Typical enterprise VOIP solutions like MS Comm Server require a server computer to handle communications. Is there any program that can do it Peer-2-Peer (P2P) without a server, and directly call and chat with the target computer, directly on the network? (not using the Internet)
Windows – VOIP and IM communication without a server
instant-messagingp2pvoipwindows
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There are two schools of thought as far as the network for the phones goes --
- Keep voice and data separated so that a failure of the primary network doesn't affect the phones. The phones gotta work, man, so they should have their own switches and have the voice network terminate in PBX that has it's own connection to the firewall.
- Make the whole network as reliable as possible. Why should the voice part of it be the only thing that's reliable? All ports should be able to provide POE and dial-tone VOIP QOS. End of story.
I firmly believe that with modern equipment it is pretty easy to create a unified network that provides high levels of reliability for VOIP and standard data applications.
For instance, with something like the Enterasys C3 switches you can create policies that give one class of device (based on 802.1x or MAC) super high QOS but only at most 300kbps of bandwidth. Everything else gets a lower QOS but is allowed as much bandwidth as needed. They do lots of other cool policy based stuff as well as the standard POE / L3 routing (static routes, ospf and rip).
Just be sure you've got big UPSs on all equipment that's needed to support 911 / emergency calls.
If you're going to go with unmanaged switches or switches that can't protect your network from things like broadcast storms or other DOS type things, you will want to chop your network into voice / data, but I believe doing so makes the network unnecessarily complex.
Oh, and as far as your border goes, use a router such as a netscreen 5gt that can make sure that you have bandwidth and memory and ephemeral ports set aside for the VOIP traffic, if you're using a sip trunk service such as callcentric.
Best Answer
If you don't want to have a server you could use Microsoft Office Communication Server hosted. Then no server.(for you at least)
Most SIP IP pbx's allow video calls but then you will need a server...hmmm...pbxnsip is a IP PBX that can do video calls and it runs on a sheeva plug (tiny server $100)...
Without internet voip isn't very useful.