The open source VoIP project is now able to handle the largest projects.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [September 12, 2006]

Morganville, N.J.-based Ranch Networks is announcing the availability of clustering on its Asterisk appliances.

Ranch Networks' RN devices allow VoIP through the firewall in a secure manner by opening firewalls only for the VoIP application and only for the length of the call.

Any company that handles a large call volume, such as a call center, will use more than one Asterisk server and may use more than one RN device. Alex Pavlovsky, Ranch Networks president and co-founder, says Asterisk servers and RN devices multiply each others' power. "We see n Asterisk servers and m RN devices as a matrix with the power n x m. There is no limit to capacity. You can have multiple Asterisk servers and 1 RN appliance or 1 Asterisk server and multiple RN appliances."

Whatever your configuration, the goal is to keep the application running at all time. The company uses Asterisk Business Edition (see ISP-Planet's article) to keep the phone registered even if the Asterisk server fails.

"Any cluster of RN devices and / or Asterisk devices is represented by a single IP address," Pavlovsky explains. "Therefore, you need configure IP phones to only one IP address. If one server or RN device fails, nothing happens, from the customer's point of view."

Dave Gambos, Ranch Networks vice president of sales and marketing, says this is particularly important for call centers. "Call centers deal with spikes in calls, but cannot afford to lose a single call. This makes it cheaper to build in a larger capacity. And it's not just the cost of the initial build. The solution is easily scalable."

"Another benefit," adds Pavlovsky, "is that because it's open source, most people are adding their own functionality. For example, a hospital can be always connected to its patients and be constantly monitoring them. You can monitor a patient without dialing them—they might be asleep—and you can talk to multiple patients. This functionality has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with the open course community supporting Asterisk. Another case is a bicycle powered IP PBX in Africa. Power is a real problem in some areas, so you connect your IP PBX to a bicycle powered generator. However, Linux takes too long to bring up, so they came up with software that enables a shorter interruption between losing power and starting up your generator."

The key goal of today's announcement is clear. "In the past," says Gambos, "Asterisk struggled with larger call volumes. That's what we allow. We allow Asterisk to go to the next level, to move beyond the SMB."

We mention that SIPBox is using the Ranch product, and Gambos says, "yes, we know them. They're good people."

—End