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Optimum set up for an academy trust

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Matt Holder

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Hi,

We're looking at using 3cx for an academy trust of schools.

We have the current setup:
  • Server hosted at one school with direct extensions (50)
  • A few extensions at some offices using an RPi as an SBC
  • A second school is about to go live with 35 extensions and an SBC on a VM
We're looking at going cloud hosted with the server and adding at least one more school in.

This new school has nearly 100 extensions, so one SBC won't cut it. Could we use two SBCs on the same network?

We have four learning communities of schools, so what is the optimum setup? One server per community with bridges, or one cloud server (cheapest option) and SBCs?

We'd rather not have to maintain multiple servers if possible, but can see the benefit with bridges should one server fail, the other communities can still function.
 
Hi Matt,

You have different options in such scenarios, it is simply a case of working out which suits your deployment best.

The cloud option I could see working however you would have to work out how you are going to deal with the site with 100 extensions (as 50 is your limit on a single SBC Windows/Linux). As you have said you can deploy 2 SBC's - this is fine and supported however it is not an option I am keen of.

One thought is that you could go either cloud or on premise and then for the 100 extension site just create a VPN tunnel (instead of using SBC) as long as you have enough bandwidth this would be perfectly fine: https://www.3cx.com/blog/docs/network-configurations-supported-3cx-phone-system/

The only other option I can think of is locate the on-premise server on the site with 100 extensions (have them as local to 3CX) and then deploy SBC's to the other sites (just be aware you would be hitting your limit with the 50 extension site).
 
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Thanks for this. Out of interest, why don't you like multiple SBC's on one site?

I can think of some issues myself, such as less oversight of logs etc, the oddities of most internal voice traffic being internal to the network, but some needing to go to the server...

Roll on the currently being worked on feature of SBC status being shown in the web interface!

The tunnel would be a solution I hadn't considered.

Thanks
 
I find mixed results with setting up multiple SBC's, I know some re-sellers like it but I find that if you want a clean setup you need to create 2 LAN segments to support this (as you have 2 potential SBC's that the phones can connect to for 3CX).

This string may explain better: https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/multiple-sbcs-connecting-to-one-pbx.54299/

The VPN tunnel is a good solid option. If you have an MPLS or VPLS connection between sites also you could utilize this in the same way.
 
Thank you. That makes sense with needing two Lan segments and how that isn't ideal.

We could create an IPSEC VPN to the PBX perhaps from the school's firewall?
 
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