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Cisco VoIP Ditched for Open-Source Asterisk
An anonymous reader writes "Sam Houston State University (SHSU) is moving 6,000 users off a Cisco VoIP platform to an open-source VoIP network based on Asterisk. One big driver, of course, is cost. From the article: 'We thought that it will be more cost effective in the long run to go with an open source solution, because of the massive amounts of licensing fees required to keep the Cisco CallManager network up and running,' says Aaron Daniel, senior voice analyst at SHSU."
I've just released FreePBX 2.1.2, which is a major security upgrade from 2.1.1. Not really relevant to this article, except that they both deal with Asterisk.
(For those that don't know, FreePBX is the only open source GUI for configuration and management of Asterisk. www.freepbx.org)
--RobSchlock Mercenary.
From the article:
"While Asterisk and the SIP protocol lack some of the more extensive features on the Cisco CallManager..."
This may be true for vanilla Asterisk, but there is an extensive community adding a wide range of additional features and services to Asterisk. For example, <plug>our Enswitch product</plug> provides a layer of billing and commercial services on top of Asterisk and SIP Express Router. Having work extensively with both Asterisk and CCM, I would claim that with Asterisk plus all the applications that work with it already surpasses the features of CCM, and Asterisk has the momentum behind it. Over the next few years, CCM will fall further behind, and before long Asterisk will be the dominant telephony platform in the same way Apache is the dominant web server platform now.
I was really trying hard not to reply to _every_ post here, but SCCP is an awful protocol. And the 'low end' VoIP phone are all SIP or IAX, so you're barking up the wrong tree a bit. For example - Google for PA1688. This is a VoIP phone _chipset_ that the manufacturers have open sourced the firmware for. You can usually buy PA1688 based phones for about US$50. Or if you want more of an office phone, the Grandstream GXP2000 has a reasonably professional look, and are around US$100 or so. Going up market from there, you're looking at the Snom 320 or 360. Plenty of buttons and lights, and it runs Linux.
--Rob
Schlock Mercenary.
You seem to have a good knowledge of Asterisk, yet I have to correct you on the fact that Asterisk *IS* F/OSS and *IS* released under the GPL. What you're talking about is giving your copyleft to Digium if you want *YOUR CODE* to become part of the official distribution. Nothing new here, it's a common practice, used even by the FSF which *MAY* change the license then, but you can be pretty sure that the FSF won't change it to a non-copyleft license (while Digium uses it to give non-free licenses), but how do you think they'll change all code from GPL 2 to GPL 3 [not counting GPL 2 or later, since some of the GPL'ed software owned by the FSF (ie you give them your copyleft) hadn't the "GPL 2 or Later" clause and they added it later, since the license can only be changed by an agreement of all the copyleft holders, so it's easier if it's a moral entity like the FSF, MySQL AB, Trolltech the Apache Software Foundation (even if they don't use GPL, they still may want to change their license)... or Digium. And they all ask for copyleft transfer.
:). As long as it's Free (with a capital F), it's fine with me.
My point being: yes, Asterisk is "100%" F/OSS. They just don't allow other copyleft holders in THEIR distribution. Nothing would prevent OpenPBX, to sync with each latest version of Asterisk, but as long as Digium wants to hold all copylefts, they can't include code made by OpenPBX folks. Digium wanting to hold all copylefts is a part of their business model (dual-licensing). Of course, it makes it harder for OpenPBX people to sync because of the two development trees (and I understand why they'd want to keep their copyleft). However, Asterisk remains Free Software. Maybe they're not using the "Open Source development model" at its maximum though, but who cares
You forgot a question mark in your post correcting him - that's an even more bonehead error.
His message was adequately communicated - you don't need to be annoying and correct him. If you were adding clarity to his post, it would be one thing, but you are just nit-picking. Add something to the conversation or go the hell away.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I just deployed an Asterisk phone system powering ~140 wired Polycom phones and ~70 wireless phones covering 31 acres. Here are some tips from what I learned in this process:
.), getting the users to think about the dial plan and having them understand their satisfaction with the results is directly related to trying to get it right. When we distributed the phones to each desk, the boxes were labeled and sorted on the pallet this helped save a huge amount of time and allowed us to have the furniture installers help setup phones if we wanted too. Staging the phones: pre-configuring them, having the boxes labeled and sorted on the pallet was well worth doing. The wireless phones we signed out to the employees with some other stuff like work shirts. Having the right vendor to walk us through the process was critical.
1. Pick a capable vendor for each job you outsource. I looked at Asterisk and decided it is too technical for a Asterisk newbie to build a production system, so I called Digium and they referred me to a dCAP certified Asterisk consultant in my area. Knowing Asterisk is one thing, but knowing how to pull off a great install is more than that. Our vendor developed a workbook that covers many parts of a successful deployment, such as reviewing the network (gear, configs, wiring plant), getting the users (names, current extentions, locations .
2. Pilot your install before you deploy it. The environment I was choosing Asterisk for is an automall. Phones are a big part of the business (as with many) and setting expectations is important. We formed a phone users group to have them decide how we wanted to route calls (dial plan), the idea was to get them involved because it is really theirs to use. Some departments were easy and some were not. Sales was essentially create a call groups for the differnt brands we sell and have the operators transfer them to the appropriate group. Service was much more complicated, but having live operators helps a ton. Parts was easy as well, but all of that needs some serious consideration. Knowing you will get it wrong and tweaking it on the fly will happen, do it and move on.
3. We picked Polycom phones and that turned out to be a great choice, the 601's have six "programmable" buttons and great sound quality (handset and speakerphone). The Polycoms have a two port switch built-in and will trunk with the network switch which means the second port on the phone can be a differnt vlan than the phone. So we have them plugged in/wired like this: [network-switch]---[phone]---[computer]. The phones run Cisco CDP, when the switch detects the phone (via CDP) it assigns the phone as a trunk device and allows you to choose what vlan the phone will be on and what vlan the computer port on the phone will be on. Also you can have a differnet vlan if you were to plug the PC directly into the switch. The setup works well and I could go on and on about QoS, edge marking of traffic and PoE issues but I will stop.
4. The FOP (Flash Operator Panel) is a cool thing, but we had to do some customizing for our needs. We looked at Fonalitys HUD, but FOP works great. You can see which phones are ringing, have voice mail (whether it is new or old), transfer calls by drag and drop, monitor the inbound queues and really not have to touch the phone to work the system as an operator. Nicholas, the guy that wrote FOP is an invaluable resource. He was willing to help and has done a great job. I am asking our vendor and am going to make sure he gets paid in some way.
5. Wireless WiFi phones (OUCH): We chose the Hitachi IPC-5000 and Meru Networks for the AP's. Okay I was getting a little cutting edge here, but hey why not?! Lessons:
Meru Networks ROCKS!! They figured out the roaming WiFi thing for sure!
Hitachi IPC-5000's to be determined: it look like either the phones have a high failure rate or we have a bad batch or something. Also it looks like they aren't nearly as durable as say a cell phone/mobile phone (which is VER
Which distro does Linus use?