Server replacement ideas Asterisk

[charold]

I inherited an Asterisk 1.2 phone server running on an old Poweredge 2850 currently spec'd out with, hold on to your seat, dual single core Prescott Xeons @ 3.2 ghz, running 4gb of ram and ASterisk 1.2. I'm using less than 1GB of ram w/out cache, and I never see the load go above 0.2, generally staying at 0.05-0.1 throughout the day.

I'm looking at upgrading to a newer version of asterisk, on slightly newer hardware. I'm on a fairly tight budget with other projects this year, and was looking for any suggestions.

Looking at 2u rackmount chassis with redundant power supplies, easily drives the cost of a new server for just the hardware above $1500. I was trying to stay in the $1000 budget if possible. I was thinking (2) lower end chassis without redundant power supplies, and setting up HA between two servers.

Any high level ideas? I'm open to any outside the box ideas, the main thing is this is obviously critical to the operation of the business being our phone server. I can setup HA it seems pretty easily, so 2 low end boxes was an idea, rather than a much more expensive higher end box with more levels of redundancy.

 

[goodcooper]

sure.... you can do that...

how many extensions? just a typical phone server? it doesn't take much, any intel atom board will run the phones for a medium sized office easily.... you could even just run RAID1 hdds... or buy spare motherboards... keep good backups and you should be fine.... if it is absolutely mission critical, HA is easy to do as well...

any other hardware in the box? interface cards?

that would determine whether you could virtualize and use any redundant infrastructure that may already be in place... also would affect the price on building new systems

 

[Nate7311]

I'd suspect that it was deployed on the 2850 for the redundancy built into the server. Asterisk1.2 and the 2850 were near enough to the same timeframe that I'd almost assume that to be the original use for the server. However given the load the OP mentioned, either virtualize it or move it to a smaller more power-efficient Box. Hell, if it's THAT bored, you can probably get away with a cheap 1U Atom server with and redundant drives in RAID1 if it needs to be physical. We would need to know more about the system though. As goodcooper said, number of endpoints, PSTN interface, add-in cards, etc.

 

[charold]

Thanks for the responses, I'm quite new to the VOIP world!

Basically, we have fiber coming ni that provides EDI/PRI for about 90 outside lines. This then gets split off by the NSPs Ciena 3916, one eth line going to our firewall, another going to an Adtran 908e. The 908e then connects to an Adtran Atlus 550 with Quadband Ti/PRI card. Connected to this is the 10 faxes, and the PBX which has a T1/EC card in-line.

I'm looking at potentially going to digital faxes. If I went that route, would I be able to remove some the Atlast 550, and even potentially the 908e? I'm not 100% sure what the the 908e is doing. If I understand it correctly, the 550 is doing analog to digital conversion, correct?

 

[Nate7311]

Given a complex setup like that, I'd look for a local organization to help analyze the config and architect a streamlined solution. You mentioned Digital faxes, do you mean FAX over IP, or a 3rd part solution removing FAX from this equation?

 

[charold]

Given a complex setup like that, I'd look for a local organization to help analyze the config and architect a streamlined solution. You mentioned Digital faxes, do you mean FAX over IP, or a 3rd part solution removing FAX from this equation?

Probably a 3rd party solution. I'm talking to my NSP to see what they can offer of help. At this point, I'm just going to do as goodcopper suggested and buy replacement parts for the 2850, and probably do disk image. Config backups are already in place (they weren't when I entered this position!) Parts are dirt cheap to buy, and make sure I have spare motherboards, HDDs, etc on hand. That will cost a few hundred, for some peace of mind. Then take my time, and learn this from the ground up and/or bring in a 3rd party to architect a new solution.

 

[goodcooper]

Probably a 3rd party solution. I'm talking to my NSP to see what they can offer of help. At this point, I'm just going to do as goodcopper suggested and buy replacement parts for the 2850, and probably do disk image. Config backups are already in place (they weren't when I entered this position!) Parts are dirt cheap to buy, and make sure I have spare motherboards, HDDs, etc on hand. That will cost a few hundred, for some peace of mind. Then take my time, and learn this from the ground up and/or bring in a 3rd party to architect a new solution.

sounds like a very solid plan

T1 interface cards are going to complicate the setup... and from there on out, it will take you some time to either learn from the ground up and/or bring in a 3rd party

 

[Nate7311]

Probably a 3rd party solution. I'm talking to my NSP to see what they can offer of help. At this point, I'm just going to do as goodcopper suggested and buy replacement parts for the 2850, and probably do disk image. Config backups are already in place (they weren't when I entered this position!) Parts are dirt cheap to buy, and make sure I have spare motherboards, HDDs, etc on hand. That will cost a few hundred, for some peace of mind. Then take my time, and learn this from the ground up and/or bring in a 3rd party to architect a new solution.

That should be easy enough. Let me through out another alternative as well, rather than either keeping the T1 card, you might also think about a T1-to-SIP Gateway to either isolate the need for a physical box and/or remove dependency on an internal card. I've had great luck with Patton's 4960/4970 series. And/or talk to your NSP about handoff via SIP rather than PRI and eliminate the entirety of additional gateways. SIP trunks were still in their infancy 10 years ago when this was most likely put in.