Implementing Asterisk in Cisco Environment

Introduction

Asterisk is an open source PBX (Private Branch Exchange) maintained by Digium. It provides all the functionality of high end business telecommunication systems. Asterisk is free but requires programming expertise to transform as per business needs. Asterisk serves as the engine that makes your real-time voice communication product operate. It is an Open Source toolkit that drastically simplifies the process of building communications applications and is the foundation for application developers and system administrators to assemble communications solutions with ease and speed. This includes, but is not limited to, IP PBX Systems, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Servers, voice messaging platforms, and Automatic Call Distributors (ACD). Asterisk includes a broad range of building block modules that handle the low-level details of telecommunications, leaving the developer free to concentrate on business logic. Asterisk’s robust communication engine includes support for virtually every communications protocol in use today and offers unparalleled flexibility. If you are developing a project, product, or solution that calls for real-time voice communications, then Asterisk is the answer for your business (Asterisk.org, 2016). To get the most out of Asterisk, you’ll want a solid understanding of:

• Linux Systems Administration

• Telecommunications

• TCP/IP Networking

• Script Programming

Asterisk application developers can write a huge variety of IP Telephony applications from their components. It handles all of the low-level details of initiating, maintaining, and manipulating real-time media streams (calls) between endpoints (phones). Digium, the company that makes Asterisk, has a solution called AsteriskNOW that performs GUI installation and a customizable configuration for Asterisk. Although it's free, it's really not viable in an enterprise environment. Digium also makes Switchvox, which is essentially an Asterisk appliance with a Web front-end...