Multiple Callmanagers on a single voice gateway?

[franke14]

I wondered if it's possible to have different Callmanagers or callmanager clusters all to use the same voice gateway. For instance if I have 3 different customers on different callmanagers I want all the PSTN voice traffic to go through the same router to save hardware cost and also line cost. Is this possible??
I realise that i need to have a factoring program like Softex Callmaster or something like that to make the invoices correct. But I was more thinking from a technical point of view..

 

[rtfmdude]

technically it would work, if you're using h323. mgcp is a master/slave relationship, and it won't work with different clusters simultaneously.

 

[mia158]

This can be done with either h323 or mgcp using inter cluster trunks and appropriate partitions and callin Search Spaces.

 

[rtfmdude]

oh yeah, duh. I was thinking more of a direct relationship/connection. franke14, what's the reasoning for the multiple clusters? You can do multi tenant configs on a single cluster - are you guys hosting the cluster, or are they 'owned' by your customers?

 

[franke14]

We are hosting the clusters, and the business case is for us to have for instance four different customers on four different Callmanagers assigned on one singel gateway.. So we don't need to have one gateway for each customer. This way we can have one gateway and they all can use the same pstn lines which means that we can offer cheaper lines and traffic for our customers.

 

[rtfmdude]

I see - so do you own the callmanagers, or do your customers?

 

[franke14]

We own the callmanagers.

 

[rtfmdude]

Then you could use just a single cluster - but you wouldn't be able to partition the user directory - attendant console would also be able to see everyone in the cluster. Perhaps not a good solution after all

 

[mia158]

Can you do something like this. . .Register the gateway to one call manager use mgcp. Create Inter Cluster trunks to the call manager that has the gateway registered. Create route patterns on the call managers for your customers and use the trunks for the gateway. What is the problem with Attendant Console.

 

[rtfmdude]

you could do that - but I guess I'm just partial to h323, it would avoid problems for other customers if you had to reregister the gateway(via reset or rehoming to a secondary callmanager).

I wouldn't want to a 'dependency' type situation like that, but I think it's entirely doable.

The problem with Attendant Console is only with using a single cluster - any AC user would 'see' everyone in the cluster, and there isn't any way to partition that. There also isn't any way to partition dc directory, so, you'd have a single large corporate directory for all your tenants.

Splitting your customers up with seperate clusters and a single h323 gateway would be the way i'd do it.