[Asterisk-Users] Planning "hotel" phone system - Need input

[Scott Laird]

On Jan 17, 2005, at 10:20 PM, tech at thefalls.bc.ca wrote:
> - What size server will I need?  Assume for now a pair of quad-T1 
> cards, 2 T1s
> incoming, and 5 channel banks.  Shouldn't require much horsepower 
> since it's T1
> <-> T1 switching

You might want to consider breaking this up a bit, just for ease of 
reliability and maintenance.  If everything's all on one box, then it's 
impossible to do maintenance without taking out *everything*.  If you 
divide it up a bit, then you can take down half of your external lines 
at a time, probably without losing any real functionality.

> - Can I get my NMS AG-T1/E1 card working with Asterisk for tinkering 
> purposes?

Probably not.

> - What kind of uptime am I going to expect on Asterisk?  Am I going to 
> have to
> reboot the server every 2 weeks?  Can I hope for carrier class service?

In my experience, you should see similar reliability to other 
Linux-based network services once you get things up and running.  Which 
is to say, I'd expect uptimes of 1-10 months, depending on usage levels 
and security upgrades.  That's not carrier-class, though.

> - Is it possible to change extensions on the fly?  For example, this 
> week 555-
> 1111 rings in unit #10.  Next week theres a different tenant, so i 
> want to make
> 555-2222 ring in unit #10, and send 555-1111 to voicemail.  Some kind 
> of GUI to
> accomplish this would also be nice.

That's pretty easy.  The user interface for it will be tricker, but the 
back-end logic is really simple.

One other thing to consider--the useful lifespan of an Asterisk system 
is probably somewhere around 5 years.  After that, you'll probably want 
to replace it with something newer, even if it's just Asterisk running 
on newer, faster PCs.  During those 5 years, you'll probably need to 
replace a hard drive or two, and maybe one or two other components, 
like power supplies.  You'll probably also want to install security 
upgrades from time to time.  Asterisk is a powerful system, but it 
requires some amount of ongoing maintenance, and that's something that 
you'll probably want to factor into your plans.  You can't just install 
it and then leave it alone for years at a time, unlike some cheap phone 
systems.  The payback for that is that it's vastly more capable and 
generally a lot cheaper then competing solutions.


Scott