[Asterisk-Users] Bandwidth: to seperate or not to seperate

[Rich Adamson]

Inline...

> RE: Bandwidth.  We have an asterisk server sharing bandwidth with other 
> [web] servers in cabinets that we rent in a large data-center and all is 
> working fine.  But I'm concerned that web traffic could affect the VoIP 
> quality (my tests so far haven't showed this [yet!].  Currently I'm 
> running a server with Netfilter (iptables) between all the servers and 
> the Internet with Forward rules and I'm also including a "wondershaper" 
> type QoS ruleset with TC to priortise the outgoing VoIP traffic (I say 
> outgoing because this is really the only thing I can shape on the 
> connection as far as I can see).

If your web server is oriented around simply serving up static pages with
no one "uploading" data to it, then the majority of the web traffic will
be outbound traffic. (eg, user clicks on a link, small amount of inbound
traffic to communicate that click, followed by lots of outbound traffic
reppreenting the new page(s) to be viewed.)

The wondershaper function should prrioritze that mix of traffic just fine.
 
> My choice, going forward, is to either buy more bandwidth and magically 
> implement better QoS or the other option is to bring in a separate patch 
> cable, with separate bandwidth, and a different IP address range 
> directly to the asterisk and dedicate bandwidth to it and it alone.

The above is certainly possible, but probably not the most cost effective
use of total bandwidth. Based on the words provided, the single link
bandwidth should be sized to handle the maximum number of voice channels
to be used plus a small amount for web traffic. 
 
> In a way the sharing of bandwidth with QoS would appear to be the better 
> value option but I can't see that the TC QoS can really be up to the 
> task (again partially this is because I can only control the outgoing 
> traffic shaping - there is nothing I can do about the incoming traffic 
> flooding the bandwidth).

Help us understand exactly what this "incoming traffic flooding the
bandwidth" is suppose to mean. Are you running something else besides web
and voip through this link?  If not, then what is "flooding" your 
bandwidth?