[Asterisk-Users] Re: [Serusers] SER IP PBX for multiple clients

[Waldo Rubinstein]

lqbal,

I do plan on having alot of users. Two markets I'm trying to get some  
volume users from are: residential consumers and business users.  
Residential consumers should get basic line services such as their  
own DID, voicemail, caller-id, call-waiting, three-way calling, and  
basically, all the standard features you get from companies like  
Vonage, etc. This particular market base will have a higher volume  
than business users.

Business users will get everything residential consumers get, plus  
additional features. Features such as, automated attendant, extension- 
to-extension calling, company directories, etc.

I guess I would need to have SER and Asterisk work in tandem. Now,  
what should be the correct approach in assigning responsibilities to  
both SER and Asterisk respectively? Should SER be used strictly as  
proxy to Asterisk, may be also registrar, and NAT helper, and then  
have Asterisk handle all the calling plans, features, enhanced  
services and SER will simply forward everything to Asterisk? Can you  
or someone advise as to what would be the more robust/scaleable  
architecture to deploy this? Needless to say, it is imperative that I  
get proper CDR from either one or both systems in order for me to  
properly bill our users. I don't know which of the two platforms has  
a more robust/customizable call logging facility.

I took the liberty of cross-posting to the Asterisk list in order to  
get some of their feedback as well.

Thanks,
Waldo

On Aug 23, 2005, at 6:49 AM, Iqbal wrote:

> Um..no actually I am saying you could combine both, but that will  
> only help if you have alot of users. I guess you could direct calls  
> to a particular sip client, ut normally when ser and asterisk work  
> in tandem, all calls from SER hit one section of sip.conf, and  
> hence can only be pointed to one context, you can get around this  
> by including contexts from this default one, which is what I do,  
> based upon a mysql lookup, but then you will have problems in call  
> pickup, because all pickup is not context based, again there is a  
> solution to this, if you look at bristuff patch for asterisk.
>
> If you dont have many users stick with ust asterisk, if you want to  
> scale you may need to kludge something with ser and asterisk, and  
> this might be easy or hard depending on exacly what you require,  
> and call scenarios.
>
> Iqbal
>
> Waldo Rubinstein wrote:
>
>
>> The way I manage this in Asterisk is every SIP UA has a unique  
>> login  but in different contexts. I suppose that if SER directs a  
>> call to  Asterisk to the specific SIP client, Asterisk will  
>> recognize it  belongs to a different context. The question is, I  
>> don't know if SER  knows about multiple contexts under the premise  
>> of the Asterisk world.
>>
>> Also, I get the feeling you are pretty much telling me to stick  
>> to  Asterisk :) Is that so?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Waldo
>>
>> On Aug 22, 2005, at 3:26 PM, Iqbal wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> If you are already using multiple contexts within asterisk, then   
>>> your already half way there, the problem is if you stick in SER,   
>>> bcause then  your phones are not registered in asterisk, hence  
>>> all  fall into the same context in sip.conf, which means they  
>>> all  will  hit  one context in extensions.conf, hence you should  
>>> look into that.
>>>
>>> I am not sure if you can do the 101/102 extension thing in   
>>> asterisk, since aliases will be bound to a contact, whereas in   
>>> asterisk the context is also part of the dialing plan.
>>>
>>> DID can be done, as can forking and directing to voicemail on no   
>>> answer.
>>>
>>> Iqbal
>>>
>>> Waldo Rubinstein wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I'm still trying to learn more about SER. I've been using  
>>>> Asterisk  to  manage virtual PBX services for different  
>>>> companies by using  multiple  contexts within Asterisk. However,  
>>>> since I only use  Asterisk with SIP  UAs and to communicate with  
>>>> ITSPs, I don't have  the need to have all  the fancy features  
>>>> Asterisk offers, plus I  have the additional  advantage of  
>>>> having the built-in NAT support  in SER.
>>>>
>>>> The question  I have is if someone can point me to the right   
>>>> place  where I can see some sample configs that do more or less   
>>>> the things I  need or if someone would be willing to share some  
>>>> of  those configs on  the list.
>>>>
>>>> Basically, I need to have the ability to manage any number of   
>>>> virtual  PBX services where each virtual entity can manage  
>>>> their  own extension  numbering, DIDs, outbound CLID. I would  
>>>> probably  just continue using  Asterisk for voicemail services  
>>>> since I get  the feeling that SEMS is  still "unstable" to go  
>>>> into production,  even for voicemail services  only (unless told  
>>>> otherwise).
>>>>
>>>> The idea is that even if two companies define two extensions  
>>>> 101  and  two extensions 102, when each company calls ext 101 or  
>>>> 102   internally, the call will be maintained within that  
>>>> company and  would  not cross over to the other company. Also,  
>>>> having features  like one  main number (DID) that could ring in  
>>>> multiple  extensions  simultaneously (forking) and if no one  
>>>> answers, leave  a message in  the general mailbox, or that each  
>>>> extension could  have, additionally,  a DID so that they can be  
>>>> reached directly  from the outside.
>>>>
>>>> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Waldo
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Serusers mailing list
>>>> Serusers at iptel.org
>>>> http://mail.iptel.org/mailman/listinfo/serusers
>>>>
>>>> .
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> .
>>
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