Transcript Asterisk & VoIP

Asterisk & VoIP
and it’s role in your enterprise
Asterisk?
Open-source software released under the GPL
Sponsored by Digium, the main hardware provider for
POTS interface cards
Digium named in the top 10 open source companies to
watch by networkworld.com
Ports for most *nix systems including Solaris
Ports also available for OSX and Windows
Open standards along with some proprietary protocol
support (like Cisco’s Skinny and MGCP)
Modular plugin type system
Protocols Supported
SIP – Session Initiation Protocol
H.323 – Common in video conferencing
Skinny – Cisco IP Phones default protocol
MGCP – Media Gateway Control Protocol
IAX - Inter-Asterisk Exchange Protocol
Codecs Supported
G.711 – Best voice quality ~100Kbps
G.729 – Good voice quality ~40Kbps
GSM – Acceptable voice quality ~10Kbps
G.722, G.723.1, G.726, iLBC, Linear, LCP-10, Speex
PSTN Interface Support
Analog
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FXO
FXS
E&M (w/ or w/o Wink), Loop start, Ground start, Kewl start
T1
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E&M (w/ or w/o Wink)
Robbed bit
ISDN (PRI & BRI)
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4ESS
Lucent
National
Some international support
Biggest Features
Unified Voicemail
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Voicemail to email (.wav files)
Video Conferencing messages to email (.mpg/.avi files)
Advanced Meetme conferencing - conference bridging
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Web management interface
Support for conference numbers and passwords
Presenter and Presentee support (presenter can mute all participants, etc)
Contact Center Queuing
Interactive Voice Response
Automated Attendant
Video Conferencing (SIP and H.323)
Jabber / Google Talk integration
Find me / Follow me
Out of state DIDs (all VoIP systems)
Call monitoring and recording
Normal PBX Features
Name it, it’s there
Enterprise Features
Unified dialplan across many servers
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SQL Compliant databases (through ODBC)
Native support for Mysql
LDAP integration
DNS SRV records
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Make calling each other easy ([email protected])
Scalability
Load balancing
Phone provisioning
DUNDI – Distributed Universal Number Discovery
Works with SIP proxys to accept large amounts of phone
registrations
AGI – Extend your system using C, C++, Perl, PHP, …
Custom CDR – Used for calling card integration, billing, …
Asterisk Compatible Endpoints
Cisco IP Phones (except IP 7920)
Polycom IP Phones
Snom IP Phones
Avaya IP Phones
Linksys IP Phones
Many others
Asterisk Compatible Gateways
Cisco VoIP Gateways (anything MGCP, SIP, H.323)
Cisco Callmanager (through SIP and H.323)
Patton Smartnode
Asterisk PSTN Interfaces
Digium
 Analog (up to 24 channels on a single PCI card, FXO
and FXS) with hardware echo cancellation
 T1 / PRI / BRI – 1-4 on a single PCI card with
hardware echo cancellation
Sangoma
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Better analog support, but uses more PCI slots (or spaces)
T1 / PRI / BRI – 1-8 on a single PCI card with hardware echo
cancellation
Clear channel DS3
Any SIP / H.323 compliant endpoint
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Cisco x8xx series ISR routers
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Possible Asterisk Configurations
Full PBX
Add small remote sites onto traditional PBX
Trunk Routing Gateway
Toll Bypass Only
Service Component
Full PBX
Traditional PBX with Remote
Offices
Use of Digium appliance
Cisco x8xx routers
Trunk Routing Gateway
Connect a traditional PBX to services like
Sprint SIP Trunking
Toll Bypass Only
Connect Traditional PBXs together over
WAN Links
Service Component
Meetme Conferencing Bridge
Voicemail / Unified Messaging
Add Softphones to non-VoIP PBX
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Drawbacks
No PCI-Express Support (just came out for digital interfaces, still
none for analog interfaces)
Hardware sizing information hard to find
Kernel updates break Digium drivers
PCI Bus sharing can cause significant problems with voice quality
NAT Traversal (common across any SIP system)
Linux system QoS not very mature yet
No VoIP security yet, although planned
Not for *nix beginners
Support
Certifications – dCAP (Digium Certified Asterisk
Professional)
Voip-info.org (VoIP WIKI site)
Commercial support (through Digium)
Partners (certified or un-certified)
Mailing Lists (very active)
User Groups (although none in Boston)
Astricon (Asterisk conference)
Books
Where to start?
www.asterisk.org (Asterisk main page)
www.asterisknow.org (Asterisk and CentOS with full installer)
www.voip-info.org (huge resource for VoIP related projects and
configuration info)
www.digium.com (hardware manufacturer and project sponsor)
Trixbox (formerly Asterisk @ HOME)
User Groups – Find one close or we can try to start one
Books – O’Reilly, Asterisk for Dummies, Asterisk configuration guide, …