TransNexus has been featured in this week's edition of "The VoIP Peering Puzzle" - a comprehensive set of articles examining VoIP Session Border Controllers. "The VoIP Peering Puzzle" is a series of articles is written by Mark Miller, President of DigiNet Corporation. Miller, who is a Professional Engineer, is a good writer on technical topics and his articles provide a quick, easy to read understanding of technical issues.
To the see the article on how TransNexus fits into a VoIP peering network architecture, go to http://www.voipplanet.com/backgrounders/article.php/3700166
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Asterisk Performance Testing
Over the last couple of months we have been stress testing Asterisk V1.4 to understand its performance. We started using V1.4.4 and advanced to V1.4.11 as new releases were made available. We have been stress testing Asterisk configured as a SIP Back to Back User Agent (B2BUA) installed on a server with two, dual core, Xeon 5140 CPUs running at 2.33 GHz.
The performance results look very good. When there is no transcoding, Asterisk can handle approximately 1500 simultaneous calls. When using a $3000 server to host Asterisk, this works out to be $2 per port which is a very low investment. When calls are transcoded from the G.711 codec to G.729, the maximum number of simultaneous calls is approximately 400. The economics are quite different when transcoding is required since there is a $10 per port patent royalty for using the G.711 to G.729 transcoding algorithm. The per port cost for using Asterisk with G.711 to G.729 transcoding is $17.50 per port. (Note, the $10 per port patent royalty is the amount charged if you purchase a transcoding license from Digium. OEM vendors could negotiate a lower royalty fee directly from the patent holders, but this is not practical for end users.)
More importantly, we have seen a big improvement is stability between V1.4.4 and V1.4.11. We have found that V1.4.11 has been very stable in prolonged, high volume stress tests. We expect that V1.4.11 will be the foundation of Asterisk Business Edition Rev C which should be released later this year. We see Asterisk Business Edition Rev C to be a quantum leap forward compared to earlier versions of Asterisk Business Edition.
We will publish all the details of our test plan, a summary of the test results and all the raw data on the TransNexus web site (www.TransNexus.com) in the coming weeks.
If you have any comments or experience sizing server hardware for Asterisk in carrier operations please post your information here.
Thank you
The performance results look very good. When there is no transcoding, Asterisk can handle approximately 1500 simultaneous calls. When using a $3000 server to host Asterisk, this works out to be $2 per port which is a very low investment. When calls are transcoded from the G.711 codec to G.729, the maximum number of simultaneous calls is approximately 400. The economics are quite different when transcoding is required since there is a $10 per port patent royalty for using the G.711 to G.729 transcoding algorithm. The per port cost for using Asterisk with G.711 to G.729 transcoding is $17.50 per port. (Note, the $10 per port patent royalty is the amount charged if you purchase a transcoding license from Digium. OEM vendors could negotiate a lower royalty fee directly from the patent holders, but this is not practical for end users.)
More importantly, we have seen a big improvement is stability between V1.4.4 and V1.4.11. We have found that V1.4.11 has been very stable in prolonged, high volume stress tests. We expect that V1.4.11 will be the foundation of Asterisk Business Edition Rev C which should be released later this year. We see Asterisk Business Edition Rev C to be a quantum leap forward compared to earlier versions of Asterisk Business Edition.
We will publish all the details of our test plan, a summary of the test results and all the raw data on the TransNexus web site (www.TransNexus.com) in the coming weeks.
If you have any comments or experience sizing server hardware for Asterisk in carrier operations please post your information here.
Thank you
Sunday, September 9, 2007
SPIDER Adoption is an important trend for VoIP Peering
On August 6th 2007, NueStar (www.NeuStar.biz) issued a press release announcing that they have partnered with NetNumber (www.netnumber.com) "in response to customer demand for interoperability between NeuStar’s SIP-IX service and NetNumber’s SPIDER and TITAN technology platforms."
This announcement is significant because it is the first coordination between two companies on a common approach for VoIP peering. Up until now, the apparent strategy for most players in the VoIP peering market has been to build a dominant database of peering partners before anyone else and become the de facto VoIP peering registry monopoly. Fortunately, this has not happened for a variety of reasons such as competition, immature technology, lack of demand and, most importantly, business models that do not work.
A clear message from the market regarding VoIP peering is that customers do not want a monopoly VoIP peering registrar even if it brings simplicity and economies of scale. A market driven business model for VoIP peering will not be similar to the monopoly status given to telecom databases such as the Telcordia (www.telcordia.com) LERG (Local Exchange Routing Guide) or the NPAC (Number Portability Adminstration Center) run by NeuStar.
While service providers might loathe dependence on a centralized authority to coordinate global VoIP peering, at some level a root authority for route discovery seems impossible to avoid. This is why SPIDER and coordination between NeuStar and NetNumber is interesting. SPIDER stands for Service Provider Interconnect Data Exchange Resource and "is used by registry solution providers to enable the efficient exchange of interconnect address information between trusted communications service providers and VoIP communities" (quote from press release). Conceptually, SPIDER (spiderregistry.net) is a neutral, non-profit organization created by NetNumber and Arbinet (www.arbinet.com). I use the word conceptually, because up until now, SPIDER has appeared to be a marketing tool for Arbinet and NetNumber. The participation of NeuStar might be the first step in the evolution of SPIDER becoming a truely independent mechanism for enabling ubiquitous VoIP peering.
If you have used SPIDER or have an opinion about SPIDER I welcome your comments.
This announcement is significant because it is the first coordination between two companies on a common approach for VoIP peering. Up until now, the apparent strategy for most players in the VoIP peering market has been to build a dominant database of peering partners before anyone else and become the de facto VoIP peering registry monopoly. Fortunately, this has not happened for a variety of reasons such as competition, immature technology, lack of demand and, most importantly, business models that do not work.
A clear message from the market regarding VoIP peering is that customers do not want a monopoly VoIP peering registrar even if it brings simplicity and economies of scale. A market driven business model for VoIP peering will not be similar to the monopoly status given to telecom databases such as the Telcordia (www.telcordia.com) LERG (Local Exchange Routing Guide) or the NPAC (Number Portability Adminstration Center) run by NeuStar.
While service providers might loathe dependence on a centralized authority to coordinate global VoIP peering, at some level a root authority for route discovery seems impossible to avoid. This is why SPIDER and coordination between NeuStar and NetNumber is interesting. SPIDER stands for Service Provider Interconnect Data Exchange Resource and "is used by registry solution providers to enable the efficient exchange of interconnect address information between trusted communications service providers and VoIP communities" (quote from press release). Conceptually, SPIDER (spiderregistry.net) is a neutral, non-profit organization created by NetNumber and Arbinet (www.arbinet.com). I use the word conceptually, because up until now, SPIDER has appeared to be a marketing tool for Arbinet and NetNumber. The participation of NeuStar might be the first step in the evolution of SPIDER becoming a truely independent mechanism for enabling ubiquitous VoIP peering.
If you have used SPIDER or have an opinion about SPIDER I welcome your comments.
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