The ResVoip Project

Is Asterisk virtualization practical? For me, the short answer is YES, but especially in a lab.

In the last 6 months, I’ve gone from having half a dozen of Asterisk installations running on old desktop “servers”, or ODS for short, down to one installation.

I often need to be able to simulate configurations in a way that’s isolated from my production systems, and the only way I could do it was to maintain siloed configurations in my lab. It can also get complicated explaining to the wife why your laundry room has more workstations then most small offices, and why those ODS draw so much power. I only use my lab one a month tops, but when I do, it’s for several hours non-stop. The rest of time time, I just need the machines to be available; sometimes locally and sometimes remotely.

I can hear some wondering why I needed more then one ODS or a home lab running in the first place, and depending on what you use Asterisk for, that’s a reasonable question. If you’re just running a single site PBX, you probably don’t need more then one production system and one test system. However, if you’re running a more complicated multi-site configuration, or call routing deployment, then the only way to try stuff out is within a lab.

My “staging” and system configuration requirements didn’t change at all. So how did I drop my lab and recover precious laundry space, if I still need to work with multiple systems in an interconnected configuration? Answer: EC2 and VMWare

I’ve build several ami’s which can be launched from anywhere, anytime, and with a very short lead-time. My image is always exactly the way I left it, and if I make a mistake, it just takes a few seconds to start over. My IP endpoints and trunks can be setup in minutes with a configuration import, so localized system configurations are a snap to bring back. With EC2 being on the net by default, it can also be very convienient for colaboration, either with another eningeer or your client, without having to setup VPNs, or firewall holes.

Most of this is also true for my VMWare images (minus the part about colaboration), but VMWare isn’t always the best for simulating multiple sites, unless  you’ve got a beast for a host machine. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a life saver when working away from an internet connection, and backed up with EC2, the conbination is amazing.

There is one advantage, for me, to running my lab on VMWare every now and then, that EC2 can’t allow. I can packet sniff on my VM segment. This is really helpful when tracking down QOS flags, which internet routes just don’t respect.

So what does that one last ODS I said I have still running at home do for me? Well, Asterisk running on EC2 and WMWare is great, but not perfect. Since EC2 doesn’t have a solid ZAPtel timer, conferencing doesn’t work. I use my last ODS to host conference rooms. In my virtual labs, I have my systems register via IAX2 trunk to my home ODS, and use it’s timer and conference functions. It’s kinda slick to have everything working so well, giving you the best of both worlds.

My remaining laundry room PC also servers as a hub for all of my running labs configurations, since they all register via IAX2 back ‘home’, I have a route in to them. Not bad for a dynamic ‘on demand’ lab.

Filed under:
ResVoip Project by Nauman Memon