[TriLUG] OT - well, I do want to save the file on Linux

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Greg Brown wrote:

> P-IV?  Is that enough?  Or Dual Xeon?
> SCSI subsystem...
> how much RAM?  2 gig?  4 gig?  What kind?
> 10k RPM disks, or greater?
> technology is starting to sound expensive. :)

Jon's recommendations are all well and good for a system which is going 
to handle any reasonable volume of calls.  Anything that's a dedicated 
PBX needs careful care and feeding in terms of all manner of IO.  For 
example, one Digium T1 card will consistently generate 1000 interrupts 
every second, and servicing those interrupts promptly is required for 
consistent call handling.  Unmasking the interrupts on your hard drives, 
ensuring UDMA transfers, etc, etc, etc are all requirements for a 
heavily loaded PBX.  By contrast, my box at home does lots of other 
tasks, and occasionally handles calling functions.  It's a P4 2.4Ghz 
with 1G of RAM and a pair of 250G IDE disks, but it's essentially never 
doing anything taxing.  It services half a dozen phones, 3 persistent 
IAX tunnels, and maybe 10 calls per day, tops.  :)

You can find lots of information at http://www.voip-info.org/ about 
sizing up machine requirements for Asterisk.  The big thing that will 
consume processor time is transcoding, going between G.729 and G.711 for 
5 to 10 concurrent connections, for example, could start to really chew 
up some processing time.  If you're not transcoding (which most regular 
PBXes won't), it's mostly about keeping your IO moving along at a nice 
clip.  My best suggestion would be to give it a try on what ever you 
have lying around, and if you run into problems, post about those 
specific problems and we can help you to isolate what the source of the 
problem is.  Or provide more info about what you want to use the PBX for 
and perhaps we can help you formulate better hardware requirements.

Happy calling!
Aaron S. Joyner