Hello Mark, As per your post, $9,000 /year in phone calls... investing the 1U 3.0 GHz Xeon comparatively speak is an ok investment. Whether or not it is "over kill" is a matter of perspective. Think of it this way... even if the staff base from 4-16 users increases to 16-32 or 48 users... over the next 2 or 3 years, you should be fine (assuming you are not upgrading software etc).
I like to PUSH things. I like to experiment putting 50 people into a Toyota Corolla, or a Ford Tempo. I like to STRESS test things and my P3-500 with 512 megs of ram seems to be more than enough for my free user base - as it was the FIRST machine I installed Asterisk on :). It's my first Telco box, my first love, so I'll keep it with me even if I expand to 10 3.0Ghz boxes :). Many of the 1U boxes have a PCI slot available, sort of to plug it in side ways horizontally vs. vertically, so I believe you should be fine installing a card. On that note, if I were you, knowing the price of the 1U Dell box, I would have no problem purchasing one of the basic Digium or Sangoma cards, that will be sufficiently enough. The question I had and posted originally, was to gain a BETTER understanding at the lowest possible level, the need for a timing device. Having learnt so much from the wonderful folks here, Henry, Jim, Frank, and oh yes... Andrew with his Nuns and Spoons, has convinced me at a higher level of understanding, that if you want to play... why not play with all the toys, preferably safe toys! Hence, I am more than convinced that the timing device at 1000.0102330Hz is MUCH better than 1020 Hz :). Whether or not it is a $10 dollar clone card. Hope this helps. Cheers! ----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Palser To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 'Reza - Asterisk Enthusiast' ; 'TAUG' Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 12:03 PM Subject: [on-asterisk] Re: **SPAM: RE: [on-asterisk] Timing Device Hardware (zaptel interfaces) and Software (ztdummy) I have just installed a 1U 3.0 GHz Xeon at a co-locate, just to provide a simple queue for some of our scheduling admins who are spread out across the country. The box is overkill, but I thought I might as well take advantage of the bandwidth and try and save the company some money on conference calling, we spend about $9000.00/yr at $0.13/min/caller. Does this mean I'm going to run into some problems if I rely on the ztdummy for timing? I only need to accommodate 4-16 people in a room at once, so far I've tested with 6 and it sounds fine, but we only stayed in the room for a few minutes. The box is a Dell 1850, I hear there might be a problem installing a Digium card/clone due to IRQ conflicts, that's if a card will even fit, didn't even give it a thought until I read this post, would welcome any advice, tips or suggestions, thanks, Mark.
