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andersen at mwdental.com
Guest
|
 Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:43 am Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
 |
|
This is not a troll. I've used my real email because I want this
taken seriously. I'm not trying to make anyone mad, I just want
some real discussion on this issue. Please bare with me...
I'm a USER of Asterisk. We purchased 3 commercially available
"Asterisk Based" PBXs a little over a year ago. (I won't mention
which one at this point - I don't want to bad mouth them - yet!)
Two of the systems are very small (5 SIP lines/6 Polycom phones).
The third is on a PRI with 30 Polycom phones.
My smaller sites work pretty good. I've only had to restart
Asterisk every month or so. However, my 30 station system
is a continuous headache. I average a restart at least once a
week. Sometimes a couple of times in the week. I'm always being
called to "fix" something that just stopped working.
I DON'T WANT TO GET INTO A "Well, don't just complain, tell us
your setup and we can help you get it working". This list HAS
helped me figure out some of the issues. THANK YOU! But the
purpose of this post is more of a fact finding mission.
1) Was choosing Asterisk for our company the wrong decision...
a) IF... I expect a phone system to just work. Once it is
configured, a phone system should just work with
very little attention. My previous system was a
Comdial with external voice mail on a DOS based PC.
I LITERALLY WENT OVER 4 YEARS WITHOUT HAVING TO REMOVE
POWER TO THE COMDIAL CONTROL OR RE-BOOT THE VOICE MAIL PC.
b) IF... I really only need a phone system that allows an operator
to answer each call and transfer them to the appropriate
person. I need voice mail, but very little auto attendant
features (mostly after hours). All the bells and whistles
that Asterisk offers are cool, but don't bring that much to
the table for our purpose.
c) IF... Stability is more of an issue than high end features?
2) Are there any users out there that really DO have an Asterisk
system that just works like clockwork? I'm saying, once setup,
run for a year (or more) without any issues?
3) If SO, Should I simply consider a different vendor?
4) If NOT, and if my expectations are that a system SHOULD just
run and run without any problems. Is Asterisk simply not my
solution. Is Asterisk not REALLY ready for production. Because
in my mind (as a user of phone services), "dealing" with the
phone system, even on a MONTHLY basis, means that the system
is NOT really production ready... Before we installed an
Asterisk based PBX, I spent maybe 4 hours per YEAR with phone
issues (setting up a new station?). Since we moved to an
Asterisk based PBX, I spend 4 hours (or more) every WEEK!
Am I expecting too much?
Bill |
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jnovack at stromberg-c...
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:20 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
|
|
Bill Andersen wrote:
| Quote: | This is not a troll. I've used my real email because I want this
taken seriously. I'm not trying to make anyone mad, I just want
some real discussion on this issue. Please bare with me...
I'm a USER of Asterisk. We purchased 3 commercially available
"Asterisk Based" PBXs a little over a year ago. (I won't mention
which one at this point - I don't want to bad mouth them - yet!)
Two of the systems are very small (5 SIP lines/6 Polycom phones).
The third is on a PRI with 30 Polycom phones.
My smaller sites work pretty good. I've only had to restart
Asterisk every month or so. However, my 30 station system
is a continuous headache. I average a restart at least once a
week. Sometimes a couple of times in the week. I'm always being
called to "fix" something that just stopped working.
I DON'T WANT TO GET INTO A "Well, don't just complain, tell us
your setup and we can help you get it working". This list HAS
helped me figure out some of the issues. THANK YOU! But the
purpose of this post is more of a fact finding mission.
1) Was choosing Asterisk for our company the wrong decision...
a) IF... I expect a phone system to just work. Once it is
configured, a phone system should just work with
very little attention. My previous system was a
Comdial with external voice mail on a DOS based PC.
I LITERALLY WENT OVER 4 YEARS WITHOUT HAVING TO REMOVE
POWER TO THE COMDIAL CONTROL OR RE-BOOT THE VOICE MAIL PC.
b) IF... I really only need a phone system that allows an operator
to answer each call and transfer them to the appropriate
person. I need voice mail, but very little auto attendant
features (mostly after hours). All the bells and whistles
that Asterisk offers are cool, but don't bring that much to
the table for our purpose.
c) IF... Stability is more of an issue than high end features?
2) Are there any users out there that really DO have an Asterisk
system that just works like clockwork? I'm saying, once setup,
run for a year (or more) without any issues?
3) If SO, Should I simply consider a different vendor?
4) If NOT, and if my expectations are that a system SHOULD just
run and run without any problems. Is Asterisk simply not my
solution. Is Asterisk not REALLY ready for production. Because
in my mind (as a user of phone services), "dealing" with the
phone system, even on a MONTHLY basis, means that the system
is NOT really production ready... Before we installed an
Asterisk based PBX, I spent maybe 4 hours per YEAR with phone
issues (setting up a new station?). Since we moved to an
Asterisk based PBX, I spend 4 hours (or more) every WEEK!
Am I expecting too much?
Bill
|
For those of us who have spent many a year in telephony, I tend to agree
with you. Asterisk is NOT ready for prime time
Total cost of ownership for a supply house system ( Comdial, now
Vertical, with a Keyvoice DOS based VM ) or an NEC DX series with VM on
a CF card) in a small to medium sized office simply hangs on the wall
and works, for years and years, and has many more features than most
offices need or use. Last month I replaced a 20 year old system that
finally failed, I have other systems installed and working in excess of
10 years, and seldom have any service issues. Mostly are user
reeducation on mailboxes and the like when people leave and no one knows
a password.
Square Hybrid Key systems ( Shared Line Appearance ) have worked
flawlessly for 20 years, and a host of other features that Asterisk is
still struggling to get working. Many of these systems are more
affordable than Asterisk at either the wholesale or retail level as well.
The current fad is IP or VOIP and regrettably many businesses jump into
the deep end of that pool without the faintest idea of where they will land.
That said, there is also a place for Asterisk or a like system, and many
of the users on this list have them in place and doing the job, but the
system is not hang it on the wall and forget it. PC based systems in
general from a hardware perspective are NOT as reliable, nor is the
operating system or the application. They DO need to be restarted from
time to time. In fact in my experience the system should have an
automatic reboot once a week at a quiet time. Many versions of Asterisk
can get insane and be cured by a simple reboot that seems to give the
real Linux experts the heebiejeebies. A reboot should not be considered
blasphemy, though I have only seen one hang on the wall system that
needed that in 20 years, and that was strictly due to a timing issue
with short term power outages.
Too many select the equipment and system they know, rather than what is
right for the customer.
I am in a group of antique telephone equipment collectors that use
Asterisk as an interface to a world wide private network of switches,
with a great deal of success, but it is a real struggle to overcome
changes that have been made from version to version, sometimes
completely out of the realm of expressed policy, that may not break the
"average" users application but bites our Tandem application.
Just my opinion, worth what you paid for it!
John Novack
--
Dog is my co-pilot |
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senad at bicom.us
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:48 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
|
|
John Novack wrote:
| Quote: |
Bill Andersen wrote:
| Quote: | This is not a troll. I've used my real email because I want this
taken seriously. I'm not trying to make anyone mad, I just want
some real discussion on this issue. Please bare with me...
I'm a USER of Asterisk. We purchased 3 commercially available
"Asterisk Based" PBXs a little over a year ago. (I won't mention
which one at this point - I don't want to bad mouth them - yet!)
Two of the systems are very small (5 SIP lines/6 Polycom phones).
The third is on a PRI with 30 Polycom phones.
My smaller sites work pretty good. I've only had to restart
Asterisk every month or so. However, my 30 station system
is a continuous headache. I average a restart at least once a
week. Sometimes a couple of times in the week. I'm always being
called to "fix" something that just stopped working.
I DON'T WANT TO GET INTO A "Well, don't just complain, tell us
your setup and we can help you get it working". This list HAS
helped me figure out some of the issues. THANK YOU! But the
purpose of this post is more of a fact finding mission.
1) Was choosing Asterisk for our company the wrong decision...
a) IF... I expect a phone system to just work. Once it is
configured, a phone system should just work with
very little attention. My previous system was a
Comdial with external voice mail on a DOS based PC.
I LITERALLY WENT OVER 4 YEARS WITHOUT HAVING TO REMOVE
POWER TO THE COMDIAL CONTROL OR RE-BOOT THE VOICE MAIL PC.
b) IF... I really only need a phone system that allows an operator
to answer each call and transfer them to the appropriate
person. I need voice mail, but very little auto attendant
features (mostly after hours). All the bells and whistles
that Asterisk offers are cool, but don't bring that much to
the table for our purpose.
c) IF... Stability is more of an issue than high end features?
2) Are there any users out there that really DO have an Asterisk
system that just works like clockwork? I'm saying, once setup,
run for a year (or more) without any issues?
3) If SO, Should I simply consider a different vendor?
4) If NOT, and if my expectations are that a system SHOULD just
run and run without any problems. Is Asterisk simply not my
solution. Is Asterisk not REALLY ready for production. Because
in my mind (as a user of phone services), "dealing" with the
phone system, even on a MONTHLY basis, means that the system
is NOT really production ready... Before we installed an
Asterisk based PBX, I spent maybe 4 hours per YEAR with phone
issues (setting up a new station?). Since we moved to an
Asterisk based PBX, I spend 4 hours (or more) every WEEK!
Am I expecting too much?
Bill
|
For those of us who have spent many a year in telephony, I tend to agree
with you. Asterisk is NOT ready for prime time
Total cost of ownership for a supply house system ( Comdial, now
Vertical, with a Keyvoice DOS based VM ) or an NEC DX series with VM on
a CF card) in a small to medium sized office simply hangs on the wall
and works, for years and years, and has many more features than most
offices need or use. Last month I replaced a 20 year old system that
finally failed, I have other systems installed and working in excess of
10 years, and seldom have any service issues. Mostly are user
reeducation on mailboxes and the like when people leave and no one knows
a password.
Square Hybrid Key systems ( Shared Line Appearance ) have worked
flawlessly for 20 years, and a host of other features that Asterisk is
still struggling to get working. Many of these systems are more
affordable than Asterisk at either the wholesale or retail level as well.
The current fad is IP or VOIP and regrettably many businesses jump into
the deep end of that pool without the faintest idea of where they will land.
That said, there is also a place for Asterisk or a like system, and many
of the users on this list have them in place and doing the job, but the
system is not hang it on the wall and forget it. PC based systems in
general from a hardware perspective are NOT as reliable, nor is the
operating system or the application. They DO need to be restarted from
time to time. In fact in my experience the system should have an
automatic reboot once a week at a quiet time. Many versions of Asterisk
can get insane and be cured by a simple reboot that seems to give the
real Linux experts the heebiejeebies. A reboot should not be considered
blasphemy, though I have only seen one hang on the wall system that
needed that in 20 years, and that was strictly due to a timing issue
with short term power outages.
Too many select the equipment and system they know, rather than what is
right for the customer.
I am in a group of antique telephone equipment collectors that use
Asterisk as an interface to a world wide private network of switches,
with a great deal of success, but it is a real struggle to overcome
changes that have been made from version to version, sometimes
completely out of the realm of expressed policy, that may not break the
"average" users application but bites our Tandem application.
Just my opinion, worth what you paid for it!
John Novack
|
John
You have raised few valid points. Thanks.
However, I will say that it is not asterisk but people/company deploying
it. Generally speaking after deployment, and as long users are "using"
the system normally, no reboot is required.
And yes, running the whole thing from standard PC based "desktop" will
eventually cause issues hence an solid state appliance is a way to go 
That is my experience.
Regards,
Senad |
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aklists at mixdown.ca
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:15 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
|
|
On March 19, 2008 12:43:21 pm Bill Andersen wrote:
| Quote: | I'm a USER of Asterisk. We purchased 3 commercially available
"Asterisk Based" PBXs a little over a year ago. (I won't mention
which one at this point - I don't want to bad mouth them - yet!)
Two of the systems are very small (5 SIP lines/6 Polycom phones).
The third is on a PRI with 30 Polycom phones.
|
If you're continuously restarting Asterisk, there is something wrong with your
setup: hardware, software or both. I have many installs out there on
commodity hardware (either pure-voip or digital (PRI) only with Polycom
handsets) and none of them need to be restarted.
Now we're not using queues; straight extensions with voicemail, some paging
and followme, a little CTI (click to dial), and a 24h "page the poor shlub
wearing the pager this week" for emergency support. You know, pretty
standard systems; the kind of thing I'd think any small business would have.
None of these are PoE, have separate switches or special VLANs or anything
like that. Think of what a small 5-50 person office would have the money
for.
I hear this complaint from time to time, but I've never really sat down and
thought about what could be causing it. Which version(s) are you running?
Whose hardware, what linux distro, are you running FreePBX or
straight-from-sources Asterisk? I'll take you on your word that you're not
trolling. Let's dig in a little.
-A. |
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robl at linx.net
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:33 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
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|
On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 11:43:21AM -0500, Bill Andersen wrote:
| Quote: | This is not a troll. I've used my real email because I want this
taken seriously. I'm not trying to make anyone mad, I just want
some real discussion on this issue. Please bare with me...
2) Are there any users out there that really DO have an Asterisk
system that just works like clockwork? I'm saying, once setup,
run for a year (or more) without any issues?
3) If SO, Should I simply consider a different vendor?
|
It depends. As they say, "Your Mileage May Vary"
You have gone with a pre-built asterisk based solution rather than rolling
your own with 'plain' asterisk system. So without knowing your particular
environment, it's obviously difficult to comment.
By the sound of it, your experience of asterisk has been based on one
particular integrator's build of it.
One or two versions of asterisk out there were lemons and were best avoided.
And then there are some modules which are less stable than others. I have
found that most of the core asterisk stuff to be reasonably stable and well
behaved, but there are a few modules that either have problems, or have had
problems in the past, which have now been fixed. chan_agent was a good
example of something that worked on a small scale but certain bits of it
were just broken.
Other problems may be down to operating system, memory, hardware
or driver issues.
Here, I am using exclusively SIP devices, SIP media gateways (rather than PC
hardware) with asterisk voicemail module and seems pretty stable. (We had to
reboot the box 9 weeks ago for a kernel security update.)
pink*CLI> show uptime
System uptime: 9 weeks, 4 days, 23 hours, 44 minutes, 22 seconds
We have about 77 SIP devices and these are a mixture of hard
and soft phones, with four media gateways. Spread over 9 sites.
There are a few ongoing intermittent issues, but haven't had any
spontaneous crashes so far.
| Quote: | 4) If NOT, and if my expectations are that a system SHOULD just
run and run without any problems. Is Asterisk simply not my
solution. Is Asterisk not REALLY ready for production. Because
in my mind (as a user of phone services), "dealing" with the
phone system, even on a MONTHLY basis, means that the system
|
We did evaluate a number of other systems before we decided to go down the
route of just plain asterisk and rolling our own, as nothing quite did what
we wanted.
You could look at OpenSER but I'm not convinced you'd find that an easy
thing to work with, when you describe what you want to achieve.
SipX was also pretty good, but these are SIP only servers rather than
asterisk's multi-protocol ability (You also have to provide SIP media
gateways rather than talk directly to a card in the back of the machine)
http://www.sipfoundry.org/sipX
SIPx is the open source release of Pingtel's SIPEchange product, which I
also evaluated. it seemed like a pretty good 'set and forget' solution, and
they are also now selling an integrated SIPx appliance:
http://www.patton.com/products/pe_products.asp?category=348&tab=fb&
Which we looked at and was pretty good. Up to 30 users and included
automatic handset provisioning, nice GUI for setting things up etc. This is
great where you have an environment where running a server is not possible.
(our asterisk server is hosted in a nice data air conditioned centre with
redundant disks, power, UPS, network.. everything, but no everybody can run
an environment for ultra reliable servers, so an "Asterisk Appliance" might
be a way forward and requires no server housing capability and very little
knowledge of the operating system etc.
It is very difficult to stop thinking 'old PBX', and start thinking "What is
it we're trying to achieve?" If what you want is a PBX, go and buy one. It
was a tricky journey from the old PBX system to asterisk VoIP, as there were
certain expectations of the old system, and maintaining lots of
functionality with the new handsets/asterisk.
The system that replaced our PBX doesn't have anything like as many call
features as the old PBX did, but then again, most of these features were
almost never used. But what we did gain was much more flexibility, choice of
handsets/clients, connection to various VoIP networks, the possibility of
remote workers, redundancy in the new system, and integration possibilities
with existing systems that were completely impossible on the old PBX system.
(Or were only possible for lots of money!)
Handsets are finally evolving now, trying to put in features that were
present on old PBXs with 'traditional' paradigms like key and lamps etc,
which users want on VoIP systems, but I believe that will ultimately lead to
more proprietary systems and will ultimately fail in favour of Soft Phones,
which are much better able to add new features rather than be constrained by
a physical handset with buttons and memory limitations etc.
In my experience, you can buy a very expensive handset or a reasonably
priced soft phone that can do exactly the same features. People are
reluctant to give up their physical handsets on desks just yet though.
There is something to be said about keeping things simple. We decided not to
go for the option of putting, say, BRI cards in the back of asterisk server
and using it as a media gateway, but use separate off-the-shelf media
gateway boxes to do this instead, so from the asterisk server, everything is
SIP, and the media gateways are doing the awkward ISDN/Analogue <-> IP
conversion. That way, any SIP server (including Asterisk) can interact with
these gateways. Reading this list, some of the PCI cards and drivers are
better/more stable than others.
The benefit you get with Asterisk/VoIP is that you are not locked in to one
particular vendor, architecture or approach, and can be very cost effective
for the equivalent commercial products you would have to buy to get the same
functionality in the traditional PBX world.
The trade-off having an open system and flexibility, is that there are so
many possible configurations/handsets etc. that it can be a challenge to get
it all working. If you want somebody to have done all the work for you and
not to have to worry about it, then maybe go for a packaged, proprietary
solution.
If lock-in is not an issue for you, then you could just buy a lucent PBX
system or Cisco call manager, for example.
Another approach might be to go for a managed VoIP service provider, and
just connect your handsets to their service rather than run your own
servers. this way, you get the benefit of VoIP without having to run your
own VoIP service. |
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drew at oanda.com
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
|
|
Bill Andersen wrote:
| Quote: | This is not a troll. I've used my real email because I want this
taken seriously. I'm not trying to make anyone mad, I just want
some real discussion on this issue. Please bare with me...
I'm a USER of Asterisk. We purchased 3 commercially available
"Asterisk Based" PBXs a little over a year ago. (I won't mention
which one at this point - I don't want to bad mouth them - yet!)
Two of the systems are very small (5 SIP lines/6 Polycom phones).
The third is on a PRI with 30 Polycom phones.
My smaller sites work pretty good. I've only had to restart
Asterisk every month or so. However, my 30 station system
is a continuous headache. I average a restart at least once a
week. Sometimes a couple of times in the week. I'm always being
called to "fix" something that just stopped working.
I DON'T WANT TO GET INTO A "Well, don't just complain, tell us
your setup and we can help you get it working". This list HAS
helped me figure out some of the issues. THANK YOU! But the
purpose of this post is more of a fact finding mission.
1) Was choosing Asterisk for our company the wrong decision...
a) IF... I expect a phone system to just work. Once it is
configured, a phone system should just work with
very little attention. My previous system was a
Comdial with external voice mail on a DOS based PC.
I LITERALLY WENT OVER 4 YEARS WITHOUT HAVING TO REMOVE
POWER TO THE COMDIAL CONTROL OR RE-BOOT THE VOICE MAIL PC.
b) IF... I really only need a phone system that allows an operator
to answer each call and transfer them to the appropriate
person. I need voice mail, but very little auto attendant
features (mostly after hours). All the bells and whistles
that Asterisk offers are cool, but don't bring that much to
the table for our purpose.
c) IF... Stability is more of an issue than high end features?
2) Are there any users out there that really DO have an Asterisk
system that just works like clockwork? I'm saying, once setup,
run for a year (or more) without any issues?
3) If SO, Should I simply consider a different vendor?
4) If NOT, and if my expectations are that a system SHOULD just
run and run without any problems. Is Asterisk simply not my
solution. Is Asterisk not REALLY ready for production. Because
in my mind (as a user of phone services), "dealing" with the
phone system, even on a MONTHLY basis, means that the system
is NOT really production ready... Before we installed an
Asterisk based PBX, I spent maybe 4 hours per YEAR with phone
issues (setting up a new station?). Since we moved to an
Asterisk based PBX, I spend 4 hours (or more) every WEEK!
Am I expecting too much?
Bill
|
I don't think you are expecting too much.
We have:-
130 physical extensions including 24x7 inbound call centre
Debian on Dell server
root at asterisk:~# uptime
13:15:31 up 192 days, 23:49, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
(Power was removed to switch to new UPS)
asterisk*CLI> show version
Asterisk 1.2.24 built by root @ asterisk on a i686 running Linux on
2007-09-08 17:17:07 UTC
asterisk*CLI> show uptime
System uptime: 63 days, 4 hours, 26 minutes, 40 seconds
(Asterisk was restarted after queue config changes)
We had a single power supply and single drive fail in one incident in
Feb 2007 (one drive of RAID 1). System stayed up but was taken down for
15 minutes to swap the drive. PS was hot-swapped when it arrived later.
regards,
Drew
--
Drew Gibson
Systems Administrator
OANDA Corporation
www.oanda.com |
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mcollins at fcnetwork.com
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:50 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
|
|
| Quote: | John
You have raised few valid points. Thanks.
However, I will say that it is not asterisk but people/company
|
deploying
| Quote: | it. Generally speaking after deployment, and as long users are "using"
the system normally, no reboot is required.
And yes, running the whole thing from standard PC based "desktop" will
eventually cause issues hence an solid state appliance is a way to go
|
Agreed. The simple fact of the matter is that most key systems and
hybrids that "hang on the wall and just work" are mostly or completely
solid state. I've been in the PBX/Key/Hybrid business since 1994 and my
experience is, I'm sure, similar to most phone system veterans: keep
your solid state stuff clean and cool and it pretty much never breaks;
the stuff that breaks almost always seems to involve moving parts and/or
the power supply. (Power => heat => eventual breakage.) Like John,
I've pulled out systems that have worked for 10-15 years and never
broke, they just got old.
One other salient point is that the operating system and resident
hardware are factors that must be taken into consideration when running
a computer-based phone system. Great software running on a great OS
running on crappy hardware will lead to problems. Crappy software
running on a great OS running on rock solid hardware will lead to
problems. (You get the idea.)
To get back to the OP's question about Asterisk being ready for
prime-time: it all depends. Your experience with the small systems
working great but the larger one having issues isn't uncommon. I would
suggest asking around on list to find out what kind of hardware is being
used by those who've had lots of success, especially if you're
connecting to the PSTN, because that adds yet another layer of
complexity.
BTW, if you're asking for my opinion, I'll give it: no, I personally
don't think Asterisk is ready for "prime-time" in a mission-critical
application. I don't use it for anything mission-critical. (For those
who feel I've just blasphemed, please direct my opinion to /dev/null.)
-MC
| Quote: | That is my experience.
Regards,
Senad |
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gordon+asterisk at dro...
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
|
|
On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, Senad Jordanovic wrote:
| Quote: | And yes, running the whole thing from standard PC based "desktop" will
eventually cause issues hence an solid state appliance is a way to go
|
My gripe is that I think people try to put too much into a system, don't
have a "server build and operation" head, and are basically OK with
rebooting because maybe that's what they're used to... And maybe they just
don't have enough customers that whinge loudly enough when things stop
working
Personally I don't think an "appliance" ought to be running SQL. I don't
think it should have it's own billing platform either (Although make the
call logs available by all means!), nor should it have a built-in CRM
solution. Don't use agi, external scripts where dialplan will do, and so
on.
I can see why it's attractive to put all those in, but maybe I'm just an
old unix hacker at heart with the "make it do one thing well" type of
mentality...
(I did put Perl & FOP in my units recently, but only under protest and
after lots of requests from a reseller!)
As for prime-time? I think the answer is "yes, but..." You need reliable
hardware, customised software, not generic (Cuscom compiled Linux kernel,
distribution, asterisk, etc.), don't run anything that's not 100%
necessary, turn off motherboard hardware that's not being used, and so on.
Good build practices (anti-static mats, etc.) and soaktesting helps too -
I had a duff memory stick recently which was found with a few sweeps of
memtest86+ ...
I think you also need a "professional installation". I see lots of
asterisk inna box solutions being sold by mail-order, but I'm not really
convinced it's the way forward - maybe for a small techno type of company,
but your average SME just wants to "get a man in" to make it work IME ...
Based on that, I generally have systems that "just work", although none
might be as particularly busy as some out there - busiest right now is
handling about 100 calls an hour - purely VoIP, no BRI/PRI) next is about
80 an hour on 6 BRI ports.
I've yet to have a box stop working for reasons I didn't know about
(filling the ramdisk with log-files doesn't help!) I see far more problems
with phones than the boxes themselves, but maybe I've just been lucky!
Cheers,
Gordon |
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senad at bicom.us
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:00 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
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| Quote: |
130 physical extensions including 24x7 inbound call centre
Debian on Dell server
root at asterisk:~# uptime
13:15:31 up 192 days, 23:49, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
|
here is one more running multi tenant Hosted PBXes:
saul ~ # uptime
18:59:11 up 263 days, 23:50, 1 user, load average: 0.96, 0.49, 0.35
saul ~ #
Senad |
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tzafrir.cohen at xorco...
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:21 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
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On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 06:54:46PM +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, Senad Jordanovic wrote:
| Quote: | And yes, running the whole thing from standard PC based "desktop" will
eventually cause issues hence an solid state appliance is a way to go
|
My gripe is that I think people try to put too much into a system, don't
have a "server build and operation" head, and are basically OK with
rebooting because maybe that's what they're used to... And maybe they just
don't have enough customers that whinge loudly enough when things stop
working
Personally I don't think an "appliance" ought to be running SQL. I don't
think it should have it's own billing platform either (Although make the
call logs available by all means!), nor should it have a built-in CRM
solution. Don't use agi, external scripts where dialplan will do, and so
on.
|
Right. And mysql is the thing that will cause Asterisk to crash?
| Quote: | As for prime-time? I think the answer is "yes, but..." You need reliable
hardware, customised software, not generic (Cuscom compiled Linux kernel,
distribution, asterisk, etc.),
|
Actually distros do a relatively good job with kernels. While there is a
room for improvments, there is also where to go badly downhill.
What customizations do you set to a custom kernel?
I've seen strange things being done by (most typically) Gentoo users.
If not every release of Asterisk is solid enough and you must use a
custom build just to get a stable (read: non-crashing) system, then I
would agree with the OP that Asterisk is not ready for prime-time. This
is because the support costs are too high.
--
Tzafrir Cohen
icq#16849755 jabber:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
+972-50-7952406 mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
http://www.xorcom.com iax:guest at local.xorcom.com/tzafrir |
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Guest
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
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An off-the-shelf 5+ year old MSI MS-6378X-L motherboard, 1.6GHz AMD, 512
RAM, 10 extensions, no more than three concurrent calls:
[pbx at pbx ~]$ uptime
11:31:45 up 103 days, 1:00, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
But:
[pbx at pbx ~]$ sudo asterisk -rx 'core show uptime'
System uptime: 9 hours, 32 minutes, 25 seconds
I reboot every evening Drew, what's the uptime on your asterisk
process on that box that's been up for 193 days?
Drew Gibson wrote:
| Quote: | Bill Andersen wrote:
| Quote: | This is not a troll. I've used my real email because I want this
taken seriously. I'm not trying to make anyone mad, I just want
some real discussion on this issue. Please bare with me...
I'm a USER of Asterisk. We purchased 3 commercially available
"Asterisk Based" PBXs a little over a year ago. (I won't mention
which one at this point - I don't want to bad mouth them - yet!)
Two of the systems are very small (5 SIP lines/6 Polycom phones).
The third is on a PRI with 30 Polycom phones.
My smaller sites work pretty good. I've only had to restart
Asterisk every month or so. However, my 30 station system
is a continuous headache. I average a restart at least once a
week. Sometimes a couple of times in the week. I'm always being
called to "fix" something that just stopped working.
I DON'T WANT TO GET INTO A "Well, don't just complain, tell us
your setup and we can help you get it working". This list HAS
helped me figure out some of the issues. THANK YOU! But the
purpose of this post is more of a fact finding mission.
1) Was choosing Asterisk for our company the wrong decision...
a) IF... I expect a phone system to just work. Once it is
configured, a phone system should just work with
very little attention. My previous system was a
Comdial with external voice mail on a DOS based PC.
I LITERALLY WENT OVER 4 YEARS WITHOUT HAVING TO REMOVE
POWER TO THE COMDIAL CONTROL OR RE-BOOT THE VOICE MAIL PC.
b) IF... I really only need a phone system that allows an operator
to answer each call and transfer them to the appropriate
person. I need voice mail, but very little auto attendant
features (mostly after hours). All the bells and whistles
that Asterisk offers are cool, but don't bring that much to
the table for our purpose.
c) IF... Stability is more of an issue than high end features?
2) Are there any users out there that really DO have an Asterisk
system that just works like clockwork? I'm saying, once setup,
run for a year (or more) without any issues?
3) If SO, Should I simply consider a different vendor?
4) If NOT, and if my expectations are that a system SHOULD just
run and run without any problems. Is Asterisk simply not my
solution. Is Asterisk not REALLY ready for production. Because
in my mind (as a user of phone services), "dealing" with the
phone system, even on a MONTHLY basis, means that the system
is NOT really production ready... Before we installed an
Asterisk based PBX, I spent maybe 4 hours per YEAR with phone
issues (setting up a new station?). Since we moved to an
Asterisk based PBX, I spend 4 hours (or more) every WEEK!
Am I expecting too much?
Bill
|
I don't think you are expecting too much.
We have:-
130 physical extensions including 24x7 inbound call centre
Debian on Dell server
root at asterisk:~# uptime
13:15:31 up 192 days, 23:49, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
(Power was removed to switch to new UPS)
asterisk*CLI> show version
Asterisk 1.2.24 built by root @ asterisk on a i686 running Linux on
2007-09-08 17:17:07 UTC
asterisk*CLI> show uptime
System uptime: 63 days, 4 hours, 26 minutes, 40 seconds
(Asterisk was restarted after queue config changes)
We had a single power supply and single drive fail in one incident in
Feb 2007 (one drive of RAID 1). System stayed up but was taken down for
15 minutes to swap the drive. PS was hot-swapped when it arrived later.
regards,
Drew
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norman at myasd.com
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:41 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
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On Mar 19, 2008, at 1:00 PM, asterisk-users-request at lists.digium.com
wrote:
| Quote: | Am I expecting too much?
|
Perhaps.
I think the hardware on which we run Asterisk can be much more
reliable than the software, which is often the case. We have a bunch
of HP servers with RAID and have never lost anything. A HD may fail,
but the RAID keeps it going until we pop a new drive in there. A
server class PC with redundant power supplies and RAID is really quit
inexpensive now. If you are running on a $1000 box, you can't expect
the reliability of dedicated telco hardware.
As for Asterisk, reliability has been a concern. Concurrency issues
keep cropping up (read bugs.digium.com), especially with the SIP
stack. This is particularly the case with buggy clients (soft phones,
and under high volume of calls.) However, in fairness, writing
heavily threaded code in C is very hard to get right. I think testing
could surely be better, perhaps come code reviews and more guidelines
for writing threaded code.
We had an old hardware system and it wasn't without some issues. We
needed to support around 30 call takers and another 50 hard phones.
It took us a while in the 90s to get everything working acceptably.
Our transition time with Asterisk has actually been shorter. Since we
have a highly customized operation, going with a Avaya or Cisco
solution would have cost in excess of $500K. With Asterisk, we spent
maybe $50K on hardware (including a Cisco gateway, two Asterisk
servers and some Polycom phones.) This cost is trivial compared to
how much we pend on our yearly phone bill.
The great benefit to Asterisk for us was that everything is open
source software and thus we can customize it. We wrote a custom app
that plugs into Asterisk that handles all of our custom business
rules and provides far more capabilities than our old (and very
expensive) hardware solution. Since we already had a custom developed
desktop application, we could plug in a SIP stack and further
customize things to be just what we wanted.
I remember talking to a rep from a large reseller and listing our
requirements, and he was amazed we could do all we were going on 90s
technologies, since their new (and even more expensive) stuff
couldn't without lots of "consulting". We had just two developers
over 6 months go from zero to a full call center solution.
On the other hand, if I were to support a small office with 20 people
and simple voice mail for mission-critical telecommunications, I'd
likely get a hardware solution. They are reliable and not that
expensive. Asterisk, for now, and in my opinion, is always going to
require more interaction that other hardware solutions. But, it's
cheaper and more flexible. You may not care about cheap and flexible,
and if not, maybe it's not what you want.
I've not tested products like CallWeaver or others. People claim some
of these are more reliable, but Asterisk seems more popular.
Norman Franke
Answering Service for Directors, Inc.
www.myasd.com
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gordon+asterisk at dro...
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:22 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
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On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 06:54:46PM +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, Senad Jordanovic wrote:
| Quote: | And yes, running the whole thing from standard PC based "desktop" will
eventually cause issues hence an solid state appliance is a way to go
|
My gripe is that I think people try to put too much into a system, don't
have a "server build and operation" head, and are basically OK with
rebooting because maybe that's what they're used to... And maybe they just
don't have enough customers that whinge loudly enough when things stop
working
Personally I don't think an "appliance" ought to be running SQL. I don't
think it should have it's own billing platform either (Although make the
call logs available by all means!), nor should it have a built-in CRM
solution. Don't use agi, external scripts where dialplan will do, and so
on.
|
Right. And mysql is the thing that will cause Asterisk to crash?
|
No. But my point was that "appliances" don't need it - my aim is to keep
them as light and simple as absolutely possible. The less it runs, the
less there is to go wrong. I don't need MySQL to support an appliance that
can handle 100+ extensions, changes to names, extensions, etc. at random,
plus all the usual web based "stuff" for manipulating call/hunt groups,
voicemail, simple queues, parking, etc. so for me it would be an
unneccessary burden to the system. (Not to mention an extra 16MB of
executables in the flash-card!)
| Quote: | | Quote: | As for prime-time? I think the answer is "yes, but..." You need reliable
hardware, customised software, not generic (Cuscom compiled Linux kernel,
distribution, asterisk, etc.),
|
Actually distros do a relatively good job with kernels. While there is a
room for improvments, there is also where to go badly downhill.
What customizations do you set to a custom kernel?
|
I take a stock kernel from kernel.org and compile in only what it needs
for the hardware it's running on. I've been doing this since day 1 though
(As in Linux day 1 which for me was 1994 ish) - I know it's not for
everyone, but again, it's removing stuff that's not needed. The only
modules that get loaded are the ones I can't compile into the kernel.
If you want my .config for a VIA processor, drop me an email.
| Quote: | I've seen strange things being done by (most typically) Gentoo users.
|
I'm purely Debian, but when building my "appliances" I build up a custom
initrd.gz file from a list of executables and libraries on my development
server... (The device runs purely from RAM, but boots off flash)
| Quote: | If not every release of Asterisk is solid enough and you must use a
custom build just to get a stable (read: non-crashing) system, then I
would agree with the OP that Asterisk is not ready for prime-time. This
is because the support costs are too high.
|
I have to say that I've never had issues with the releases of asterisk
I've used - 1.2.x, but I do compile them from scratch - you have to for
VIA processors as they lack some MMX instructions...
And oddly enough, I've found that some people (mainly corporate type
enterprises) get shirty if you don't charge them for support! (Then at the
other end of the scale, some SMEs get shirty when you do charge them )-:
Gordon |
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andersen at mwdental.com
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:38 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
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Senad Jordanovic wrote:
| Quote: | However, I will say that it is not asterisk but people/company
deploying it. Generally speaking after deployment, and as long
users are "using" the system normally, no reboot is required.
|
I'm thinking part of the problem IS the company deploying
the "commercial" product we purchased. I really like their GUI.
I'm an IT guy and I'd say out of the last 10 or so "issues" we
have had with the product, I'm the one that figured out why it
wasn't working correctly. They had to fix it, (their code), but
I would see the symptoms and say "Hey, could it be this?". I had one
email from their programmer that said "Good catch". Well, thanks
for the Kudos, but why the hell am I paying an annual fee to
"catch" your bugs!
| Quote: | And yes, running the whole thing from standard PC based "desktop" will
eventually cause issues hence an solid state appliance is a way to go
|
We are on an server class machine and haven't really had any issues
I feel were related to hardware. Alghough, I agree good hardware is
the key to "hardware" stability.
Thanks for the comments.
Bill |
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steven.kurylo at aviaw...
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:41 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time? |
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Bill Andersen wrote:
| Quote: | a) IF... I expect a phone system to just work. Once it is
configured, a phone system should just work with
very little attention. My previous system was a
Comdial with external voice mail on a DOS based PC.
I LITERALLY WENT OVER 4 YEARS WITHOUT HAVING TO REMOVE
POWER TO THE COMDIAL CONTROL OR RE-BOOT THE VOICE MAIL PC.
|
I don't think you'll ever find the reliability of those old solid state
systems. They have very few features and little to go wrong. I don't
judge my asterisk installations against those systems. I judge asterisk
against comparable systems, like a cisco voip systems or a Nortel BCM.
While I can't say asterisk is more stable than they are, I can say the
support is much better. With closed systems I never quite know whats
going on and get told to reboot regularly to fix problems (the days of a
BCM taking 20 minutes to reboot during business hours of a call
center...). Or sometimes told the latest version will fix my problems,
assuming I pay for it. With asterisk I can tackle the issues myself and
get a continually improving product with no extra charges. The power of
open source. |
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