[Serusers] why combine ser with asterisk

SIP sip at arcdiv.com
Thu Aug 23 15:04:48 CEST 2007


Offers them? Yes. Offers them in a clean, friendly, usable package? Not 
so much yet.

SEMS has raw capability, but if you want it to do many of the things 
Asterisk can do, you need to know how to code that yourself, or you're 
going to be digging about the code for documentation on features (since 
the current docs are not the world's greatest).

Don't get me wrong, SEMS has its place, and is a constantly evolving 
work of art (we use SEMS for several things in our environment), but 
comparing SEMS to Asterisk is a bit like comparing a bunch of car parts 
to a Porsche.

N.


Fredrik Lundmark wrote:
> I'm still learning myself, but SEMS (iptel.org/sems) seems to offer 
> many of the media- and/or b2bua-functions that Asterisk do.
>
> ///Fredrik
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "SIP" <sip at arcdiv.com>
> To: "Nhadie" <nhadie at tbgi.net.ph>
> Cc: <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>; <serusers at lists.iptel.org>
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 1:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [Serusers] why combine ser with asterisk
>
>
>> Asterisk is an excellent PBX system, and makes a very good endpoint in
>> the SIP chain for all sorts of things -- IVR systems, voicemail
>> applications, automated messages, etc.
>>
>> It has an extremely well-written CDR engine, so many people mesh it with
>> billing applications to produce accurate accounting information. It also
>> is fully aware of the media stream, which means it's capable of cutting
>> off a call mid-stream, injecting audio into the call, etc, etc.
>>
>> Programming for Asterisk addons can be easily done in just about any
>> language, and it meshes well with the overall structure. Programming for
>> SER is... not so simple.
>>
>> As for running them both on the same box, the biggest problem would be
>> resources. Unlike SER, Asterisk is not designed to be a carrier-grade
>> SIP proxy. If you're actually proxying the media stream, you'd be
>> hard-pressed to squeeze more than 150 simultaneous calls out of Asterisk
>> on even the beefiest of hardware. Add SER to the same box, and you will
>> quickly run into resource problems in medium-sized environments. It also
>> doesn't have a lot of the SIP proxy functionality that SER has.
>>
>> If you're careful, you can configure Asterisk NOT to handle the media
>> stream and still use it for prepaid solutions (using astcc or
>> asterisk-b2bua), and this will save you bandwidth (but you'll still
>> likely run into NAT issues that need to be dealt with somehow) and still
>> let you use Asterisk as an in-between point.
>>
>> Together, Asterisk and SER make a very powerful combination for
>> providing a full suite of services to clientele, and each plays well off
>> the other's strengths.
>>
>> N.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nhadie wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> What's the advantage of combining ser with asterisk? I always see
>>> comments like using ser with asterisk is a very good solution etc. etc.
>>> the thing i liked with ser is that it does not do codec translation,
>>> which saves me cpu usage and also bandwidth. if i combine it with
>>> asterisk, would it not use codec translation?
>>>
>>> i also read that there is also a problem when ser and asterisk is 
>>> run on
>>> the same machine, why is it so?
>>> if use prepaid billing solution for asterisk like astcc, would i 
>>> then be
>>> able to provide prepaid service?
>>>
>>> soryy for asking too much, i'd just like to really understand it. Thank
>>> You in advanced.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Nhadie
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Serusers mailing list
>>> Serusers at lists.iptel.org
>>> http://lists.iptel.org/mailman/listinfo/serusers
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Serusers mailing list
>> Serusers at lists.iptel.org
>> http://lists.iptel.org/mailman/listinfo/serusers
>>




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