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Hardware Requirements

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ndraves

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I might be overlooking it, but is there a page that describes the hardware requirements for the server?

Thanks.
 
Minimum requirements

Basically you need a P4 machine upwards with a minimum of 512Mb RAM / OS windows XP/server2003 / and a suitable amount of HDD space which can vary of course.
 
Hardware

Thanks.

To use VoIP service, would the server need to have two NICs, one connected to the Internet (probably behind a firewall / router) and one connected to the switch which has the phones?
 
Is there an advantage to using a specific OS

Is there an advantage to using either Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 for your 3CX server?
 
Were you asking me or was that a general question?
 
I believe the question was asking in general. As far as a 'server' goes, 2003 would be the best choice. It's designed for running services, file sharing, networking etc. It's very stable and easy to configure.
That would be my choice. Throw the 2003 on a RAID set with 3cx and I think you should have a perfect system.

I have 3 questions for someone though:
1) With XP you have a 10 user limit on file connections. Does that hold true for 3CX running on XP?
2) Is there (if not there should be) a guide for recommended systems based on scale? 5 users - XP w/ 512ram, 10 gig HD, 20 users - XP would be ok w/ 1gb & 20 GB HD, 2003 better, 500 users - 2003, 4 gigs ram, 50gb HD is required. Something along those lines.
3) What's the best backup for 3CX? Just a regular backup of the 3CX folder or are there so many open files that it wouldn't work. In that case we'd need to schedule a stop services, backup, restart services script.
 
Re: Hardware

ndraves said:
Thanks.

To use VoIP service, would the server need to have two NICs, one connected to the Internet (probably behind a firewall / router) and one connected to the switch which has the phones?

Depends what Network topology you are using. I would keep things as simple as possible. Internet will go through Router/Nat device, switch, connect 1 port to PC that has 3CX PBX server on it (1 NIC card is enough). Connect the SIP phones, Pc's with soft phones or ATA's to the switch. Finally connect the Gateway (Voip Gateway) for PSTN network access to the switch. And you are done.

--

Rob - Iwould agree with you to install the pbx on server 2003. You can always disable the services that you dont need.

q1) - Since its based on Apache, the 10 connection limit of windows XP does not come into effect.
q2) - There isn't actually. The strength and specs of the machine do not only depend just on the amount of users that connect to the PBX.
You can have as many extensions as you like really. The two real issues (bottlenecks) are how many concurrent calls you are going to have and how many Call Assistants you intend to connect. Without using CA then the system will easily scale beyond 1000 extensions. Each call will cost you a few hundred of K of memory. On a basic server (x2 ~2194 Mhz AMD Processors) you won't even see the CPU budge unless you start placing calls 10 at a time (and by "at a time" I mean in the same second). Calls that use MediaServer are more costy depending on what codec you use. On the other hand Call assistant is currently a bit bulky since the CA Server is executes on PHP. Each connected CA will cost you 8MB of RAM and each time someone connects such a processor (x2 ~2194 Mhz AMD Processors) will take up about 8% CPU time. Beyond about 150 connected CAs you will start noticing a lag in the CA notifications.

At this point you have to upgrade of course. I do not actually see the point in having a pc in 2007 with a 10GB harddisk only :)

( You should know that currently we have a hard coded limit for a maximum of 250 extentions in MS i.e. 125 concurrent calls. It sounds small but it's actually quite a lot of UDP packets that need to be shuffled and analysed (DTMF etc) in a timely fashion. In reality you can surpass that limit but users will experience difficulties when transfering to extensions bound to media server, voip provider lines or Voice Mail.

q3) - To backup you can perform a simple backup from inside the 3CX console managment. That backup is enough. Backup and restore. You do not need to stay stopping services and restart services.
 
Thank for the tips. Regarding the backup - I know the Backup and Restore works but does it also backup voice mails? I tried it today and it brought everything with it except the voicemails that were left on the extension. I think this should be added if it's not supposed to do that.

Also - can you do a regular Server backup (say with Retrospect, Windows Backup, Symantec etc) to backup 3CX properly? That would save some manual steps. The more automated everything is the better.

What I meant with the hard drive space was approximately how much space do you allow (or should plan for) with voice mails?

Thanks!
 
Automated backup

:lol:

Yes, that would be good, have the backups include voicemails, actually I though they were, but I never did check this.

The backup is performed using a .php script to log in perform the backup daily. If you want it I could send it to you.

Now, Ill have to add a section to backup the voicemail files.

This is better than stopping services etc.
 
Voicemails not restored after backup and restore

Hi I have just tested this and you both are right - the voicemails saved in the phone are not included or restored in the backup.

I am forwarding this to the development team for a fix.

However (you probably know!) in the meantime if you follow the following path: C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Data\Ivr\Voicemail\Extensions
.. here you should find folders with the extension numbers with the voicemails inside received on each extension.

The backup is performed using a .php script to log in perform the backup daily. If you want it I could send it to you.

Yes sure GBarnes you can attach it if you want. (But why do you have to stop services? Backup works fine without stopping services!)


What I meant with the hard drive space was approximately how much space do you allow (or should plan for) with voice mails?

Depends Rob - you're the administrator and you have to decide the policies with your phonesystem - You may even set voicemail to be deleted from the mailbox and send them by email... Of course if voicemails are left and not deleted, (eventually they are going to be included in the backup), imagine how large the BKP file is going to be - every time. Remember you also have voice prompts and call logs which are so important and take up considerable amount of space. I would put a large HDD in the first place so I wont have to think about space for some time. As an admin you might have enough to think about already so try and reduce headaches in the future :wink: !!!

+ - a large HDD is also good so you can partition it and put PBX on 1 partition and backed up data on the other. Preferably keep a copy of backups also on a seperate machine (play it safe/paranoid admin :) )...You can use RAID system setup aswell to be extra carefull but it will incur more HDD specifications like multiple harddisks of same model, same size etc.
 
Glad to hear that the backups will include the voicemails now (or soon). In case you haven't thought of it, having a checkbox for that option would be nice. A quick backup of the settings and prompts and a full backup including voicemails.

Of course you'd want to put this on a RAID 1 or 5 system. Why chance a single hard drive failure taking down your entire phone system. Not a smart thing, cheaper but not smart for a business.
 
I perfectly agree - if you are in a business environment I would do as you say. You will have redundancy and peace of mind.
Regarding Voicemails - there is an option that can send Voicemails to your mail box storing them there. I will keep this post updated as we make progress on this issue.
 
I agree partially with this as storing voicemails with email would be ok except most places have problems keeping their mailbox clean as it is. Mailbox management is worse than voicemail management.
Glad to hear 3CX is working on this. I think when all these little issues are taken care of this will be a very strong product to compete with anything else out there.
All we need now is better DSL quality here in the US.

nickybrg said:
Regarding Voicemails - there is an option that can send Voicemails to your mail box storing them there. I will keep this post updated as we make progress on this issue.
 
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