Help with network design

[MACC the AVCOtek]

Aloha again everybody!

I need some advice. My facility has 12 BRI available for video calls and we have allocated 6 published IP addresses. The problem we have is that as an integrator and reseller, we often have need of more than that. Right now, we have codecs sitting around with no connectivity because there's nothing to hook them to!

What I'd like to do is setup an ISDN gateway and get all our codecs on our internal network. I'd also like to reserve one or two external IP addresses that any of the internal IP codecs could use as well. But having never had to deal with this stuff before (we do mainly ISDN installs and our network installs are usually only one or two codecs) I'm not really sure where to start.

What do I need to do this kind of thing? A gateway (obviously) and a gatekeeper? Anything else?

We have codecs from Tandberg, Polycom, Sony and Aethra and would also like to include in the system a Codian MC4210.

[tom9933]

Well I assume the ISDN Gateway is relatively straight forward IVR or TCS+4 and then choose the extension (e.164 alias) of the codec you want to call. The IP side is a little more interesting and there are several possible ways to deal with the problem. Probably the easiest and coolest would be to assign one of the ports on Codian to a static (public) IP and then use it traverse the firewall. I’m not sure what the status of this feature is right now but I know Codian was talking about having this capability. Another very popular way to go is to have the gatekeeper proxy the calls. I’m told that both Rad and the GNUGK support this but I’ve never actually tried this. BTW as an FYI I’ve seen several posts that talk about problems with 263+ and the GNUGK in proxy mode.
Thoughts, comments?

[Entropy3XD]

Well it already sound like you have a good idea of what you need. You need a gatekeeper of course for call routing. I recommend Radvisions ECS or Cisco MC for a gatekeeper. I find ECS and its web interface easier to manage, but both are pretty solid.



Then you need a gatekeeper. The kind of gatekeeper you need really depends on the network you are interfacing to. If you have PRIs, then the Tandberg or Radvision gateways would work well for you. I am not aware of any gateway on the market at the moment that takes in a BRI directly. For BRIs you can use Radvisions GW-S40 serial gateway. This gives you four ports which you can attach to an imux such as the Adtran 512. This would give you the capacity of up to four endpoints at up to 512k each. Unless you have a secure network, it is probably cheaper to get a PRI instead of all of those BRIs.



For a MCU and firewall traversal the Codian or the Tandberg MPS would work. I recently got to play with the Tandberg MPS and was really liked the quality. It also works well with the Radvision ECS gatekeeper and Radvision gateways. Tandberg is also coming out with PRI and serial blades for the MPS in the future.



The only thing left after that is the creation of a dial plan, which is a complete topic all its own.

[Kevin]

Probably the easiest and coolest would be to assign one of the ports on Codian to a static (public) IP and then use it traverse the firewall. I’m not sure what the status of this feature is right now but I know Codian was talking about having this capability.

This certainly would allow you to have calls from any number of external and internal Endpoints within the same conference.

We have beta software available for this already. If you wand to try it give me a shout.

Kevin

[tom9933]

Kevin,
If you’ve got an extra bridge laying around I’d be happy to test it :) I’d have one in house by now but the budgets have been a bit tight :(

[spkv]

If you are looking for an alternative to ISDN and purchasing/implementing a Gatekeeper and Gateway there are IP services such as Glowpoint. It is a least an option to think about.

[MACC the AVCOtek]

This certainly would allow you to have calls from any number of external and internal Endpoints within the same conference.

We have beta software available for this already. If you wand to try it give me a shout.

Kevin

Kevin,

Consider this a shout.

:grin:

[pbraatelien]

SPKV,
I also was going to recommend Glowpoint (I have managed those kind of Gateway, MCU, Gatekeeper) setups and they can be a nightmare. However, I noticed that Macc is in Hawaii and Glowpoint does not reach there (yet)
Paul