Transcript 20070424-voip-kassabian

Production Quality Open Source VoIP:
Next Generation Telephony at Penn
Deke Kassabian
University of Pennsylvania
Internet2 Spring Member Meeting
April 2007
ISC Networking &
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Penn Background
• An Ivy League university in Philadelphia, PA founded
in 1740 by Ben Franklin
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40,000 faculty, staff and students
25,000 phone lines/12,000 voicemail users
50,000 IP addresses in use
9,000 analog video connections
Over 1.5 Gbps external IP capacity
Operates the MAGPI Internet2 GigaPop connecting
38 institutional subscribers
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Organization
• Networking, Telecommunications and Video Groups
merged in 2000
• 100 full time staff members and contractors today,
after substantial churn
• Much staff re-education & integration has taken place
• 100% direct charge budget
• New organization is fully integrated and increasingly
well cross-trained
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Voice Services at Penn Today
• Most users have Centrex service
– Local Exchange Carrier -provided business
telephone service
– Long list of available features
– Switch at Telco Central Office
– On-campus copper cabling
• Some departments have PBXs and small
key systems
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Telecommunications Infrastructure
• Local Exchange Carrier brings copper loop infrastructure
to campus Rate Demarcation Points (RDPs)
• Penn maintains in-ground and in-building copper cable
infrastructure from RDP to building, building to closet,
closet to wallplate
• This infrastructure is very old, and in some cases is
failing resulting in outages and requiring expensive
repairs
• Replacement of these cables would be $3-5M
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Campus Map
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Rate Demarcation Points
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Next Generation PennNet
NAP4
NORTHERN TIER
SANSOM EAST
NAP5
WESTERN TIER
LEVY
NAP2
CENTRAL TIER
HUNTSMAN
NAP-CH
COLLEGE HALL
NODE ROOM
NAP3
SOUTHERN TIER
MOD5
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NAP1
EASTERN TIER
VAGELOS
Business Drivers
• Aging phone-cabling infrastructure. Cable faults
are increasing, and repairs are expensive.
• Moves, adds and changes are time consuming and
costly (3000/yr @ $125= $375k)
• Limited application integration/flexibility
• Legacy voice mail and ACD are business critical,
but fragile and costly to support
• Prefer vendor independence, open standards and
open source
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Voice Services Goals
• Generally:
– Cost–effective, reliable voice communications
with flexibility to meet evolving demands
– Vendor independence
– Single integrated network infrastructure
• Specifically: Convert 25,000 analog voice
customers to VoIP on a converged IP
network with added functionality and lower
costs in 5 years or less
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History of VoIP at Penn
• Protocol investigation dates back to late 1990s
• Worked first with H.323-based VoIP, and later with
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
• Worked with a range of applications:
– Cisco Call Manager, an enterprise solution (2001-2002)
– BroadSoft’s Broadworks, a carrier-class VoIP software
solution, piloted on campus (2001-2003)
– Externally hosted IP Centrex solutions (2003-2004)
– Open-source SIP Express Router with Asterisk Comedian
Voice Mail (2003-Present)
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Whether to use Open Source
• Does IP Telephony lend itself to open source server
software?
– Can it be reliable enough?
– Will we have the feature set we need?
– Will we be able to maintain it well?
• We have an IT staff experienced in the 24x7 operation of
key services based on open standards and open source
• Positive experience with open source server software
encouraged us to take this as a serious option
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Open Source Strategy
• Select open source tools written in programming
languages in which we have expertise
• Assure that multiple staff members are familiar with each
open source tool
• Avoid the over-customization trap
– Use existing functionality where possible
– Maintain active relationship with developers
– Try to get any essential changes of general interest built back into
mainline code
• Notable Asterisk customization
– IMAP access to voice mail message store for true unified
messaging from phones and email clients
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Project Teams
Steering
Committee
Technical
Facilities
Process
Business
Network
Architecture
Installations
Operations
Application
Architecture
Intake
Support
Telephony
Architecture
Billing
Provisioning
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Communications
VoIP Building Blocks
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SIP Clients or User Agents
SIP Proxy Servers
Media & Feature Servers
Gateways and ITSP
services
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SIP User Agents (UAs)
• Hardware SIP phone, in the
familiar desk set form factor.
Penn currently uses Cisco
phones, and is looking into
other options.
• Software that acts as a SIP
client or user agent and runs
on a desktop, laptop or
handheld. Shown here is
eyeBeam from Counterpath.
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SIP Proxy Servers
• Server that accepts “registration” from valid
users
• Allows client to signal their call information
• Handles call set up and gets out of the way
• Penn uses SER (iptel.org)
and OpenSER (openser.org)
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Media & Feature Servers
• Server that handles “media” such as voice
mail and music on hold
• Provides for some additional call features
• Co-exists with provisioning services
• Penn currently uses Asterisk
(www.digium.com)
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Gateway
IP
Campus
Network
Gateway
• Interconnect between campus network and PSTN
• Penn currently uses Cisco 36xx routers
ISDN PRIs
PSTN
• Penn will also use ITSP services, sending calls via IP
to a national network of gateways for completion
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General VoIP Design
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VoIP Topology
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PennNet Phone Roadmap
1H 2006
Phase 1.0
2H 2006
Phase 1.X
1H 2007
Phase 2.0
2H 2007
Phase 3.0
Phase 3.0
• Octel voice mail migration
Phase 2.0
• Feature Release 2.0
• Centrex-Asterisk Pilot(s)
Phase 1.0
• VoIP Campus Pilot Begins
• PennNet Phone web portal
• Penn Directory lookups from
PennNet Phones
Phase 1.1-1.2
• ITSP/LNP Production
• IMAP Message Store
• New Handset Testing
• Limited Multi-line Pilots
• 1000+ phones deployed
• PiPS Maintenance
• Security development
• 600+ phones deployed
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• New Handset Production
• Softphone Pilots
• Multi-line Pilots
• 2000 phones deployed
General
Availability
Current State of Service
• Substantial Deployment (over 1000 phones)
• Production-grade
– Redundant servers, gateways and PRIs
– Single-line features, email/voicemail integration
– Some mulit-line features (ring groups, multi line
appearance)
– 911 support equal to legacy system
• Separate VLANs & subnets, layer 2 QoS
• Full service: installation, support & billing
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Managing PennNet Phone
• Web “provisioning interface” to allow
– Installation staff to configure phones for
deployment
– Support staff to provide local support
– End-users to select and maintain configuration
options
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PennNet Phone Web Services
(Phase 1.0)
Self-service
PennNet Phone Service
Voice mail
Change Email
Password
Do Not Disturb
Call Forward
Reject Anon.
Blocked Caller ID
More . . .
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Add PennNet Phone Account
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PennNet Phone Settings
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Unified Messaging
• Some users prefer getting voice mail in email.
Others really need to access voice mail by phone.
• Wanted to access voice mail via email and via the
telephone without message replication
• Penn-developed extension to Asterisk for IMAP access to
voice mail for true unified messaging from phones and
email clients. Included in current production releases.
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Emergency Services & Location
• Ability to route 511/911 calls, including
support for location information
• Three phases towards improvement
– Phase 1 - Fixed location phones
– Phase 2 - VoIP phones movable by IT Staff,
with web form location reporting
– Phase 3 - Dynamic location updates
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Security & Privacy
• Key project elements for S&P
– Configuration security - protecting phone
configuration and user details
– Gateway security - securing gateways so
only authorized users make calls
– Call privacy - minimizing the eavesdrop
risks
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Current Development Projects
• Multi-line and ring-group support
• Using ITSPs (Internet Telephony Service
Providers) for off campus calls
• Migrating Centrex users to our next
generation voice mail
• Power Over Ethernet (PoE) network designs
• Evaluating additional VoIP handsets
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New Roles for Campus IT Staff?
• Local tech support staff troubleshoot basic
connectivity, occasionally power cycle phones
• Submit trouble tickets when necessary
• Act as proxy for the user in the web interface,
to change feature settings and forwarding
numbers
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Collaboration within Higher-Ed
• Several Internet2 universities, most notably
Columbia, UNC, and MIT, are using a very
similar approach
• Sharing plans, code and best practices
through monthly collaboration calls
• Open to participation by other groups
seriously engaged in similar efforts
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A Few Key Challenges
• “Recruiting” pilot customers that fit the service
profile, are in a suitable location, and can provide
detailed feedback
• Identifying supportable, high function VoIP
handsets
• Managing very substantial staff workload
• Moving fast enough to avoid costly telephone
cable upgrades
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Lessons & Recommendations
• Make project a priority across the organization
• Cross-train staff, and allow time for
adjustment. Augment staff with consultants in
key areas
• Pilot one technology at a time (open-source
vs. in house commercial vs IP centrex)
• Create/maintain a voice development
environment
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Lessons & Recommendations
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Roll out pilot and new features in your own
department first, as a pre-pilot
Replace existing phones with VoIP phones
on users desk (don’t simply add)
Structure installations to be “cookie cutter”
Pilot not only technology, but full support
and communications process. Involve all
service delivery and support personnel
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Looking To The Future
• With the elimination of legacy services and
networks, we anticipate:
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Increased reliability
Improved functionality
Higher levels of operational efficiencies
Telecommunications cost reductions of 10-30%
Better customer service
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Production Quality Open Source VoIP:
Next Generation Telephony at Penn
Deke Kassabian
University of Pennsylvania
Internet2 Spring Member Meeting
April 2007
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Internet2 Spring Member Meeting