Hosted SBC

[cktucker]

Hi All-
Forgive me if this has been covered, "sbc" is too short to search the forum. We are deploying a hosted pbx for a client that has two separate locations. Very small company, ~10 ext in each office. Was thinking of putting a sbc at each location but I'm seeing more and more "hosted SBC's". Anyone have experience or opinions on one hosted sbc w/ a hosted pbx? We just moved our pbx to a hosted instance and noticed that we had to enable "pbx delivers audio" for interoffice communications. That's fine for us but for a client, I'm looking at least admin effort. I certainly don't want to have to do a 1:1 nat for every device.

thanks in advance!

 

[AWS2P]

Physical SBC can run on RPi until 20 extensions , so install one on each location , you need only one port to be open 5090 , just follow 3CX guides to install Raspbian and set SBC , once done it works like a charm .
On SBCs LAN nothing to be done on phones or network settings.

 

[cktucker]

I understand. Although Pi's are great, I'm not so sure I want to have two accounting offices counting on them during tax season. If best, I have no problem implementing a slightly more robust linux appliance on each end. And if that's the best solution, that's what I'll do. Was just curious if anyone had ran a cloud instance of an sbc, and their experiences. I do appreciate your time!!

 

[AWS2P]

if you don't trust enough Pi , install a W10 SBC on a stronger computer, but if you have only 10 phones on each side, it's money spend for nothing IMO.

Accounters use phones a lot in tax season ? my wife is an accounter and phone is not her first need but perhaps i'm completly out of subject.

 

[cktucker]

understood. Staff accountants/cpa's may not but the partners/owners will flip if anything isn't working properly, during tax season ..been married to a cpa/partner for almost 20 yrs. They turn into honey badgers during tax season.

 

[leejor]

The Pi's are inexpensive enough that a spare could be kept at the site, plugged in, but the power togged on with a switch that at the same time cut power to the other (failed unit). It could be simple enough that anyone in the office could do it, if an issue was suspected (all of the phones failed)..

It's probably more likely that the ISP (or some other piece of network hardware) goes down.

 

[cktucker]

Agreed on the Pi's being inexpensive enough. Anyone have experience with cloud-based sbc's?

 

[leejor]

I'm really not certain how you would replace a 3CX SBC, with something "in the cloud", given how it operates.

https://www.3cx.com/docs/3cx-tunnel-session-border-controller/

Given the number of "links in the chain" that could possibly fail, if someone is being especially "concerned", you must remember that the SBC is but one.

 

[cobaltit]

I've not used it but a cloud SBC would work fine. It wouldn't work in the same fashion as the 3CX SBC (no PnP or encryption for example) but otherwise would be fine. This is a from a technical understanding, not personal experience. I remember another partner who used a cloud SBC years ago and swore by it.

 

[cktucker]

Thanks for you all's help! There is a company, Superior Eagle, that has a couple of videos about their solution, which is what got me to thinking about it. I think, for this use case, we will stick to two on-prem sbc's.

 

[DSXVOICE]

In Leejor's defense, I never believed an outboard SBC was a viable option. However, I was convinced by probably the same person cobalit says "swears" by it (george?) - so I set up an outboard SBC in a cloud VM. It works remarkably well. The local SBC has the advantage of providing local signaling for PnP provisioning with legacy phones, and a rogue ALG can still be a nuisance, but otherwise the differences are not notable.

 

[simply7]

I don't understand this purpose of a cloud SBC. Maybe if it is an enterprise SBC such as Audiocodes, but not the 3CX SBC. You would not gain anything by putting it in the cloud. Part of the main reason for deploying the 3CX SBC on site is you gain plug and play on certain phones, so that if you need a replacement phone at a remote location you can ship them a phone, they plug it in, and it shows up as an available phone to provision. Plus you lose the encryption of the SBC by putting it in the cloud and it would be the same as running a STUN provisioned phone.

 

[eddv123]

Cloud SBC is not supported however I know of this one that is in use by some 3CX partners:
http://www.natpass.com/

It requires the use of custom templates, I would speak to ABPTech about this:
https://www.abptech.com/natpass

I really think deploying this sort of thing to be fairly heavyweight and would require a lot of development, you are best off speaking to people who already have a solution in place.

 

[BrenttG]

For a more robust linux SBC appliance than a PI, look on amazon for Protectli, we use this one for small 3CX servers, SBCs, and even pfSense Firewalls, the one device is compatible, and strong enough to do any of the three functions, and no messing with drivers is needed.
https://www.amazon.com/Firewall-Mic...ds=protectli&qid=1558542829&s=gateway&sr=8-10

 

[cktucker]

Thanks for all of the replies. I do think we are going to stick with an on-prem sbc, for now.

BrenttG, I do like the Protectli/Qotom appliances. We deploy them as small firewalls and wireless controllers quite often. The models that have the cooling fans all the way around run MUCH cooler. https://www.amazon.com/Q190G4N-S07-...eywords=qotom&qid=1558731590&s=gateway&sr=8-3

 

[ucme4now]

Go with the EdgeWater 2900E on-premise at each site. I have a CPA firm with 150+ seats across 3-locations hosted 100% up-time during tax season no issues. Connect to the management portal to do packet captures, see call analytics, etc. $25 a month.

 

[eddv123]

Go with the EdgeWater 2900E on-premise at each site

Edgewater is a good solution I would agree, they have a hosted platform also which can manage your estate and gather a lot of useful information.