Network Overview
- Last updated on November 21, 2022 at 4:44 PM
SkySwitch Components
The SkySwitch network consists of multiple redundant server clusters hosted in Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, and New Jersey. All of our servers operate in an Active-Active configuration, which means that the service is available from the primary or backup cluster at any time. A further level of redundancy is achieved by using High-Availability (HA) Pairs. In the event of a hardware or software error, the HA spare server will assume the IP address of the server with a problem and assume its operations transparently.
Provisioning Servers
The SkySwitch device provisioning servers allow you to Provision any number of SIP devices remotely, without having to manually configure handsets. The device provisioning servers are available at http://sipcfg.io/cfg.
All partners are assigned a primary and secondary PBX 'node,' and this is represented through a DNS SRV record in the following format '[resellerid].hpbx.outboundproxy.com' (Example: 12999.hpbx.outboundproxy.com). Supported SIP devices utilize DNS SRV records in one way or another and have awareness of the primary and secondary server through this record.
Did you know you could query your DNS SRV Record in Command Prompt/Terminal/Powershell?
nslookup -type=SRV _sip._udp.[your_reseller_id].hpbx.outboundproxy.comor if TLS is enablednslookup -type=_sips._tcp.[your_reseller_id].hpbx.outboundproxy.com
Web UIs
The primary Web User Interface for SkySwitch, called the PBX Portal, is typically branded by creating a DNS CNAME record of your choosing and pointing it to [resellerid]-hpbx.dashmanager.com.
Example: pbx.yourdomainname.com would use a CNAME record directed to 12999-hpbx.dashmanager.com.
To see an example, you can view https://pbx.skyswitch.com. We have Portal servers located at each of our Points of Presence (POPs). Your PBX Portal will be located at the same Geographic location as your primary PBX node.
SIP Servers and failover
Your phones and/or SIP Trunks REGISTER to their Primary server (as defined by the SRV records mentioned above). Other PBX servers keep track of the active registration, if they receive a call for a device registered at a different Geo Location, they will always direct the call to the node where the phone is registered. In the case of a failover event, the phone registers to the backup server until the primary server is once again reachable.
Behind the scenes, there are many other SIP Servers at work, such as ENUM Gateways and Ingress/Egress Proxies. These are largely hidden from your view, and we do not expose the inner working of our Network. However, you will be better able to understand SIP Call traces if you are aware of the other elements that fit into a given call flow. The diagrams below show the typical call paths taken for Inbound and Outbound calls from a registered SIP device.
Simplified Network Topology
