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Thanks to everyone for the responses. I really appreciate it. I'll
answer all questions and suggestions in this one email. (at the
bottom)<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/14/2013 9:43 AM, Nunya Biznatch
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:51BB3A21.9000903@ihearbanjos.com" type="cite">Howdy
All,
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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).
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
System will use G.722 for VoIP Phones.
<br>
<br>
So there's the groundwork. Here's the hardware plan.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
First the layout.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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...
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
1-Desktop for administration of everything. Provided from
corporate. Basic Desktop.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
OS of choice is Debian. Primarily because it appears to have the
best availability for non-Internet installations.
<br>
<br>
<br>
Now the Infrastructure
<br>
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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...
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
Thanks in advance for your review and consideration...!!!
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
Daniel Asked:<br>
<pre wrap="">"So why use g722? Just use your local g711 law and thus avoid the
transcoding impact to/from the PSTN and calls between the voip and analog
users."</pre>
Answer - Wideband codec is a requirement. This is a value-added
expected from the user-base.<br>
<br>
Daniel Asked:<br>
<pre wrap="">"And why would you seperate the PBX and PRI machines? Those few extra
channels don't really matter."
Answer - There's a couple reasons I'm thinking this way, which may be misguided so thanks for making me think about it. First is redundancy. Offloading the PRIs and analog phones from the primary PBX means if there's an issue, I can take one of those PRI boxes down and not affect the PBX, and the other PRI box will continue to provide trunking services. Only the analog lines on that specific PRI box would be impacted. Second, I know I'll be transcoding G.711 to G.722 on those machines, 46 PRI channels, and 48 analog lines. I've been unable to find anything solid that gives me a definitive idea as to how much horsepower I need. I'd rather find out I have too much then decommission one of these servers down the road, than to not have enough and kill the entire system. Where I work, Asterisk is a massive paradigm shift that'll be attacked every time there's a problem from all angles from every vendor and salesman, in addition to the internal Cisco crowd, so it must be rock solid. I did
n't think this was the place to take that risk. Finally, is my own ignorance. Both PRI boxes will service the active PBX. I don't have the knowledge to put half the PRI cards in one PBX, the other half in the other, then have the trunks from the inactive PBX serve the active. I know I'll figure it out once I've had the opportunity to get deep into it in a live environment, but there's still the desire to be able to drop the computer that serves the PRI without impacting the PBX.
Steve Wrote:
"<a href="http://red-fone.com/products-new/fonebridge/">http://red-fone.com</a> might
be a good place look and see if other ideas pop up. They have good
products. I am not affiliated with them, just a happy user on a couple
of deployments. "
Answer - I'd looked at Redfone previously. My concern with them was cost, functionality, and their website makes them seem a little stand-offish and looking for long-term monies. If I offloaded my PRIs to two dual-PRI foneBridge's (to retain redundancy), I'd still need at least one server for the analog ports. Also, I'd need to purchase a 3rd foneBridge as a cold spare. ...and maybe they have total solutions for all that, but they're not forthcoming via their website. Their website looks as if they're trying every avenue to get me to call them so they can pimp their wares. Limited Documentation, no manuals, nothing. It's all "contact us for more information". I translate this to mean, "We'll sell it to you with high-pressure tactics. Then, once you own it, we're going to sell you a support plan and not talk to you unless you have it." Maybe all of that is completely untrue, but there's no way for me to tell, and I'm not one who's willing to find out. Actions speak louder than words.
I understand they need to make money, but their website reflects their style, and they aren't the style I work well with. Oh, and they insist on ssh with root/su privileges. Ain't gonna happen.
Terry Wrote:
"<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Another
option instead of 2 servers dedicated as PRI gateways is to use
AudioCodes Mediant 1000 or 2000 gateways. Either of them will also
failover to a backup proxy if the primary proxy (server) is offline.
Probably much cheaper than the kick ass box you plan to build + PRI
card(s).<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">I’m
not affiliated either, but we do place them in our 911 call
centers. They have analog gateways as well for FXO & FXS
devices."</span>
<br>
<br>
Answer - I hadn't seen these guys before. Thanks. Unfortunately, I
see them doing the same thing as RedFone. They appear to have the
information, but require me have an account and login to get to it.
I don't want to find myself beholden to any hardware vendor. I went
to register for access, but they want a specific business
relationship noted. This is a red-flag for me. We're already in a
relationship with Mitel where we can't get anything done without
going through local support Mitel mandates to us as part of the
service contract. There is only one company in the area that is a
Mitel service provider, and they are less than worthless. As far as
cost, I'm trying to see the numbers, but I'm not having much luck
making them fit since there's nowhere I can find at quick guide that
will let me build what I need. The server I plan to build is around
$1600. That includes RAID 10 with battery backup on RAID, 8GB ECC
memory. E3-1230 processor. All brand name stuff and motherboard
recommended. Add a single dual-span digium card (not promoting, just
example) with echocancelling, and I'm looking at around $2900.
Closest replacement to that I can find in AudioCodes is the M600/2
span. Looks like it's hovering at around $3500. Yes there are many
more moving parts in the server, and there is the entire unknown
about piecing together a system that makes me uncomfortable, but
spares are pennies that can be spread across all servers vs. a cold
spare for the M600 and I'd still need spares for the PBX.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Thanks again to everyone. It's making me think and work through the
issues and concerns, which is what I needed.<br>
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