Every voip install we have come across has had completely separate networks only merging at the edge for either multi-office connectivity (iax2 trunks) , firmware updates, and remote access by the pbx vendor. I have a client running an Asterisk box with 75 users on its own network and we still had to do QoS, which I argued about lightly .. since 99.5% of all the traffic is voice anyway whats the difference I figured? But it did make a difference ... That being said, I have a client @ 850 users that's running IP Office from Avaya, with about 500 phones all RTP/SIP/UDP, travelling the data network, with QoS/ToS on their own Vlan. All 3 pbxes at each office are connected via 1gb fiber into a datacenter. All the phones connect to the unit in their respective office, and we don't have any real issues with it. The voicemail server is vm'ed and so is the tftp/update server, in the voice and data vlan so the call center app's can connect. My biggest problem seems to not be in internal SIP/RTP type connections of the handsets to the PBX, but most of the issues I keep running into have all been carrier related if they are using SIP/IAX based providers. I do have a couple of small clients on 8x8 which is a hosted turnkey service on cable modems without issue. I also have my office on a pbx in our datacenter, we have 12 phones in the office, and an HD video conferencing unit all on Comcasts 50/10 Internet and we never have a problem FWIW. So all of our phones are connecting over the internet and then we have an IAX2 trunk with our carrier running Asterisk. I think the reason I don't have an issue really is because our pbx (vm btw) is sitting on a 20mb internet connection on the same data network as our provider. As far as your vendor, do you have managed switches? Did they come in and pull snmp data from them after a week? Without this information I wouldn't think about moving forward. If you have saturation on the network at all then you will need a separate network at best, and vlan/qos at least. From: Tom Miller [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 9:39 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: VOIP design questions
Folks, We are planning to retire our current phone system and move to a Mitel VOIP system. Not having implemented VOIP before, I have some questions for those of you that have: - our vendor claims our current data network can easily handle VOIP traffic since it's a small amount of traffic (don't know exact amount yet, still awaiting vendor response). As such, they tell it is possible to use our current network to accommodate voice and data. I'm not sure if I"m comfortable with this. I was thinking of a more segregated approach: different network and voice and data never intersect. - our vendor claims we can use the existing data jack for the phones, and plug the desktop PCs/laptops into the phone as a sort of switch. I'm thinking this would add another level of complexity: phone is broke and by the way you can't get on the network now. - the reason the vendor suggests the above is that the current voice drops (cat5) terminate to phone patch panels (in most cases). Those cables would need to be cut and re-terminated to switches. So I have some concerns about our vendor claims. The dollar figure they propose does not include network changes, new switches, etc. Looking at the cost proposal, I am thinking there are quite a few hardware and man-hours costs missing. What do you folks do for VOIP? Thanks, Tom Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
