VOIP Tech Chat → Re: [PBX] PBX in the cloud or Build your own.

How about hosting it on a virtual private server ? Currently I have my asterisk on a VPS that costs just $1 per month. My VPS is a little small, just 128 MB RAM so I had to do some tweaking to install everything I needed, but you can get for example a 512MB VPS for $3.50 which has plenty of resources to run lots of things on it (like a web server, php, mysql, etc).
As a little bonus, since it's hosted in US, I also configured a VPN server on it so I can get the US version of Netflix from Canada

I do too, though I pay a little more than you do at $1.25 a month. I'm going to have to shop around a bit. Despite dire warnings not to do this (host on a cheap VPS) I find it well able to deal with my needs. I wouldn't run a business on it though.

I did a little Internet searching and did not come up with any VPS provider any where as cheap as quoted. Not sure I would have much trust in $3.50 or even cheaper per month host provider.
I am still looking at the idea of a cloud PBX but also the thought of building my own Virtual Machine PC has crossed my mind. I have some other things such as a pc base security system that could probably be moved to a VM and always like to tinker.My problem is I know not much about what VM software or platform would be best and or at what cost.

Tinker with the free ones first. I finally settled on Proxmox, but there are others that have their own strong points.

Nunya,

Since I have zero experience with VM I am unclear what free ones to try, I looked at VMware Player and Virtualbox, but sort of got lost. It was not clear to me if I had to start with a clear clean PC or if I could just load one on and existing Windows PC. My only available PC's are still running winXP. I have win7 on my laptop and have ab HTPC also running winXp as a Sage TV server. My current PIAF box is a lowly P3 1100 with just 512 of memory so its probably out. I am thinking of building a new Win7 or 8 HTPC but not sure I would want to put or even could run VM on it. I don't think and HTPC server would work out well in a VM? But again I am starting with now working knowledge just what little I have read up on it.

»www.lowendbox.com

Toro,
May I ask the name of the VPS provider?
-m

I suggest you look at lowendbox.com and the associated forum LowEndTalk. I use a 128mb ram KVM server from hostigation and have found them to be excellent. At $30/year, which includes a static ip address, I find the VPS route to be very economical.
Another provider frequently recommended at LowEndTalk is buyvm.net.

Cheers,
-m

For the $1/month: »www.chicagovps.net/openvz.html
for the $3.5/month: »secure.ugvps.com/cart.php?gid=9

Be very careful with ChicagoVPS. A lot of people just lost a bunch of VPS' because their master password was hacked, and the hacker deleted many of the VMs. Some were lucky.

For $15/month, you can get a PBX-In-A-Flash virtual from RentPBX.com. I'm a customer and very, very happy. One minute after ordering your PBX will be up and running, with the latest PIAF build.

That said, I also have PIAF running on a RasPi and a Dual-Core-Atom-based system.

If you are going to have your own pbx on site, where is the application?
- If it is at home, do you have teenagers playing games or doing bittorrent? Bandwidth may be an issue.
- If you are in a business, how much internet bandwidth do you have? Can you run a seperate network/internet connection for the PBX. It may not be an issue, but you may want a router you can set up QOS on.

What I do is trunk my RasPi in the house to my main PBX on RentPBX.
(It's a SOHO consulting biz).

All three -- host, RasPi or Atom -- are great low-cost solutions.

If I decide to go to a cloud solution I am pretty much convinced that the rentpbx.com $15 plan is how I will do it. I am just not confident in the security or longevity of this super cheap VPS plans. Until I build a new greener box I am probably spending close to that per month on electricity here in California where Edison rapes us.
Since my setup is not that sophisticated I am sort of thinking that no matter what I do it is pretty much a simple thing to switch from one to another in short order. How long can it take to setup 3 trunks & 6 extensions, maybe an hour at most.
It seems like a lot of folks do more than one and switch back and forth or co mingle them I guess mostly for redundancy or maybe just because they can and like to tinker a lot. I probably fit the latter group so it is likely I will be doing something similar until I settle on one way over another.