7 posts tagged with "C4"

Introduction​

In our pursuit of enabling companies to build their IP communication infrastructure and deliver innovative communication services with our open-source, API-centric solutions, Wazo's Class 4 engine can be easily deployed with different methods:

• Docker compose: run the platform on a single machine using the Docker images together with docker-compose.
• Kubernetes: install the platform using our Helm chart and run the platform on your Kubernetes cluster.
• Ansible-based deployment: install the platform on a set of Debian Buster machines, either bare-metal or virtual machines, using our Ansible recipes.

So, beside the fast containerized way with docker-compose or helm chart for Kubernetes, Wazo's C4 can be deployed with Ansible on virtual machines or bare-metal.

Introduction​

As we started with the deployment of our C4 (Class 4) SBC and routing solution on a Kubernetes Cluster through a Helm Chart, we knew that scaling would be a core feature.

Dynamic scaling brought additional complexity in the configuration of our Kamailio components. Having a cloud-native solution meant that we had to find a way to make SBCs and routers auto-configure themselves without human intervention or static configurations, which will bound the size of our architecture.

We wanted to deploy Wazo on different kinds of platforms, not only containerized with Kubernetes but also with Docker compose or on Virtual machines using Ansible recipes. We had to choose a tool that will help us in service discovery and the flexible configuration of our components. That's where we decided that HashiCorp Consul was the right tool to use.

Introduction​

As already mentioned We're focused on delivering a Cloud-Native telecom solution with all the bells and whistles in the next months. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation defines:

Cloud native technologies empower organizations to build and run scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments such as public, private, and hybrid clouds. Containers, service meshes, microservices, immutable infrastructure, and declarative APIs exemplify this approach.

In our pursuit of enabling companies to build their IP communication infrastructure and deliver innovative communication services with our open-source, API-centric solutions we could not avoid enabling our users to deploy Wazo Platform on a cloud solution as easy as possible.

We started with a deployment of our C4 (Class 4) SBC and routing solution on a Kubernetes Cluster through a Helm chart.

This is the first of a series of blog posts about the HA features of the Wazo Platform C4. In this article, we concentrate on the routing component which is composed of a scalable set of Kamailio instances denominated routers.

The routers are not accessed directly from carriers nor the termination IPBXs, as they are behind the SBC infrastructure. We assume then the routers are on an internal, non-externally accessible network segment and communicate with the SBC using the SIP protocol over UDP.

The problem​

In the Wazo Platform C4 we are committed to delivering the most flexible, as well as easy to configure and set up, Softswitch in the market. The SIP router key component is provided by Kamailio, the leading open-source SIP server.

Our goal was while supporting high degrees of flexibility and ease to configure, to avoid any compromise regarding performances: we aim to support a high number of concurrent calls, high call rates with predictable and linear degradation of performances in case of overload.

Introduction​

In a complex microservice VoIP architecture testing the functionalities or stress testing the whole system becomes a complex task especially if we want to run multiple tests and have a sterile environment for every test run without restarting the whole infrastructure every time. Also, there is a need for testing the architecture under heavy load but in a random way, much more close to real-life usage.

With our experience with scalable VoIP infrastructure and a lot of trials and errors, creating a mess with a lot of bash scripts doing different things preparing the environment for launching sipp tests and scenarios we decided to start from a clean slate and redesign or way to do tests.

Introduction​

Wazo Platform allows you to build your own IP communication infrastructure and deliver innovative communication services. Fully open-source, API-centric, Cloud-native & multi-tenant, the project is designed around the famous open-source frameworks Asterisk & Kamailio.

If you want to know more about Wazo Platform, we encourage you to discover Frédéric Lepied's presentation introduced at the Astricon 2019.

To fulfill Wazo Platform's vision to bring a full-featured, open-source, cloud-native telecom solution for the communication industry, we knew that the C4 (Class 4) routing and SBC were essential for scaling, securing and load balancing the traffic to our B2BUA engines.

Keeping in mind our microservice architecture, we also wanted to further strip down some of the Asterisk dependant functionalities and try to use different tools.