will keep the PBX in the loop. And I have been stung by 
bad controllers resulting in bad performance (HP cciss comes to mind 
with Debian/squeeze)."

*Answer - *No regular recording. Case by case basis only, then only one 
or two. ...and you just touched on one of my concerns as well. I've 
built my large share of servers and desktops, and I know how you can 
always do your best, but you'll never truly know how all the parts work 
together until you plug it all in. Heck, as you noted, you can't even 
trust commercial products completely. I would much prefer to test the 
waters by purchasing and building one of these machines, then let it run 
in a live environment for six months while I throw everything I can at 
it, but the office thinks I need to just get the thing done. So I'm 
banking on the fact that if I screw up the combination, it's going to be 
one particular part that I can easily replace for relatively little money.


Sincere Thanks once again to everyone who has responded. It's been a 
great help.

>
>
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