Asterisk Deployment in

Large Enterprise and Cloud Solutions

Ali Pey

Sr. Software Eng Architect

Wed Jan 30, 2013

Cloud Services for Business

• eFax®• eVoice®• FuseMail®• Campaigner®• KeepItSafe®• Onebox®• www.j2.com

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Outline

• Why Asterisk?• What can you do with Asterisk?• Network Diagrams• Large Enterprise and Could requirements• *** Proxy Servers (SBCs)• Load balancing, routing and failure

detection• Security• NAT• Questions?

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Why Asterisk? (1/3)

• It is Open Source• It has a Community– Numerous companies and resources– Forums, mailing lists– Tools

• No Cost

Open Source is revamping telecom

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Why Asterisk? (2/3)

• More Independence (Not depending on a single company)

• Continued Enhancements– The community is growing so are the features– Interoperability– WebRTC

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Why Asterisk? (3/3)

• Flexibility, Customization and Integration– Integrates with your back end– Business Logic Integration– Database Integration– Special Features or Requirements

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What can you do with Asterisk? (1/3)

• Make a phone Call

• Conference, Hold, Transfer, Park, Announcement, Click to call, and many many more.

• Basically any Telephony Feature you can imagine

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What can you do with Asterisk? (2/3)

• Connect Phones/Clients:– Analog– SIP Phones– Soft phone– Web phone– Mobile– WebRTC

• Trunks: – IP (SIP)– Digital: T1/E1– Analog

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What can you do with Asterisk? (3/3)

• PBX• Telephony and Voice Applications• Presence and BLF• Google Voice and WebRTC• Conferencing, Video, Fax, Auto Attendant, etc.

etc.

• The question is: What can’t you do with Asterisk?

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Diagram 1 - SIP Clients: SIP Phones, Soft phones, Web Phones, Mobile or even WebRTC

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Diagram 2: SIP Trunks

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Diagram 3 - Analog/Digital Cards/Gateways(Single point of failure)

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Large Enterprise and Cloud Solutions(or simply: Bigger Systems)

• Redundancy • High Availability (Failure Detection)• Distribution and Routing Rules• Performance and Reliability• Security• NAT Traversal

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Proxy ServersWhat is a Proxy Server? (1/2)

• Registrar Server for Clients• Routing, Rules, Failure Detection and Re-

Routing• SIP Signaling, Codec and Digit

Manipulation• Load Balancing• Scripting• Resource Allocation• Rate Limiting

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What is a Proxy Server? (2/2)

• NAT Traversal• Media Proxy (or Direct Media Path)• Performance• Redundancy and High Availability• Security and Authentication

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Two Asterisk Servers and One Proxy Server

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Two Asterisk – Two Proxy servers

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Fully Redundant Distributed Environment

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Proxy Servers (SBCs)

• Open Source vs. Commercial

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Open Source Proxy Servers

• OpenSIPS • Kamailio• OverSIP (Ruby, WebSocket)

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Commercial SBCs (Session Border Controller)

• Acme Packet• Dialogic• Audiocodes• Sonus• And quite a few others

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Fully Redundant Large Enterprise and Could Solution

• Performance• Redundancy• High Availability• Routing, Rules, Load Balancing and

Distribution• Security• NAT Traversal

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Performance, Redundancy, High Availability and Distribution

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Call Flow Diagram Examples

• SIP Phone to SIP Phone Call• SIP Phone to SIP Trunk Call• SIP Trunk to SIP Trunk Call• Analog (Trunk or Phone) to SIP Trunk Call

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Call Routing

• Load Balancing• Resources• Dynamic Routing• Rules• Failure detection

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Security

• Sooner or later• Close network vs. Open and in between• What to look for?• What to examine? • Each deployment has its own unique

characteristics that can make it safe.• Secure VoIP – Insecure system => Call

patterns

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NAT

• What is NAT?• Public IP vs. Private IP• SIP Signaling• Media

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Questions?

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