Adding more Asterisk servers

[perci100]

I have looked around the forums and both the vicibox install manual and the older/larger cluster manual that has been assembled. this might be a dumb question but I figure its just easier to ask as I haven't found the answer that I understand. I currently have a cluster in production. I am looking to add more phone servers to this. I have a block of only 5 ips. is there a way to load balance all the telephone servers /phones in the system so that when I add the additional server they can all be accessed through the same public IP? or will have I have to add the server and have my agents register their phone to another IP. I guess the question would be , can you load balance asterisk dialing servers through one IP. If you could even point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated . It may be more of a linux/networking question.

[williamconley]

Load balance is generally about spreading the "cpu load" among several servers to best utilize those cpu resources. However, for some people load balance could be considered a way to best utilize the available bandwidth on multiple ISP connections. Yet another method of load balance could be to balance outbound calling through several carriers.

You would appear to be asking about the first but somehow linking "load balancing" with "can I share an IP address between servers". Which ... means you are likely overcomplicating a scenario by asking about one scenario at once (which is often necessary when planning a change such as this ...). Handle it in stages with clear breaks between them when asking the questions and it may get easier.

Can you have one IP address with multiple phone servers (dialers)? Yes. Of course. The dialers would have LOCAL IP addresses instead of using the public IP. A router would have the public IP. The dialers would use that router as their Gateway.

If you have multiple servers behind a single IP, can they receive and make calls and have agents register their phones to them? Yes. Agents on the same local subnet would access the dialers through their local IP. Agents who have to access through the public IP (now through the router), however, would have a bit more of a challenge. One server could easily be set to accept this traffic on port 5060, but for a second server this would need a second SIP port (such as port 5061) or a very complex router configuration (which I've never personally attempted, to be clear).

For inbound phone calls, this same restriction applies EXCEPT: if your server will be registering to the inbound carrier, this would allow multiple servers on that single router to register through the router to receive calls. This is because the act of registering allow a completely different port to be used for each registration, removing the "port 5060" problem. No help for agents, but great for carriers sending calls to different servers on the same public IP.

That being said, if you put an asterisk server at a remote location (such as a call center in another state/country) and registered your vicidial server to that server, your agents could access Vicidial through sip or iax accounts on that server.

Which raises another point, if you have 50% of your agents on SIP pointed to one server via port 5060, you could have the other half of your agents pointed to the other server via IAX2 on port 4569. This all assumes that your router has a sip algorithm to make SIP viable through two routers -- one at the vicidial server and one at the agent location (as technically sip is incapable of this feat so most routers now have technology in them to assist).

Clearer?

[perci100]

" Agents who have to access through the public IP (now through the router), however, would have a bit more of a challenge. One server could easily be set to accept this traffic on port 5060, but for a second server this would need a second SIP port (such as port 5061) or a very complex router configuration (which I've never personally attempted, to be clear)."

This is what i was getting at. So for instance I have a 3 server cluster with only 1 phone server, when I need to add more phones , I add another server. I must have an additional static ip for those new agents register to the IP of that server and also set the phones in Vici to match. I was just wondering if there was a way for me to use one static IP to handle all of the phone servers at once (none of my agents are on the LAN) . Pretty much I wanted to find a way to add another server without having to upgrade my block of ips (which will change all of them of course) I use the term load balancing because I was thinking more along the lines of the phones being able to register to one server that would then assign that phone to the proper server for dialing. Kind of how it would work with a web server. Seems I will just have to order more Ips I should have planned for expansion , its really my own fault. I hate to change things when they are working so well haha I appreciate you taking the time to explain.

[perci100]

I think what will help me the most is just using the web phone so I dont have to keep dolling out login/domain information and remember which agents use which server etc.

[williamconley]

That's why they make money with the Zoiper Web. We've looked at building an open source one, but so far no one has taken us up on it.

You could also consider using multiple SIP ports, but in the end most have challenges with bandwidth on their connection anyway and end up getting another one. With another IP ... and now you can put that extra server on the extra IP.

It is also possible to VPN so all agents computers believe they are local. This also requires a bit of hardware ... but probably costs less than zoiper web. On the other hand, it causes more effort on the part of the agent as well.

[perci100]

I have been looking for a good open source softphone. There are a few out there that i have played with but nothing special. What do you think the cost of that feature would be? It would help us tremendously as the less time I have to spend getting the agents to understand how a softphone works the better. I may be able to get a project like that funded.

[williamconley]

open source softphones (and free soft phones) are plentiful.

But open source WEB phones are ... not available at all. I'd have to say that a prototype (not yet usable with Vicidial core or multiple agents, etc, just a proof of concept with a couple agents) would probably run $500. Full solution, probably $2k or more IF the prototype pans out. There appears to be enough support to make it happen, but we've not been paid to test yet.

It is also possible that the solution (first prototype at least) may require its own server. Which would likely be virtual for the prototype. Hopefully by the final version we would be able to run it on Vicidial/Vicibox directly.