I am rather new to asterisk, and VERY new to Elastix. I have been tasked with replacing our current Asterisk server with a better one, and was told that Elastix was the way to go.

My first hurdle is buying the hardware necessary for the server to run with no hiccups. We currently have about 600 extensions, and that will probably double or even triple in size within the next year or two. We currently have 30 (true) Sip trunks and all the phones we are using are SIP phones. We have a main call center in the corporate location, and smaller call centers in various locations in the same state as well as other states.

I was thinking as Duel Xeon MB with Quad Xeons, and about 8gb of memory (4gb per processor), with a raid 5 or raid 10 configuration for redundancy and speed. However, from the research I have done it seems a large setup like this benefits from a separate SQL server. I understand separating the DB processing from the asterisk application processing, and the benefits this would bring. But with a single server that is configured as I indicated above, shouldn't that be more the capable of handling both?

Any hardware recommendations for our setup would be helpful. The company is concerned about spending too much on hardware, but I am concerned about expandability and reliability.

Thanks

welcome theeye:

perhaps

www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+dimensioning

will help?

Thanks for the reply, it is appreciated!

I have been there and looked through most of the information there. It has helped me determine that the machine I had in mind should be more then adequate for the number of calls , trunks, etc that we have, but I am still concerned about whether I need to move the DB off to another machine.

I think its because I am unfamiliar with asterisk and what it uses the DB for exactly that I am confused about this. I don't want to talk my boss into a $3k server thinking it will handle everything, and then realize I do need to offload the DB to another server.

By default mysql is used only occasionally when you change something and regenerate the .conf files, and each time a call record is generated, you will find this to be minimal, don't sweat it.

Ok.
That's what I had thought, but it seems to be the SQL server on our current PBX that causing some issues, so I wanted to be sure.

Thank you for your help!

Cheers!

If you are not using CRMs, Openfire or some other mysql intensive apps one server is enough.
You can use solid state drives if you want to boost database performance.
You should consider using more than one server and some load bancing, to get higher availability, but the configuration would be more complex, depending on your needs.

i agree with ramoncio and dicko...
and also add that you need to balance not only the quantity of extensions but the quantity of simultaneous calls...for example 600 extensions has normally about 10 20 % of simultaeous calls and 120 calls at a time could be easily managed by a single dual core xeon and 2 gigs of ram....
but adding sound compression, recording calls, mysql call center module use etc could beat easily any quad core xeon...so if your are a newbie in this... this task is not a work for you...hire some professional certified advice IMHO...because a new mistake in this area could end with you out of work!!!

see ya

Hi Theeye.
That many extensions/users doubling in size? I'd go for two machines, and set-up Elastix with fail-over to offer redundancy. Cause if the one box fails on a one-box set-up...... Big problems.

Hi I agre w fmvillares, you might consider hire someone to do this, also remember to arrange separate wiring rooms, ups w separates power suplies, air cooling, isp and internal switching rebundancy etra. Isn´t newbies work or U$S3k budget. take a time to think about it.Best regards