v14 Cloud Migration to v15

[akitchen_xi]

Hey Everyone

We have been having some discussions around the office regarding the future of multi tenant under Windows and what / how easy the migration of existing clients will be.

Secondly at present we can run up a single VM environment using the v14 cloud version and have 25 instances under a single Windows VM. We are concerned with the current situation with IPv4 addresses and the price that people are charging to obtain new IP ranges the proposed v15 using the Linux environment means that instead of using a single IP address to host upto 25 instances on a single Windows VM we will now need 25 IP's to host 25 instances. That is quite concerning to us considering we are paying upwards of $100 per IP address at present if we need to purchase additional IPv4 blocks here in Australia and the prices are going up on a monthly basis as all of the Australian ISP fight over the remaining available addresses which they need to continue to grow their businesses.

Has anyone at 3CX taken this into consideration with the multi tenant version ??

Will there be a multi tenant version under Windows for 15 ??

Lastly how easy will it be for companies like us which have build a business around cloud PBX and v14 to migrate our existing clients should there be no Windows Multi Tenant version to the new Linux version ??

Can there be a way to use a single IP and run multiple VM's ??

Regards


Andrew Kitchen

 

[IT Hamster]

We're in a similar boat, but not with those crazy Static IP costs.

We're shifting to linux from multi-tenant windows- we will end up saving a lot of money on resources and OS licensing fees, which is nice.

It's a pain re-setting up 25 PBXs, though.


Hopefully the cost reductions in OS licensing and server resources will help offset your Static IP addressing costs-a little bit.

 

[ccexpert]

Multi-tenant will be no more according to this post from 3CX. Better find a cheaper place to get IP addresses.

http://www.3cx.com/blog/news/cloud-read ... ti-tenant/

 

[Saqqara]

As above, no more multitentant

Doc to migrate from multi tenant to V15 - http://www.3cx.com/blog/docs/migrate-virtual-pbx-14/

 

[sipalyser]

I totally agree and I can't understand why more people aren't questioning the sanity of this move.

Summary

Before 25 PBX on one VPS - great. Now 25 VPS, 25 costs of VPS, 25 admin tasks to maintain each VPS, 25 IP address costs as in your case.

Linux holds no great attraction for us. A Windows PBX was what brought us to 3CX in the first place. We could choose from any number of Linux systems including free ones.

We can't afford to replace 1 VPS with 25. Our customers are small businesses and currently aren't even paying anything like the cost of a VPS for their total outlay. Thre is no chance on this earth that they are going to pay such a huge leap in costs we would lose them as customers. Our only option is to sit tight on V14 with what we have and look at options going forward.

 

[Michael Rasmus]

Has anyone found out if we can use 1 public IP address across several instances in version 15 or is this not possible?

 

[sip.bg]

Has anyone found out if we can use 1 public IP address across several instances in version 15 or is this not possible?

Not easy, probably with good SIP ALG router, may be Cisco -- you can correctly NAT one address, different port ranges to many addresses - same port ranges, like 11.12.13.14:5060-5061 <=> 10.0.0.1:5060-5061, 11.12.13.14:6060-6061 <=> 10.0.0.2:5060-5061, 11.12.13.14:7060-7061 <=> 10.0.0.3:5060-5061, etc.

You also need to NAT port ranges for RTP like 11.12.13.14:9000-9500 <=> 10.0.0.1:9000-9500, 11.12.13.14:10000-10500 <=> 10.0.0.2:9000-9500, 11.12.13.14:11000-11500 <=> 10.0.0.1:9000-9500, etc.
In the above example 11.12.13.14 is the public address and 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, 10.0.0.3, etc. are addresses of different PBX instances (linux) or manually change the public ports for each PBX instance to 9000-9500, 10000-10500, 11000-11500, etc. correspondingly in one-to-one port NAT (PAT).

Also you need to have similar approach for ports 5000, 5001 and for 3CX tunnel port: 5090

SIP ALG should be activated for ports 5060, 5061, 6060, 6061, 7060, 7061, etc.
Note also ports 5000,5001,5060,5061,5090 use TCP and ports 5060,5090,9000-9500 use UDP protocol.


Of course with similar approach new firewall check will not pass, because of SIP ALG, but this doesn't mean NAT and PBXs will not work.

 

[Michael Rasmus]

Not easy, probably with good SIP ALG router, may be Cisco -- you can correctly NAT one address, different port ranges to many addresses - same port ranges, like 11.12.13.14:5060-5061 <=> 10.0.0.1:5060-5061, 11.12.13.14:6060-6061 <=> 10.0.0.2:5060-5061, 11.12.13.14:7060-7061 <=> 10.0.0.3:5060-5061, etc.

You also need to NAT port ranges for RTP like 11.12.13.14:9000-9500 <=> 10.0.0.1:9000-9500, 11.12.13.14:10000-10500 <=> 10.0.0.2:9000-9500, 11.12.13.14:11000-11500 <=> 10.0.0.1:9000-9500, etc.
In the above example 11.12.13.14 is the public address and 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, 10.0.0.3, etc. are addresses of different PBX instances (linux) or manually change the public ports for each PBX instance to 9000-9500, 10000-10500, 11000-11500, etc. correspondingly in one-to-one port NAT (PAT).

Also you need to have similar approach for ports 5000, 5001 and for 3CX tunnel port: 5090

SIP ALG should be activated for ports 5060, 5061, 6060, 6061, 7060, 7061, etc.
Note also ports 5000,5001,5060,5061,5090 use TCP and ports 5060,5090,9000-9500 use UDP protocol.


Of course with similar approach new firewall check will not pass, because of SIP ALG, but this doesn't mean NAT and PBXs will not work.

Thank you for the reply.

Do you think this would be a viable option if we have 50 instances?
There would be an extremely huge amount of rules on the firewall, would that cause any issues eg: packet loss, firewall crashing...

Kind Regards
Michael

 

[sip.bg]

Thank you for the reply.

Do you think this would be a viable option if we have 50 instances?
There would be an extremely huge amount of rules on the firewall, would that cause any issues eg: packet loss, firewall crashing...

Kind Regards
Michael

Not an easy job however.
Depends on router -- the load may be significant for a small one.
I have made some tests in the past with Cisco 881 and ASA 5510.
I can only confirm SIP ALG can be set and is working correctly on many set of ports like 5060-5061, 6060-6061, 7060-7061, ..., not the case with most of other brands.
For UDP port ranges (RTP) and 3CX tunnel (port 5090 - TCP & UDP) better modify ports used in each PBX instance and use 1:1 PAT
For http/https access better create rules using different ports for each instance like 5000-5001, 6000-6001, 7000-7001, etc. to ports 5000-5001 of each instance or better install instance with different port each: 5000-5001, 6000-6001, 7000-7001, etc. and use 1:1 PAT.

Using 1:1 PAT for RTP, http/https and 3CX tunnel would minimize rules you need to create in router.
Only activate SIP ALG for ports 5060-5061, 6060-6061, 7060-7061, etc. and make specific NAT/PAT rules for them. Note port 5060 and corresponding use both TCP & UDP protocol, while 5061 and corresponding - only TCP protocol.

Plan port utilization carefully before testing. You should be able even to modify SIP ports (5060,5061) for each instance and not to use SIP ALG, but this may complicate external extension setup and will not work with some SIP trunk providers (as they could rely on port 5060 -- specially those with authentication, based on IP address).