FOOD FOR THOUGHT Business scheme thoughts?

MacNix

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Am helping a client who's got several simultaneous processes going currently.

1. on a hard copper system (which we're getting out of)
2. moving into another location
3. opening another remote office


They came to me in a panic (due to poor planning on their part), needing instant help with a virtual # for their new remote location. In 15 minutes I had a new DID (area code & exchange matching the new remote location address), pushed into my PiaF box, ringing to a particular extension on their current copper system.. So they're happy, and they're even more happier when I'm telling them their $850/month phone bill is going to be around $150/month INCLUDING internet feed....

Long term plans are to get them fully onto a PiaF solution, and for this I need a bit of help. Phones isn't my thing, but I've been dragged into building several 20-30 station VOIP systems for business and charities, and as this business is a client for other stuff, I'm a bit committed to helping them...

So the questions are these:

What is the best scheme for a multi-location setup?
Office A (let's call it Office North, or "ON") will have 4 persons, and a relatively good internet connection (shared from an IT group in the same building, but with static IP)
Office B (let's call it Office South, or "OS") will have 8-9 persons, with very good connectivity.

We'll be setting up routers and static IP at both locations, and there will likely be a dedicated VPN between both locations. I'll have final say on all hardware installs at both locations..

My thought was to install a PiaF (Raspberry B+?) at OS, and then have all stations in ON call it (via the VPN tunnel). Is that a decent idea, or a recipe for disaster?

Would there be a better method for me to put a box in EACH location, and then somehow route the two together? If so, what's the best plan on that?

What about putting a box in each location and doing a 'local trunk' from one to the other, for ease of transfers? then outside calls would go outside from either one, and only inter-office calls (or inbound/transfers) would go over the tunnel...

Thoughts?

thanks!

Dave
 

MacNix

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ok, so a dozen folks look, no replies?

Is this in the wrong area??
 

rossiv

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Welcome to the forums, MacNix. One thing to keep in mind with forums is that even though 500 people may view your post, none of they may be able to answer your question. We do have a large number of people on the forums that are just users, but a fair number of "Gurus" as well. We all contribute on our own time to the best of our abilities. Some posts go a week or so without a response, though usually not that long. This isn't meant to be harsh or rude and my apologies if I come off that way. I'm only trying to convey that posts usually don't get responded to in two hours. That's all.

In any case, here's my personal recommendation. I like your last proposal.
What about putting a box in each location and doing a 'local trunk' from one to the other, for ease of transfers? then outside calls would go outside from either one, and only inter-office calls (or inbound/transfers) would go over the tunnel...
That sounds like a perfect plan to me. I personally would use two Beagle Bone Black units - one at each office - with an IAX trunk between the two of them and outside calls routed out from each. That way if one goes down, you only lose the inter-office link and not your whole dialing ability. Put extensions in ON as 2xx and OS as 3xx or something that that effect.
 

kmcdaniel

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I have done this for a non-profit where they had two separate offices. I set them up on RentPBX, I wasn't interested in maintaining their hardware and having to deal with potential hardware failures with one or even two separate boxes. RentPBX has been great and is $15/month. Use the PiaF coupon found in one of the forums. I believe it is PIAF2012. (not positive). One of their offices is using Aastra's and the other which is the newest location has T-46's. Total users are 9 at this time. Flawless for almost two years. They have Comcast internet and ddwrt routers locking down both locations and travelingman3 is used to allow for each site to register back to RentPBX. I'm not sure if this is exactly how others would do it, or if there are clear concerns to not utilizing VPN with this setup, but no issues thus far and travelingman3 provides that piece of mind. So if it's not broke, then well....you know the rest! By the way the newer office raves about the T-46's, I've got them setup as similar as possible to a key lined system using the valet parking directions in the T-46 thread.
 

james

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I might get lynched here for this but throw the Raspii in the trash. It is good for replacing your answering machine or for mucking around at home. It is probably OK as a solution for 1 guy in a hotel room. For a business phones are vital and should be treated as a key business asset. Either run with the hosted idea or get something atom based. If the main office has a fat pipe and the remote offices only have 4 phones just have em connect direct. To a single solution.
 

wardmundy

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RentPBX is $15/mo. for PIAF users. Why hassle with a computer at all? :patriot:

If you decide to go the small computer route, the BeagleBone Black is a much better Asterisk platform than the Raspberry Pi although we have lots of friends that have had rock-solid reliability with a RasPi for more than a year. We typically reboot the units every night just to clean things up.

If this is a business, why not spend a few hundred bucks on a "real computer"??
 

tbrummell

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^^^^ that right there.....
Add OpenVPN on the RentPBX (if they allow it) and set each location up with a router that will do OpenVPN as a client (pfSense is my choice) then everything is encrypted to the server at least.
 

AndyInNYC

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RentPBX allows OpenVPN. I set it up on one of our machines, but haven't gotten it working on a separate machine (or my friend just couldn't configure the T46 correctly - he sent it my way, so I'll know today where the problem lies).

Depending upon your configuration (Purple/Green, OS, etc.) you may have a simple process installing OpenVPN or you may be jumping through a few hoops.

Andrew
 

MacNix

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RentPBX is $15/mo. for PIAF users. Why hassle with a computer at all? :patriot:

If you decide to go the small computer route, the BeagleBone Black is a much better Asterisk platform than the Raspberry Pi although we have lots of friends that have had rock-solid reliability with a RasPi for more than a year. We typically reboot the units every night just to clean things up.

If this is a business, why not spend a few hundred bucks on a "real computer"??
]

thx for the thoughts..

am not familiar with rentpbx - will check them out. is that $15/month for the WHOLE OFFICE, or per station?


as to the locations - we build opensource router boxes (openVPN), so that's how the two offices will talk to each other.


I just noticed where you're at Ward - - got anybody in a 20 mile radius of you that I can recommend for on-site help for a client (VOIP)? If so pz zap me....
 

rossiv

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]

thx for the thoughts..

am not familiar with rentpbx - will check them out. is that $15/month for the WHOLE OFFICE, or per station?

That's total. You only pay for the hosting of the server. No limits otherwise.
 

MacNix

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I like the box per office plan but know your CDR and voicemail will not be centralized in case that is a deal breaker.

good point indeed... that does add a partial layer of redundancy/complexity/annoyance...


Question - any good reason to consider Beaglebone black over an Atom box? From what I was finding, i can do a mini-build for about $30-40 more than a beaglebone, and it seems (IMHO) to offer easier-to-manage backup options, redundancy, etc... any thoughts??

many thanks for all y'all's (and yes that's grammatically correct, if'n yer a southerner) thoughts!

This forum is WHY I took the plunge a few years ago, set up a voip system in my back office, and eventually converted each of my businesses over to VOIP using Piaf. Today we run a bunch of Polycomm Kirk system wireless units in our offices (only 2 hard-wired phones across 3 businesses), and they're all inter-operative, handle 3 independent businesses under the same city block, and NONE of this would've happened without the help found in this forum......
 

jeff.h

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I actually do this for a few folks and have gone about it just about every way described in this thread. My recommendation would be to go the hosted route as long as you have good enough internet at both locations and a router than can do good QoS. Here's why... you get a centralized system for everything, VM, CDRs etc and all that, but the single best reason in my experience is that if something happens to the site and it goes dark, the folks calling in to that business will get voicemail which is then emailed to the user. If your system is local and the site goes dark the callers will get an error message from the carrier that the number is not in service and that can do more harm than you realize.

$15 a month is cheap insurance to avoid that and you can always spin up another box at a moments notice.
 

jeff.h

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Not necessarily. I use voip.ms which has a fail-over destination in case the trunks lose registration. I can choose to collect voice mail, or ring thru to another DID, possibly other alternatives. I expect many SIP providers have something similar.

Flowroute has that same option, but for something of this smaller scale I think it really is a bit overkill to have boxes all over the place and not stay centralized. If we were talking hundreds of extensions per site, then yeah a box per location like I have with my Call Manager setup at my day job.
 

MacNix

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Thanks all! Just pulled the trigger on rentpbx... doing the install as we speak..

Very much appreciate your varied thoughts & input.
 
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