What are you guys using as a dedicated SBC these days?

[Lee Cramman]

I've been doing SBC upgrades and a few of those machines really need to be retired before they fail.

I'm not a fan of Raspberry Pi or router phones - but I need to find something suitable, and I'm just seeing a lot of generic rubbish when I look around to see what's available.

So as above - what do you guys use for a dedicated SBC these days? Bonus points if it's small enough to hang out in a rack or be rack mountable.

Our largest site is <50 end points and there's very little use of BLFs so our needs are fairly modest.

Thanks

edit: Debian SBC obvs.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

This option is also available now: https://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/fanvil-a710/

It works like a router phone, it just doesn't have the "phone" part and can handle traffic similar to a Pi.

It's PoE and small enough like a DECT base roughly.

 

[SteveITS]

That’s an interesting device.

I was going to say we’ve taken to preferring a VM if not using router phones.

 

[Alphabetic]

Router phones are great, especially if all the phones are router phones, otherwise it's a VM like Steve said. Depends too, cos 9/10 for our set ups they have a server so if all else fails, it goes on the server.

 

[Lee Cramman]

Unfortunately, currently not all phones are router phones.

I suppose VM would be OK (at least where there is an appropriate server to host one in place), but I need HA for one site in particular (call centre) and there is only one virtual server on site - it feels kind of self-defeating putting 2 HA nodes on the same hardware...

Equally, the Fanvil device looks interesting (and having some in stock as cold spares in case an SBC fails feels like a good idea to me), but presumably wouldn't help with HA either.

Is a bog standard mini-PC (either x 2 or in conjunction with a VM) from someone like Dell / HP / Lenovo the best way to go for that specific site? Or is there something better suited out there?

 

[SteveITS]

There are a bunch of mini-PC vendors. As long as it meets the specs and one can install the OS I expect it would be fine.

Having two router phones (which it sounds like this is, just much more capable) doesn't facilitate true HA but one can move a user's phone to a different SBC and reprovision.

Or, can you get the call center to use a headset and a software client?

 

[Lee Cramman]

There are a bunch of mini-PC vendors. As long as it meets the specs and one can install the OS I expect it would be fine.

Having two router phones (which it sounds like this is, just much more capable) doesn't facilitate true HA but one can move a user's phone to a different SBC and reprovision.

Or, can you get the call center to use a headset and a software client?

Sadly not - due to complicated (governmental) reasons we have no control over the LAN / WAN that PCs sit on, just the VOIP side which sits on its own physically separate network - the main LAN firewall is very locked down - you can't even initiate an SSH sessions or create a VPN tunnel from it never mind persuade someone to open it up for 3CX (I have tried...).

Silly, but that's government work for you!

I think I like the simplicity of the Fanvil devices where a single SBC will do, and I'll just go for a couple of mini PCs for the call centre - I had hoped for something a little smaller / more suited but I suspect I'm chasing a unicorn.

Thank you.

 

[AWS2P]

I'm used to set second hand , HP, Lenovo, Dell mini pc with 3CX iso linux as SBC and never got a failure.