[asterisk-users] Hardware suggestions

[Jeff LaCoursiere]

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, Mike wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
>
> I`m looking for reliable and redundant hardware for Asterisk.  I`ve been
> leaning towards buying one of these (HP 360 G5 with everything as redundant
> as possible), which I know will be good enough for a few months before
> needing to upgrade:
>
> http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/en/WF05a/15351-15351-3328412-241644-241
> 475-1121486.html
>

You can reliably run asterisk on just about any x86 hardware.  You don't 
mention what kind of stresses you are going to put on it, so your sizing 
questions are impossible to answer.  How many extensions?  How many 
simultaneous calls?  Will you be transcoding?  Routing to/from the PSTN?
What cards will you be putting in the box?  Some cards don't play nicely 
together if forced to share interrupts, for example.

> Questions:
>
> 1) Any reason why I shouldn't? (bad past experience with HP hardware and
> Asterisk for example)
>
> 2) Should I go Quad core or Dual-core?  I will certainly go with two
> processors (to start, simply for redundancy).

I'm shooting from the hip here, but I don't think dual CPU gives you 
redundancy.  If one chip fries I am pretty sure the machine will crash.

>
> 3) When installing the OS (CentOS is what I generally use) should I install
> it 64 bits or 32 bits? (does it even matter for Asterisk?)

Totally depends on what you are planning to do with this box.  If you are 
running for a small office with a handful of extensions and a couple of 
analog POTS lines, you could potentially use a Celeron with 128MB of RAM 
and a 1GB hard drive (I have a few of these running myself!).  If you are 
planning to serve several hundred simultaneous calls you have a lot more 
to think about.

j