[Asterisk-Users] Suggestions, questions

[Brad]

Greetings,

I am new to Asterisk and would like some suggestions on
hardware requirements for a bundled multiservice solution-

We would like to offer bundled voice/data services to
Internet clients using VoIP and Asterisk.  We would probably
bring in a PRI T1 from the PSTN to connect to a Asterisk box
with a dual/quad T1 card.  A second box would provide voice
mail access.  Does anyone know of any good voice
mail/autoattendant software for linux which is open source
that supports VoIP? Idealy- this box would be dedicated for
voice mail only and not need any FXO ports as all call
handling would be done with VoIP or similar.  Does Asterisk
support voice mail and/or auto-attendant yet?  Next would be
a service termination point for clients.  For new clients,
using a box with Asterisk and a few FXS ports (as needed)
should be fine.  We can take care of handing the QOS of VoIP
on their service to ensure top-quality voice services over
their existing IP.  Some of our clients would use the FXS
card which can be inserted in to their existing cisco
2600's, so compatibility between the Cisco and Asterisk box
would be required.  In addition, we would like to provision
serveral FXS ports as a outsourced PBX system for new
clients with a t1 channel bank or similar.  This way, we can
simply insert to the existing analog system(s) without any
special IP Phones, etc.  We would also, obviously, like to
provision PRI T1's directly to clients from the service
termination points.  When we lite a building, a Asterisk box
would be included which can support the provisioning of PRI
circuits to clients, utilizing the existing IP infastructure
to deploy the new voice services.  One last thing- how does
Asterisk support '911'/emergency bypass on-site for a remote
asterisk deployment?  Would the asterisk box just need a FXO
port and POTS line plugged in to it?  What kind of
configuration considerations would need to take place for
that?

So - I am just wondering if Asterisk will do the above, and
what kind of hardware is recommended by the users for PRI
(which support FXO and FXS), and the hardware required for
any 911 bypass stuff.

How does provisioning with Asterisk work for multi-user
support?  Is everything stored in .conf files, or can it
read from a database, etc?  Does Asterisk need to be
restarted or reloaded or instructed to re-read changed .conf
files?  If some action to reload .conf files *is* required,
what are the side-effects of such action?  Do calls get
interrupted or put on hold or anything?  Does Asterisk
support RADIUS Accounting or any other Accounting method
(mainly to track long distance and local usage - stats are
HUGE for us)?

What kind of maintenance does a Asterisk box typically
require?  Any special log/file or process management
required?

I know this is a rather large list of questions- I thank
everyone in advance who has read this far or who take a few
minutes to try and answer one or two or all of them :)

Thanks!
Brad