Asterisk Technology

| Sunday, January 17, 2010

Index


  • What is Asterisk? And How it works?
  • Features Provided by Standard Asterisk
  • How to configure Asterisk?
  • Various Flavors of Asterisk
  • Why asterisk is batter then other PBX Solutions Available?
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What is Asterisk?

Asterisk is basically a Soft PBX solution created by Mark Spencer in year 1999. Since then it’s the most popular Open Source VoIP PBX solution across the Globe.

Using Asterisk you can do calling vai. Soft phones configured on your PC’s, Laptop or on you Mobile, Analog Phones or IP Phones. Asterisk can work over any type of service line like Old PSTN telephony, Digital PRI E1/T1 telephony or Voice Over IP telephony.

The best part of Asterisk is you can customize Asterisk & make you own telephony solutions on top or it as per your business needs. Asterisk do support multiple platform like, Linix, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OSX, & Solaris.

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Features Provided by Asterisk

Well Asterisk do provide many features available in propriety PBX Systems like:

* Voice Mail
* Conference Calling
* Interactive Voice Response
* Automatic Call Distribution

Apart form the standard features uses can create their own features by writing dial plan script in Several Asterisk own extension language.

Asterisk provides an Hybrid telephony architecture by supporting MIX of traditional (PSTN, PRI, T1, E1) & VoIP telephony services. Asterisk allows the users to deploy totally new Asterisk based system, or gradually migrate existing system to new technologies.

For connecting the traditional PSTN Lines to Asterisk Server we have to use PCI Telephony Cards made by Digium or some other companies also.

We can connect Analog PSTN lines to Asterisk box via FXO Cannel Bank also. And to connect PRI E1/T1 interface we can use either PRI Box Packed Gateway or TDM based PCI Cards.

Asterisk support wide range of video and voice over IP Protocols including SIP, MGCP and H232.

Deployer can write their own code over asterisk by implementing Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI) program using any programming language capable of communicating via Standard stream language of by network TCP sockets.

Asterisk provides all features supported by traditional PBX, it also offer the advanced features that are often associated with large, high end propriety PBX’s.

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Call Features provided by Asterisk

Please refer following link
http://www.asterisk.org/features

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How to configure Asterisk?

You can configure asterisk by yourself or you can take help form some Asterisk consultant. Please refer the following portals for further information:

http://jeremy-mcnamora.com/asterisk/how-to-configure-asterisk/

http://enterux.com/

www.asteriskguru.com/tutorials/asterisk-voip-ipphones.html

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Various Flavors of Asterisk Available

There are various Flavors of Asterisk available in market few of them are:

- Druid
- Elastix
- TrixBox
Etc…

Druid OES

Druid OES is an Open Source Unified Communication Platform that brings together IP-PBX, IM, Faxing and Collaboration functionality. Druid functionality is based on various open source projects like Asterisk, Dojo Toolkit, PostFix, HylaFAX, Jabberd2 and Davecot. All these packages offer various functionality combined to make Druid Platform.

Druid provides a full flash Asterisk GUI Interface, hence easy to configure Asterisk. Major advantageous points of Druid are:

1)Auto Provisioning of IP-Phones

Druid Provides full auto-provisioning to IP Phones. It means we just have to plug IP Phone to the network and it Start working without providing the MAC address.

Mainly Auto provisioning available for Polycom, Grandstream, Astra, Linksys, Snom, Cisco and Mitel.

2)External Application Integration

Druid had a SOAP API, which can be used to integrate third party application for mobile phones, desktop etc..

3)FAX to Desktop

Druid provides FAX to desktop features which allows users to send FAX via Desktop PC also and receive the FAX in PDF format over their email ID.

Hardware Support for Druid

Druid is highly supportive to various hardware from various companies like: Sangoma, Digium, Rhino Equipment, Redphone and Xorcom.

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ELASTIX

Elastix is an open source Unified Communication Server that brings together IP PBX, email, IM, Faxing and collaboration Functionality. It provides web interface and includes capabilities such as Call Center Software with predictive dialing.


Supported Telephony Hardware for Elastix

Elastix provides drivers for many Hardware manufactures including: OpenVOX, Digium, Sangoma, Rhino Equipment, Xorcom and Yeastar.

Elastix mainly supports various phone brands that do support SIP and IAX protocols.

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Why Asterisk is batter then other Box-Pack Solutions available in market?

Asterisk provides integration with various existing applications like Custom CRM Integration, Call Center Integration and Automated Calling. System capable of sending thousands of phone calls per minute.

Major advantages of using Asterisk over standard PBX in market like: CISCO, Avaya, Alcatel, Nortel and others are..

1) Asterisk provides easy integration with existing software applications like (CRM, ERP, Call Center Software, POS, PMS ect..)

2) There in no need to purchase license to expand telephony network via Asterisk

3) Reduce the management cost

4) Provides easy integration help to bring SIP, TDM, IAX on single platform.

5) Asterisk can create various flexible Hybrid telephony solutions including Analog PSTN, PRI and VoIP Trunks lines managing through single Asterisk Server.

6) Easily customized as per organizational requirements

7) Regularly upgraded over internet

8) Asterisk can also integrate with existing Analog or Digital PBX system.


By:
Ashvini Gaur
LinkedIN Connect

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