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Scaling Twilio

twilio.com

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Re: Scaling Twilio

#2
I always get a little suspicious about how little Twilio talks about their SIP stack. Barely a mention of it except for 'Asterisk/FreeSwitch/JSR289'. All of those ostensibly can provide the same functionality (SIP, Sip Termination) yet no mention of why all three?

I mean, this is their core businesses/functionality.

EDIT: I didn't mean for this to imply I think something sinister is going on, or that I don't think Twilio is really cool! I'm just curious of why they went with what I would consider an unorthodox technology stack (the combination, not picking any one of the three).

I mean, wouldn't you guys think it was interesting if Github made a brief mention of the fact that some user information was stored in Oracle, others in MS SQL, and some in Postgres? shrug

Re: Scaling Twilio

#3
post #2

I always get a little suspicious about how little Twilio talks about their SIP stack. Barely a mention of it except for 'Asterisk/FreeSwitch/JSR289'. All of those ostensibly can provide the same functionality (SIP, Sip Termination) yet no mention of why all three? I mean, this is their core businesses/functionality. EDIT: I didn't mean for this to imply I think something sinister is going on, or that I don't think Tw…

Does it really matter? It works doesn't it?

Re: Scaling Twilio

#4
post #2

I always get a little suspicious about how little Twilio talks about their SIP stack. Barely a mention of it except for 'Asterisk/FreeSwitch/JSR289'. All of those ostensibly can provide the same functionality (SIP, Sip Termination) yet no mention of why all three? I mean, this is their core businesses/functionality. EDIT: I didn't mean for this to imply I think something sinister is going on, or that I don't think Tw…

Twilio has a service-oriented architecture internally. We leverage a variety of application stacks for different services.

Re: Scaling Twilio

#5
post #2

I always get a little suspicious about how little Twilio talks about their SIP stack. Barely a mention of it except for 'Asterisk/FreeSwitch/JSR289'. All of those ostensibly can provide the same functionality (SIP, Sip Termination) yet no mention of why all three? I mean, this is their core businesses/functionality. EDIT: I didn't mean for this to imply I think something sinister is going on, or that I don't think Tw…

Why does that make you suspicious?

Re: Scaling Twilio

#6
post #2

I always get a little suspicious about how little Twilio talks about their SIP stack. Barely a mention of it except for 'Asterisk/FreeSwitch/JSR289'. All of those ostensibly can provide the same functionality (SIP, Sip Termination) yet no mention of why all three? I mean, this is their core businesses/functionality. EDIT: I didn't mean for this to imply I think something sinister is going on, or that I don't think Tw…

My guess would be that they use different pieces of each software program. Asterisk is good for some things but FreeSwitch can be used as a SBC (session border controller) and from there, you can do load balancing across multiple machines. etc. as an example.

Re: Scaling Twilio

#7
post #2

I always get a little suspicious about how little Twilio talks about their SIP stack. Barely a mention of it except for 'Asterisk/FreeSwitch/JSR289'. All of those ostensibly can provide the same functionality (SIP, Sip Termination) yet no mention of why all three? I mean, this is their core businesses/functionality. EDIT: I didn't mean for this to imply I think something sinister is going on, or that I don't think Tw…

My guess would be that they use different pieces of each software program. Asterisk is good for some things but FreeSwitch can be used as a SBC (session border controller) and from there, you can do load balancing across multiple machines. etc. as an example.

I think you pretty much nailed it. I know a few guys that run a VoIP carrier out of Cleveland, OH. They started out building their core SIP switches on Asterisk, but quickly learned that Asterisk isn't the best piece of software for that role. They moved their core to OpenSIPS, but still use Asterisk for feature offerings (like conference bridges and IVRs).

It's a 'horses for courses' thing.

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