[Asterisk-Users] Fail over

[El Flynn]

Rich Adamson wrote:
>>No, that's a service, or at least I think it is, the sales garbage obscures
>>what it really is so who knows.
>>
>> What I need is a little box that diverts calls if the PBX goes down.
> 
> 
> FYI, the topic has been discussed previously on the list, and the
> problem that you're trying to address is far more difficult that
> what you might think.
> 
> The issue is... how do you know when the pbx is down?
>  - machine is up, asterisk is down
>  - machine is up, asterisk is up but not responding 
>  - machine is down hard (somewhat easier to address)
> 
> Some of the previous postings noted using a relay to transfer t1's,
> pri's, etc, to a second machine; however, tripping the relay still
> requires some sort of watchdog timer that would sense inactivity.
> There is no code in asterisk to trigger that process today.

Dataprobe makes a range of A/B switches, some with more "intelligence" that you 
might be able to use in this scenario. One of their products (check out 
http://www.dataprobe.com/switch/ab_net.html) has a feature which pings a 
specific IP address, and switches over once it stops getting a response.

Some of their products are programmable too, where you can send TCP messages to 
initiate the switching process. Check out their website for more products.

Flynn

p/s I am in no way related to Dataprobe. This is just some stuff I received from 
them when asking a similar question on the list about six months ago.