Page 17 - Asterisk™: The Future of Telephony

Preface

This is a book for anyone who is new to Asterisk™.
Asterisk is an open source, converged telephony platform, which is designed primarily
to run on Linux. Asterisk combines more than 100 years of telephony knowledge into
a robust suite of tightly integrated telecommunications applications. The power of As-
terisk lies in its customizable nature, complemented by unmatched standards compli-
ance. No other PBX can be deployed in so many creative ways.

Applications such as voicemail, hosted conferencing, call queuing and agents, music
on hold, and call parking are all standard features built right into the software. More-
over, Asterisk can integrate with other business technologies in ways that closed,
proprietary PBXes can scarcely dream of.
Asterisk can appear quite daunting and complex to a new user, which is why docu-
mentation is so important to its growth. Documentation lowers the barrier to entry and
helps people contemplate the possibilities.
Produced with the generous support of O’Reilly Media, Asterisk:
The Future of Telephony was inspired by the work started by the Asterisk Documen-
tation Project. We have come a long way, and this book is the realization of a desire to
deliver documentation that introduces the most fundamental elements of Asterisk—
the things someone new to Asterisk needs to know. It is the first volume in what we
are certain will become a huge library of knowledge relating to Asterisk.
This book was written for, and by, the Asterisk community.

Audience

This book is for those new to Asterisk, but we assume that you’re familiar with basic
Linux administration, networking, and other IT disciplines. If not, we encourage you
to explore the vast and wonderful library of books that O’Reilly publishes on these
subjects. We also assume you’re fairly new to telecommunications, both traditional
switched telephony and the new world of Voice over IP.

xv