PROCR vs. CLAN for Phone Registration

[CChambleeJr]

I manage a large Avaya CM 6.0.1 port-network PBX with duplex servers (HP DL360), 36 port networks, approximately 8,000 VoIP users, remote PBX's, analog users, and ISDN-BRI users. We have approximately 60 CLAN boards spread out across the port networks that are used for gatekeepers for the VoIP phones to register to. At present, we have about 3,000 of the 8,000 VoIP sets registered to PROCR (duplex servers), and the rest spread out across about half of the CLAN boards.

I have been hearing/reading a lot of discussion on whether it's better practice to have all of the VoIP users register to PROCR and do away with the CLANs, vs staying with the CLANS to benefit from the load balancing feature. I can't get Avaya to come all the way to either side of the fence with an answer to this question. One downside that I have personally seen with having VoIP sets registered to PROCR is, whenever we do a server interchange between the A and B servers, all of the PROCR-registered phones will restart, which is not good. Most of the VoIP phones registered to CLANs remain up and running during the transition between servers during the interchange. It seems that the CLANs provide sort of a "buffer" for the phone registrations, while PROCR provides no threshold. Maybe it's a configuration issue, I don't know.

So, I'd like to hear opinions on this... PROCR vs. CLAN. Also, how to prevent VoIP phones registered to PROCR from resetting during an interchange? Thanks in advance!

===
Chuck Chamblee
ACSS (CM) | CTP | A+ ce | Security+ ce

 

[wpetilli]

@Chuck- I don't know the answer to prevent the Interchange behavior, but as far as CLAN vs PROCR the CLAN can have h/w issues. In your case you sound like you have plenty, where sockets can move to another, but aside from those being individual boards if you wanted to lower the footprint PROCR allows for that. PROCR is pretty much a guaranteed connection. If something happened to the PROCR you have way more catastrophic issues to worry about. I don't have near the amount of PN's as you do, but I'm pushing things to the PE as much as possible to eliminate those G650's and go to 450's.

 

[CChambleeJr]

Thanks Wpetilli, that seems to be the popular answer I'm getting from across the board.

===
Chuck Chamblee
ACSS (CM) | CTP | A+ ce | Security+ ce

 

[lopes1211]

Keep in mind, your registration process is not ending at the CLAN. Do you want to register via:

A. phone - clan - tdm bus (with it's own power supply btw) - ipsi - WAN - processor

or

B. phone - WAN - processor


solution A has a bunch of extra points of failures with no real added advantage

-CL

 

[phoneguy55]

If you have alot of phones they will come up faster with procr only. CLAN's can only handle so many requests per second.