I feel like I’ve got “telecoms overload” today.  I’ve just created a new virtual machine to hold the latest Asterisk (*) 1.8rc2 release.  That will bring the total number of PBXes running in this flat to three.  I’m also threatening to, if I ever find the time, to see if I can figure out one of the SER family (e.g. Kamailio, OpenSER, OpenSIPS etc.) just for good measure.  All I can say is I’m glad I don’t have to finance a real physical machine for each server – virtual machines were a great invention!

I’m still no further forward in deciding what I’m going to about my “telecoms infrastructure” (if you can call it that, since it sounds so pretentious).  There’s now so many products to choose from, and each has their advantages and disadvantages.  Asterisk, the open-source PBX that started it all, has nearly reached version 1.8 but I’m fast falling out with it on the basis that its SIP module is still far from RFC compliant.  FreeSWITCH, on the other hand, is a much more modular, clean design, and a standards-compliant SIP stack, but the XML configuration files drive me up the wall.  The OpenSER/SIPS/Kamailio family are also very capable and powerful softswitches, but you need a degree in RFC 3261 just to configure them!

My head hurts…