Asterisk-Project in Baghdad, Iraq for the Dr. Daniel Krahenbuhl CEO Intuit Innovations Sdn The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals Big Business Award 2009

 How we got such a project ?  Challenges we faced during deployment as well as current operations Technical Environmental Communication and Culture  What is the project all about?  How soldiers use and access the system? What’s next?  About Intuit Innovations and me The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals Presentation Goals

What is the project all about?  U.S. Army wants to bring down the cost of its communication infrastructure for soldiers.  Soldiers need easy access to communication system and affordable rates to call home  In the past soldiers had only access to AT&T phone center often miles away  Take some business from AT&T and make some money. The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals

What is the project all about? The systems are installed at the Victory Base Complex surrounding Baghdad's International Airport. Soldiers in this bases have access to the system: Camp Cropper, Camp Dublin, Camp Liberty, Sather Air Base, Camp Slayer, Camp Striker, Camp Victory, Logistics Base Seitz, Victory Fuel Point

How we got such a project ? It fell out of the sky ! Magic Island Technologies' services are provided to U.S. Military and Civilian Contractors in Iraq only. Magic Island Technologies awarded this project to Intuit Innovations.

Challenges  Technical  Environment  Communication and Culture The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals

Challenges - Technical  Distribute the load  How to scale asterisk to handle 10’000 concurrent calls?  “Real-Time-Billing” and least cost routing  Instable Satellite-Links  Maintain and Monitor The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals

Challenges - Technical Distribute Route / Process Logic The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals

Challenges - Technical  Write some custom LVS stuff to distribute load based on availability and least concurrent calls  Use Nagios to monitor all aspects of the system inclusive satellite links and automatically switch routes based on estimated call quality (MOS)  Write fast reliable billing module directly integrated into asterisk The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals

Challenges - Environment  It’s a war zone  Combat landing in a commercial air plane is no fun.  Infrastructure (Power, Connectivity)  Nights and day’s of slow remote SSH work The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals

Challenges - Communication and Culture  Bad communication links  English and its variations….  Very stressed-out clients The Asterisk and Nagios Professionals

Access to the system  Web-Based Phone  Wi-Fi phones  Normal IP-Deskphones

Whats’s next  Try to deploy a installation based on OpenBTS to get rid of expensive Wi-Fi phones (we need old robust GSM phones)  Similar deployment in Afghanistan

Thanks Thanks to Digium and all you guys out there making Asterisk possible.. Mike Spratt CTO and co-owner of Magic Island Technologies, who was always convinced that we at Intuit Innovations can deliver such a project. Thanks Bro! You can contact me anytime via: Office phone Blog: