On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 8:17 AM, Karl Fife <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Mon, 1 Sep 2008 22:01:19 -0400, "Michael Melia Jr." said: >> >> I am looking to implement Asterisk in front of the legacy PBX as the new >> gateway to the PSTN for the company in an effort to begin a slow >> transition to VoIP. While I am familiar with Asterisk when it comes to >> implementing it as a single box solution for PRI, SIP, voicemail, IVR, >> etc, I get a little confused when you start to separate the functions to >> different boxes for redundancy and scalability. >> > > We're doing something similar, except that we have only 1 PRI. I too am > partially in new waters with this project, but we've chosen to buy a > RedFone box instead of a complex assortment of PRI cards between MAIN > and FAILOVER and LEGACY PBX's. We like the choice because it's simple, > highly reliable and gives us lots of flexibility and failover options > (available). For example: > > 1 - It means we don't have to any PRI cards for the asterisk servers > themselves--the redfone box wraps the TDM in ethernet frames. The > Asterisk boxes need no hardware other than their own ethernet cards. > The Redfone box translates the TDM to TDM over Ethernet (TDMoE). Now we > can do any *logical* routing we want between Ast1, Ast2 and Legacy > without having to establish *physical* routes and interfaces. > 2 - The RedFone box has the PRI interface(s) from the Telco, AND to the > legacy PBX. The legacy PBX remains essentially unchanged, except that > RF routes the traffic to Ast1 (Ast2 if Ast1 is down), and Asterisk can > decide which call tasks it wants to handle, and which it will route BACK > to the legacy PBX. If we want migrate a number, service, mailbox, IVR > etc AWAY from the Legacy PBX, we do so easily with a tiny tweak of the > dialplan. If we move something from away from the legacy system, and it > turns out to have a problem, bug, etc. (not that my dialplans EVER have > problems, but I'm just speaking hypothetically :-) ), I can just send it > back with the same tiny dialplan tweak. > 3 - In an unlikely double-failover scenario, I can leave all of my > legacy IVR trees etc intact on the legacy PBX. If both Asterisk servers > are down, the customer is routed to the old system. The customer may > wonder why they're hearing the OLD voiceover artist, instead of the NEW > voiceover artist but at least the call gets handled :-) > > This is just another tool to consider. I would be able to report in > more detail but at this time but it's a work in progress. If anyone has > a RedFone solution in place and would care to report on (from the > trenches) I'd be interested in hearing your experience. > > -Karl >
I will be deploying several Redfone devices this month for the reasons you outlined above. The device is new to me also, maybe we can compare notes. Redfone has a great guarantee, their presence at last year's Astricon, and positive things I have seen here and there lead me to believe that they are a no brainer for this functionality. Thanks, Steve Totaro Thanks, Steve Totaro _______________________________________________ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- AstriCon 2008 - September 22 - 25 Phoenix, Arizona Register Now: http://www.astricon.net asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
