[Asterisk-Users] SIP Subscriptions

[Douglas Garstang]

Well, I know I will be attacked for saying this, as cursed are those who say anything bad about Asterisk, but for an application that is 'enterprise-grade' as Digium tourts, it has several flaws that IMHO disqualify it as 'enterprise-grade'. I mean, really, c'mon... think about it... an application that doesn't support the use of a database for common location/registration information is hardly 'enterprise-grade'. Just off the top of my head, other disqualifiers would be:
 
1. SIP subscriptions are stored in memory and cleared when you do a 'reload'. So, if you make any configuration changes and 'reload' you lose all your BLF lights. People take this stuff for granted and expect it to work.
 
2. No common SIP registration information. Not even using realtime with SIP users, which doesn't work, there's no way outside this to share location info between more than one (ie 'enterprise-grade') Asterisk systems.
 
3. The 'Dial' application seem to have very limited ability to be able to determine what SIP response it gets back from a peer. "Not Found", "Busy", "Moved" etc. I know Asterisk isn't a SIP proxy, but without the ability to check the SIP message status in a dial, it makes redundancy very very difficult. Redundancy is normally an important part of 'enterprise-grade'. Without this, how do you get upstream redundancy? I have something working right now, but it isn't pretty!
 
4. DNS SRV lookups aren't implemented properly. Another important part of redundancy and 'enterprise-grade' software.
 
Before you all go ripping my head off and defecating down my neck for saying anything bad about Asterisk (well CF can, I expect that), this is just my opinion based on real world frustrations with Asterisk. These are intended to be constructive criticisms.
 
Maybe some from Digium will read this email and it will make a 0.001% contribution towards some of these things being fixed. Oh, and no... I can't switch to another solution. The decision was made above my head to go with Asterisk. It's my job to make it do all that 'enterprise-grade' stuff.
 
Doug.
 

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: pdhales at optusnet.com.au [mailto:pdhales at optusnet.com.au] 
	Sent: Tue 12/20/2005 8:02 PM 
	To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Re: Re: [Asterisk-Users] SIP Subscriptions
	
	

	> C F <shmaltz at gmail.com> wrote:
	>
	> On 12/20/05, Douglas Garstang <dgarstang at oneeighty.com> wrote:
	> > Digium needs people like me, if they read this list that is. They sure
	> don't seem to be able to make real-world functionality decisions on
	> their own.
	> >
	>
	> You are so right, how did we do without you the last few
	> years???????????
	
	By living on baked beans and cabbage.
	
	PaulH
	_______________________________________________
	--Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com --
	
	Asterisk-Users mailing list
	To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
	   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users