Matt, Are you doing any call recording / monitoring? What percentage?
Ilan On 5/23/05, mattf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > For an inbound call center with 4 T1s and 30-50 agents on you would do just > fine with a single, one-processor machine. We have handled more than this on > a single P4 server although we use astGUIclient instead of Asterisk queues, > but the load is very similar. I would recommend a Sangoma Quad T1 card > because they are about 30% more efficient than Digium T1 cards. > > When you say that you need to scale to 100s of consecutive calls, is that > closer to 200 or 900? and what timeframe is that planned for? > > We have a distributed in/outbound call center environment across 4 > geographic locations with over 20 T1s connected so it is possible for > Asterisk to handle over 1000 consecutive calls across the system if you > design it right. One of the reasons we don't use Asterisk queues, other than > the difficulty in customizing the code to work with the ManagerAPI and > client apps, is that it was hard to scale across multiple servers. That's > why we use the astGUIclient suite which is more customizable and scalable > across multiple servers, although (and it pains me to say this because we > developed it) it is not as easy to install and setup than just creating an > Asterisk queue. > > We use a combination of SIP, IAX and Zap client phones depending on the > system and the user and yes 711 is always best to use when you can. And if > you have many remote phones using a codec like GSM it may actually be better > to have a dedicated machine doing nothing but the transcoding from GSM->711 > and then just using IAX or a crossover Zap T1 to the inbound server to > reduce processor load. > > In any case it is always advisable to have a backup server that is fully > ready to jump in production with a minimum of reconfiguration. > > A couple more questions, will you do much recording? and what kind of disks > do you plan on using? > > Hope this helps, > > MATT--- > > -----Original Message----- > From: Warren Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 8:12 PM > To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com > Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Inbound call center - reliability \ scalability > with queues > > > We are wanting to move off of our legacy inter-tel phoneswitch and move to > VoIP and asterisk. We are looking for a new PBX because the inter-tel > switch is too difficult to integrate our existing (and new) software into. > > We are a technical support center. All our calls currently come in on toll > free numbers via T1's, and there are 3 of them. I want to use a media > gateway to convert the T1's into SIP VOIP (I want reliable hardware for the > gateway), and use asterisk as the PBX having all incoming and outgoing > channels as SIP. Almost all dialplans will be using Queues, and there will > likely be no more than 10 queues, with (currently) about 80 incoming > toll-free numbers. There are approximatley 30 agents, but as of right now > there are no more than 15 agents logged in at a time. We need to be able to > support 60-70 simultaneous calls initially and we have to be able to do this > reliably. We also need to be able to scale into the 100's of simultanous > calls range. > > What would be the best option, to have 2 powerful machines (dual > powersupply, ) with one as a hotswappable backup or have multiple machines > with a sort of load balancer setup? Having multiple machines could possibly > cost less, but I'm not sure how the queues and agents would be managed > across multiple machines. I.e. how would the agent 'login' to each asterisk > machine so that the calls could be handed to it, and how would the calls get > handed to an available agent by 4 seperate asterisk machines? I've read > through the wiki, but I'm not sure how much overhead queues would put into > the system. I want to have all the codecs the same, so the asterisk > machines doesn't do any transcoding, and have all channels as SIP. There > will be music on hold. Would a dual 2.8 ghz xeon in this config be able to > handle 80 simultaneous incoming calls? Would using the 711 codec make a > difference in available processing power? > > I'm sorry if this has been answered a million times already, I just didn't > see many configs close to what we're trying to do to compare to. Thanks for > any input you may have. > _______________________________________________ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users