Voip, Voice over IP technology is on the rise. But why am I writing about it on a virtualization blog? Because VOIP is an amazing use for virtualization technology. My focus has always been on the small business and home user level, and that is where voip is growing the fastest.

With voip technology a company can have a voice mail system which would have previously cost them hundreds of dollars per month now for pennies per minute. If you are looking to open up a small business office then pay attention. Open source, Virtualization, and Voip are meant to be together.

One of my original projects with virtualization was trying out Asterisk. My plan was to rent a dedicated server, then using virtualization break it up into a flash media server, voip conference call, and use the remaining power for general web hosting. That experiment ended up as a great learning experience, but the client I was building the system for choose an alternate setup.

Now how to get started with VOIP, people have already constructed premade images with asterisk technology, ready to deploy inside of vmware:
http://www.vmwarez.com/2006/04/asteriskhome-virtual-machine-updated_20.html

Sources of information:
From POTS to VOIP - Small Business Resource - Michael Hepworth

Slashdot | Solutions for Small Business VoIP?

Skype on Windows in VMWare on Linux « slacker

kontrawize: Webcam, Linux, Skype, VMware Server

skype inside vmware « Karu’s blog

Voip Companies:
VOIP.com - Get More Features for Less - Starting at $9.95 / month

Skype Store USA