Mitel hardware or HP server hardware?

[cajuntank]

I am looking at replacing our AVAYA Merlin with a Mitel based IP platform. I have purchased a few of the 3300's for some of my school locations and now budgeting for my district office. I am an HP shop when it comes to servers and switches and have started to virtualize some servers using Hyper-V R2. This has freed up some single purpose servers (DL320 G5) and was wondering about possibly using one of those to save on hardware cost now that their communication platform supports IBM, HP, etc... servers.

Any input?

 

[cajuntank]

Also, if this makes any difference or not, also plan on using Exchange 2010 UM for voice mail (probably another of my DL320 G5 servers I'll free up)

 

[Billz66]

What type of trunks are you planning to use?
Unless its sip you will need a controller as a gateway.

 

[LoopyLou]

If the server is in the HCL you should be good to go if you directly want to install product directly on the server ( i.e MCD for ISS ). Otherwise if you want to use VMWare select something off their HCL again you should be fine. The only issue with running off a HP server is as already pointed out you get no analog or PRI, no internal VM and no internal DHCP.

The single biggest problem with communications is the illusion that it has taken place.

 

[bobcheese]

Billz66 +1 from me, it should be the customer requirements that dictate what hardware is required. If you virtualize then everything needs to be SIP or IP (no VM, no ONS, no TDM trunks without a trunking gateway anyway).

 

[cajuntank]

I have a single PRI and a couple of analog trunk lines coming into my Merlin now. One piece of my telecom puzzle I did not mention was I will have at my disposal a NET VX1200 UC Gateway

http://www.net.com/Pages/Product.aspx?pgid=101

that will terminate my PRI. The card in it is a dual port PRI card and my original thoughts, if the phone system got shot down, was to terminate the PRI and hand off a PRI signal to my Merlin. I can always purchase a multiport Analog FXO Card for my few analog trunk lines and then SIP over to the HP with the Mitel Communications sotware on it.
Does the Mitel Com. software platform require it run under VMWare as a guest or could I just host/dedicate that software to the box alone?

 

[LoopyLou]

If I understand all that you are asking.

Mitel software ( called Mitel Communications Director or MCD for short ) can be run as a VMWare client or can be run directly on a server under the MCD for ISS product. In VMWare you are provided with a prepackaged .ova file for installation into VMWare. Because it is a virtual machine it can not take any physical trunking and therefore only supports SIP trunks. In MCD for ISS, you install Mitel Standard Linux ( MSL ) on your server and then install the MCD PBX software as a software blade within the MSL. Again this method supports no physical trunking ( or stations for that matter ). All trunks must be SIP trunks all single line stations for faxes or modems will be SIP users running through some sort of SIP to analog converter.

Don't know if this helps or not.

The single biggest problem with communications is the illusion that it has taken place.