Call Manager-Software Conf Bridge Vs Hardware Conf Bridge

[mdury]

What are the Pros and Cons of Hardware and Software CFBs? We have an abundance of DSPs configured for Transcoding already. Are Hardware CFBs neccessary?

[Jaime Valencia]

SW CFB

PRO

can handle more than 8 conferencees

CON

only G711

HW CFB

PRO

can handle several codecs with no need for additional XCODING resources

CON

can only have a max of 8 conferencees

in certain scenarios in which you need to have let's say 20 guys in the call the SW CFB + XCODER is necessary

if calls with at most 8 guys between regions with different codecs and with PSTN are used most then HW CFB would be the choice.

It really depends on your specific needs

If conferences with different codecs are not common then you can live with only XCODERS, if you use the XCODERS for any other specific purpose and you don't have enough resources then you can configure a HW CFB to avoid the use of XCODING, but if the conference requires more than 8 guys then you need to use the HW CFB + XCODING, etc

in the end you need to look into the CFB usage to determine if there is a real need for a HW CFB in the system

HTH

javalenc

if this helps, please rate

[sbrobak]

According to documentation there is a max of 48 conferencees (ad-hoc) when running sw cfb i callmanager. If we have a cluster with two servers, will that mean 96 conferencees or do we still have a limit of max 48 in one conference?

[Jaime Valencia]

those limitations are per server, you would need to perform a load balance or configure both CFB in the MRG. you would have according to what you read 96 max in the cluster

javalenc