A new use for the A in LAMP

The concept of LAMP is an acknowledgement of the fact that a complete web solution can be deployed using open-source technologies. The viability of the concept is demonstrated by the fact that LAMP has emerged as the most popular way to deliver such things.

LAMP is essentially this:
L - Stands for Linux, but can also be any of the flavours of BSD
A - Is Apache, and little else (more on that in a moment)
M - Is MySql, but also, increasingly, PostgreSQL
P - Is PHP, Perl, Python or Pretty-much-whatever-language-you-like.

So what does all this do? It allows you to deliver web pages. OK, it’s clearly far more than that, but only to a certain point.

Here’s the concept that could shake things up a bit:

With the advent of open-source telephony systems (especially the darling of the media, Asterisk), the concept of LAMP takes an exciting left turn. What if we were to replace "A"pache with "A"sterisk?

Sound a bit far fetched? It's happening right now.

Consider:
L - Asterisk runs on Linux
A - This one's easy :-)
M - Asterisk has support for databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, ODBC . . .
P - Asterisk hackers love Perl, and the Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI) allows you to script with any language that can communicate using STDIN and STDOUT

Suddenly, LAMP isn't just about delivering web content, it's about all the various ways open-source software can allow us to creatively communicate.

There are many of us who believe that the open-sourcing of telecom heralds a revolution. Just as Linux and the Internet changed the industry, so too will the ability to finally, properly integrate telecommunications with the rest of the services and applications we use to communicate across our networks.

This is going to get very interesting, very quickly.

How are you using Asterisk?