CardSaver: Wholesale Infrastructure

First and foremost, you must develop a solid infrastructure for your wholesale termination system to run on.  Without a solid infrastructure, you will be spending more time worrying about your system’s integrity than marketing your services.  The following is a list of equipment and services that you will require to start the business.  We have also included recommendations that we feel will ensure a solid infrastructure.

1. Billing and Call Management Software

We list this item first not only because it is one of the products that we provide, but because it is the most vital in the list.  Choosing a good billing software will ensure that every call made through your system is tracked and no call is left unbilled.  CardSaver™ by PEC is not only a robust, dependable software package, it is also the simplest and most user-friendly package in the industry.  CardSaver enables you to view reports on traffic passing in and out of your system based on the IP address and channel or the destination called.  CardSaver is a vital component for developing a solid wholesale infrastructure.

2. VoIP Gateway

The VoIP gateway that handles all of the calls into and out of your system is the next vital component.  If your hardware fails, your customers’ calls will not go through.  Thus, we recommend choosing one of two brands for your VoIP gateway:  Cisco or Quintum.  Although we are a proud reseller of Quintum hardware, CardSaver fully integrates with Cisco VoIP gateways.  These two vendors have a large following and many online forums exist where you can go to receive answers to any questions that you may have regarding configuration or specifications.  For the wholesale industry, if you if you are accepting IP traffic and terminating to PSTN lines, then you would require a standard VoIP gateway.  However, if you are accepting IP traffic and terminating to another IP address, you will need a Call Relay gateway.

3. Server(s)

Today, you can purchase a Dell system for $499 with monitor included.  That is a definitely a great deal, but unless you are only planning to use the system for Internet browsing and word processing, we do not recommend using these type of systems for your mission critical applications.  Ideally, we recommend that your wholesale termination platform is broken into three separate servers, the RADIUS server which communicates directly with your VoIP gateway, the database server which maintains all the call data, and the web server which allows you to view reports and manage users.  Of course having three separate servers is not always an option, so in the scenario that you are using only one server, we recommend the following specifications:

Systems with 48 ports or less

Intel Pentium 4 Processor
Intel Motherboard
1 GB RAM
Dual 10K SCSI hard drives
Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

Intel Xeon Processor (Dual Processor Preferred)
Intel Motherboard
2+ GB RAM
Dual 15K SCSI hard drives
Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

For systems beyond 96 ports, we recommend using multiple serves as mentioned above.

The Internet service that you choose is the backbone of your termination network.  Choosing a reliable Internet service will ensure that your billing server and VoIP gateways will stay online.  Ideally, you should place your servers in a co-location facility (i.e. 60 Hudson Street in New York).  Internet service in a co-location facility is much less likely to go down than in your office or home.  If you are placing your systems in a co-location facility, be sure to ask your Internet provider what kind of redundancy is available in case their service goes down; often, the provider will use the backbone of another Internet provider in this event.  If your Internet provider does not have a failover plan, you may want to consider selecting a second Internet service as a backup.

5. Power Service

In most places throughout the world, power outages are a daily event.  If your systems are located in a place where power outages are common, it is essential to have some sort of power generator.  For those living in places where electricity is taken for granted, it is still important to consider the integrity of your power service.  It is essential, regardless of your location, to have a UPS battery backup.  It is recommended that your battery backup can last at least two hours in case of a power outage.  If you are placing your equipment in a co-location facility chances are that you will be connected to a generator, however, it is still necessary to have a UPS battery backup.