[Asterisk-Users] Is it possible to push the media processing off to a gateway for processing?

[John Todd]

If you are considering such a service, you need to develop a more 
thorough understanding of VoIP protocols and methods for load 
distribution.  To echo what Stephen Critchfield said to someone else 
just a few hours ago: it's not simple, and you'll probably need a 
consultant.  After you've spent some time designing and discussing, 
you'll probably be able to do it yourself next time but to try this 
from scratch is probably a very long trial-and-error effort.

The short answer to your question for your research is: use load 
sharing and SIP redirects to spread load across multiple boxes, and 
yes, asterisk configs can be pulled from mysql in various ways - dig 
through the distribution for details.

JT


>Well, I like the features asterisk gives me such as voicemail and IVR,
>Prompts, etc.  I would like to offer an IP Centrex like service, but don't
>believe that I can handle very large amounts of users on a box.  The reason
>I believe this is that the box would be doing all the media processing/DSP
>work on the processor and would be bound by the speed and memory of the box
>as to how many simultaneous sessions it could manage.  A gateway has DSP's
>which are designed to handle this processing.  I know they are more
>expensive, but I could handle large amounts of call volume this way and
>still keep the features asterisk offers. 
>
>Another question I also meant to ask was having the ability to read
>extensions from a database instead of a .conf file.  I was curious if anyone
>has asterisk pulling configs from a database like mysql.
>
>Todd
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
>[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of John Todd
>Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 9:05 PM
>To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
>Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Is it possible to push the media processing
>off to a gateway for processing?
>
>>I was wondering if it is possible to have Asterisk push the media
>processing
>>off to something with DSP's such as a gateway?  That way, asterisk just has
>>to handle the call setups and tear downs.
>>
>>Todd Wallace
>
>You mean, like what SIP does by default?  This is an incomplete
>question.  Please be more specific.  If I have a "gateway", and I
>have SIP calls coming in from desktop SIP UA's (hardphones or
>softphones) then Asterisk can simply re-direct those calls to the
>gateway.
>
>Of course, Asterisk _is_ a gateway, so unless you have specific
>reasons for doing so, it would make more sense to use Asterisk to
>tackle those jobs with generic, cheap processing horsepower rather
>than expensive, proprietary DSP's.
>
>If you're just getting Asterisk to handle call setups and teardowns,
>why not just use a real SIP proxy for that?  Or do you not know
>enough about your question to understand why I would differentiate
>between the two?  (not being nasty here, just wondering if I need to
>explain more)
>
>JT
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