vicidial.org

Hi,

I am looking to consolidate multiple single server installs into a multi server farm. Currently, there exist multiple installs of Vicidial, and I intend to do the following:

1. Setup multiple Asterisk servers for dialing out (possibly one in each of three locations)
2. Setup one database and web server for all agents across the three locations.
3. Setup one FTP server to house all recordings.

Total number of agents initially will be 60, but increasing to 120 soon. Maximum dial level will be 2.5 for all campaigns. G729 codec will be used to connect to Asterisk servers and to the SIP provider. Please let me know if this is a practical approach or recommend an alternative.

We would actually recommend GSM from Asterisk server to Asterisk server, but other than that your plan should work.

Any documentation out there for multi server installs? Is this covered in the Manager Manual?

LOAD_BALANCE.txt covers it pretty well.

In SVN trunk codebase multi-server installs are also much easier because the dialplan and iax/sip conf files are auto-generated.

The Load Balancing text file mentions IXA2 between the Asterisk/Vicidial servers. Is this not possible with a SIP only setup? Thanks.

IAX2 is only between the Asterisk servers and it is more efficient and bug-free than using SIP for the same task.

Have you tried it? (SIP that is)

I have had issues with multiple providers where each has a reason to Like or Dislike SIP or IAX2 (depending on the provider). But your best bet for something like that is to TRY IT both ways and see what works for you. After all, it takes very little time to set up an IAX2 or SIP trunk between two of your own servers.

Yes, I have tried it and it failed spectacularly under load

It worked fine for one or two agents, but once I put it live for 48 agents spread across 2 servers I started getting congestion and dropped transfers. This was on 1.4 and 1.2. I was trying this to get DTMF to be inband over VOIP because there were some issues with DTMF passthru on this client's carrier and IAX has no option for changing the DTMF transport method.

Switching inter-server calls back to IAX fixed all of the call drop issues and I have not tried using SIP again since.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I will attempt the IAX2 route first. Thanks again.

I have had similar issues, and have found (with purely empirical evidence of course) that sometimes that sort of result will occur ... but sometimes it will be the reverse (SIP works, IAX sucks) based on the locations of the servers in question. In fact, I have had several clients on VOIPStreet who could never get a good, solid, signal through with IAX but when switching to SIP (with the same provider) they got crystal clear sound.

In two cases the exact same box worked with this provider quite well, but was moved to a new location.

The explanation from the provider was that they have the ability to detect our location with their SIP registration and use a closer server to actually stream the sound, and they do not have this ability with IAX2. I'm not sure how much of that is real and how much is BS, but the empirical evidence supports it.

Take it for what it's worth, test both if one of them seems anything other than excellent.

I was only referring to IAX use between Asterisk servers for the purpose of load balancing VICIDIAL calls.

SIP is a good choice for trunks and is a lot more widely used for termination providers.

In Asterisk, SIP uses more CPU resources than IAX, SIP channels take longer to clear out than IAX, and on identical systems SIP uses more open files for the same load than IAX.

We have a similar architecture entering production this week, though we saw no good reason to have servers at different locations.

Let me know if you have questions.

We need a call solution for 70 agents also. I have been experimenting and have a path for this setup:

1. 12 IP addresses external IP's/
2. 12 boxs P4 2ghz 2mb
3. 5 agents per box.
4. This works fine for us since we have multi programs with recordings etc
5. Solve DTMF issues
6. We are tring several Voip providers - outbound - helps to have a few back ups with devices.

Future path:

1. Drop from desktop machines acting as servers to servers with quad z's
2.