FAQ on Hosted Asterisk and
Virtual Private Asterisk Servers (VPAS)
What is hosted Asterisk?
Hosted Asterisk is a service which provides clients with an Asterisk server
located at netVOICE's data centre located at a carrier-grade colocation facility in
Vancouver.
What is a virtual private Asterisk server?
A virtual private server is a server that has been divided into logically
independent "virtual" servers. This is a technology that makes it extremely
cost-effective to provide multiple independent servers at a fraction of the
cost of multiple physical servers.
Modern CPU technology has advanced to the point where a high-end multiprocessor
Xeon server has the capacity to provide many virtual servers.
Why are the advantages of hosted Asterisk?
Hosted Asterisk provides many advantages over having your own Asterisk server:
- no large capital costs or long-term leasing contracts
- professionally installed Asterisk (by a Digium Certified technician)
- carrier-grade collocation facility with 24x7 security, uninterruptible power (UPS + diesel generators), and multiple fibre connections to the Internet
- multiple digital Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) connections
- N+1 redundancy for all hardware
- RAID-1 redundancy for all disk drives
There are lots of companies offering virtual private Linux servers. Why should I use
netVOICE?
If you want to run a web or email server, then you are correct -- there are hundreds of
hosting companies that offer virtual private servers. And can do so very cost effectively
by putting hundreds of clients on each physical server.
If the load on the physical server is so great that your web server is blocked from
executing for 100 milliseconds, no one will notice. But if your Asterisk IP PBX
stops for 100 milliseconds, you will definitely hear it!
If you want to host Asterisk on a virtual private server, you need a hosting company that
only commits a fraction of the available server resources so that when your Asterisk
threads need a CPU, there is a CPU available.
Unlike hosting companies that make the most of their servers, our servers rarely exceed 10%
CPU utilisation. Only by such conservative hosting practices can we ensure you the
voice quality your business demands.
The other advantage of working with netVOICE is that your server is literally a matter of feet
from the fibre that connects your server to the Canadian Public Switched Telephone Network.
We have multiple feeds to two of the largest national carriers and by hosting your Asterisk
server with netVOICE, you minimise latency because once your phone's SIP traffic reaches your
hosted Asterisk server, it is only one hop from the PSTN.
What is a CPU Unit and how many do I need?
A CPU Unit is an arbitrary measure of processing power sufficient to
handle a single compressed call. You ought to have as many
CPU Units as you expect to have active (i.e. not on hold) calls in progress.
What is a Phone 'Line' and how many do I need?
A Phone 'Line' is both the ability to place or receive a telephone call
(i.e. one voice channel capable of carrying a single call) as well as 1,000
minutes of incoming or local outgoing calls.
For example, if your VPAS has 5 Phone 'Lines' then you can have up to five
calls in progress at the same time before incoming calls encounter busy signals
(or attempts to place outside calls fail). It also means that you have 5,000
minutes of calls (in or out) per month included (calls in excess cost $0.02/min).
What is RAM and how much do I need?
RAM is a dedicated allocation of server main memory. The sizes shown on
the pricing chart represent our conservative estimates of the memory needed
to handle the indicated number of extensions.
Also note that the server virtualisation technology used by netVOICE
enables the entire kernel memory space to be shared by all virtual servers.
What this means in practice is that the typical VPAS handling five to
ten extensions uses about 32Mb of RAM. From this one can see our estimates
in our pricing table are very generous.
What is Disk and how much do I need?
The files associated with your Virtual Private Server and Asterisk
consume about 350Mb so the additional space is needed only for log and
accounting files.
What is IP Bandwidth and how much do I need?
IP Bandwidth represents gigabytes of network traffic in or out.
One Gb is sufficient for about 1,000 minutes of uncompressed (i.e. G.711)
VoIP traffic or 3,000 minutes of compressed (iLBC or GSM) VoIP traffic.
What version of Linux do you use?
We use Debian 5 (Lenny). Debian has long been regarded as a particularly
stable distribution ideally suited for server deployments.
Do you support Trixbox?
Not yet but are planning to do so. Contact us for availability.
Where is my Asterisk Server hosted?
Current our data centre is collocated at Peer 1's
main Vancouver facility.
What can I run on my Asterisk server?
netVOICE's VPAS service is designed and intended to be used to run
hosted Asterisk and related services (including those that come with
TrixBox). Your server is a standard Linux server and so can support almost
any service you might host on Linux.
Note, however, that our CPU and memory allocations are designed to be appropriate to
handle your Asterisk requirements only -- additional services may impact upon
your Asterisk system's functionality.
Asterisk is a trademark of Digium, Inc. and is used here only to describe the software installed on the
Virtual Private Servers used to deliver the service described above. This service is neither endorsed by nor affiliated with Digium, Inc.
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