Contact center technology solution for Asterisk

It is not an easy decision but we can feel the trend. The growth of IP (Internet Protocol) Network and the availability of Bandwidth at lower costs are pushing organizations to consider data centers for their infrastructure. There are compelling reasons to setting up a Contact Center in the Cloud.

Cloud in our context is a well recognized data center with excellent connectivity and decent infrastructure. Some of the immediate advantages of  Cloud for a contact center operation are,

• Ability to setup geographically distributed contact center operations and work-force
• Take advantage of SIP terminations for telecom connectivity
• Scale on-demand both infrastructure and Telecom connectivity with minimum lead time
• Advantage of better infrastructure management through co-managed service

On top of all this, a Cloud infrastructure helps to convert up-front Capital cost to monthly service cost and reduces the requirement for expensive in-house IT resources. An Asterisk based contact center with a good software for managing your Call Center ACD and Dialer requirements will dramatically reduce cost and allow you to grow on demand with a superior distributed architecture and an open platform.

Efficient network setup can enhance the quality of your VoIP experience.  Even if you are averse to VoIP terminations for routing long distance traffic, within your call center, you can take advantage of VoIP. Here is a simple but efficient topology for Asterisk based call center setup.

Here all the agents, supervisor and admin phones are within the LAN and have assured bandwidth. Good quality IP phones from Polycom, SNOM, Linksys and other vendors can serve as the admin phones. Agents can use softphones like X-Lite or Eyebeam. An enterprise grade call center software like Indosoft Q-Suite will provide all the necessary features to setup and manage an advanced contact center. I recommend DELL 2950 category of servers which has served as very well in the past. The Dell web managed switches are inexpensive and work well within the contact centers. We implemented our first VoIP based contact center using Asterisk in 2003 with the long distance traffic terminated on PRI using Digium TDM board.

2000:

The servers were all stacked on a table at the back of the main development room.  In the picture, the entire network infrastructure for the company is present.  There are 5 servers pictured:

• On the left, hidden is indoserv, the mail e-mail and web server
• On the left in front, is havana a dev/file server
• On the right, in behind is paris, a spare server
• On the right on front is london, the firewall
• On the right, under london & paris is cairo, the dial-in server
• To the right of the servers is a 700VA UPS, 16 port 10Mbps hub and the modem for cairo.
• Temperature control was provided by the in-window air conditioner
• A KVM was purchased shortly after this picture was taken

The only thing in that picture that is still in use is the table, which is now in Rajan’s office.

Compare it to today:

• 2 cabinets (older machines are tower servers and are on the shelves to the left)
• 8 UPSes
• 20 servers
• 2 16 port KVMs
• 5 24 port Gigabit switches (most are in a small rack attached to the wall and not in this picture)
• Temperature controlled by the 12,000 BTU mini split AC (we don’t have to worry about heating in the winter)

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