Hi there,
I’m wanting to move onto IP phones at our office, and to look at hosting email and calendar and so on here.
I’m wanting to install Asterix/FreePBX and I was hoping to integrate it with Zimbra, which seems great for the email and calendar and so on.
It appears to make use of OpenLDAP. Will Asterix be able to integrate with it? Ideally users can log into their email/calendar with the same user name and password as their IP phones. Also, ideally they’ll have a shared address book so both systems can see the same user contacts.
If Asterix will be able to work with Zimbra, how much set up effort are we talking? I’m fairly comfortable with Linux, but not an expert.
I will probably buy this PCI card to allow us to use our PSTN lines …
voipon.co.uk/digium-1a4a00f- … -5157.html
I assume we can only queue up as many calls as we have physical lines or is there some trickery to that?
Basically your approach is possible.
I would choose “pure” Asterisk (without the FreePBX-GUI).
If You want to use a “Single-Sign-On”-Concept You should consider the following: Whenever Your user changes the password the associated phone won’t be able to register with Asterisk as long as You don’t make a “Re-Provisioning” of the phone (either manually or by automated script).
If You don’t have a concept in mind of “roaming users” I would distinct between user- information and extension-credentials. I would probably only combine extension numbers and users to build up the internal phonebook as well as a mechanism to define call-ACLs on a user/extension-base if applicable.
The usage of the Zimbra-LDAP-Phonebook with Your asterisk is no problem if You use AGI for this. The direct usage on the endpoints (phones) depends on the phone models.
The card You’ve linked is only the base-card. In addition You’ll need the appropriate modules for the card - at least 1 FXS-module for one POTS-Line.
The whole approach would be more than an One-hour-job. Probably You should consider to hire somebody who may initially set this up for You.
Funnily enough, I was demoed Microsoft Lync yesterday. Could integrating Asterix and Zimbra make sense in competing with the Microsoft offering?
youtube.com/watch?v=-ET8wnasqj4