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jra at baylink.com
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 09:06:15AM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

Anyways, isn't Asterisk 1.2.x and FC6 EOL?

1.2 better not be EOL. Smile

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
Those who count the vote decide everything.
-- (Joseph Stalin)

jra at baylink.com
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 4:37 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 10:56:21PM +0200, Michiel van Baak wrote:

Quote:

He is an employee and he does not post from a Digium account or
include that fact in his signature. Not that it is to hide the fact,
but it certainly is obfuscated.

I think it just shows that his opinions are his, and in no way are
linked to the 'digium opinion'

That's the common approach, yes. If he says something that seems...
off, in that context, I'm sure we'll call him on it.

Cheers,
-- jr 'or his bosses will' a
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
Those who count the vote decide everything.
-- (Joseph Stalin)

stotaro at totarotechn...
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 5:34 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 5:36 PM, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:

Quote:

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 09:06:15AM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

Anyways, isn't Asterisk 1.2.x and FC6 EOL?

1.2 better not be EOL. Smile

End of life date for Asterisk 1.2 was August 1, 2007.....

Thanks,
Steve Totaro

stotaro at totarotechn...
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 5:36 PM, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:

Quote:

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 08:51:04AM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

It is about the money, like it or not. You are going to an Avaya type
licensing scheme, everything is charged per port. The box is capable
of doing more but you turn it off until you get more money. It's like
the Definity G3s I have worked with. The box can do everything but
until you pony up, it is not activated.

Yeah, and if you cut a jumper on a VAX11/780, it went twice as fast.

So *what*, Steve? Are they not allowed to make money?

Quote:

Any SwitchVox sale I have tried to pitch dies quickly and this is even
involving Switchvox reps on a conference call.

Ah. Then if you don't like the way they do business, vote with your
wallet; don't sell their junk.

Quote:

How about if I don't want support and use my own hardware, then can do
I still have to pay to upgrade to SMB or whatever? Follow the logic?
Anyways, the profit margin on "appliances" is way too low. I might as
well sell 3Coms or NECs if I am selling boxes with per seat license
fees and have to hack the box to do any customization.

Yup.

Quote:

They are not being conservative, when all you do is put a CC and then
a button shows up to upgrade, this is the same hardware mind you....

Guess I will stick to my DL 380s and (if a GUI is required) FreePBX or
Druid (if it tests out ok).

Sounds like the best answer to me, for you. Smile

Sure they are allowed to make money but don't lie and say it is not
about the money, "It is about support". Yeah supporting the company's
cash flow.

I can express my opinion and I did. Maybe Digium will take notice,
maybe they won't.

Maybe next they will charge $250 for "conference bridge" capabilities.
It's a joke to cripple things that can be enabled by flicking a
switch. Your system comes with eight ports of VM but for another $250
we can give you 12......

Thanks,
Steve Totaro

tilghman at mail.jeffa...
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 6:32 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Saturday 17 May 2008 17:43:51 Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 5:36 PM, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:

Quote:

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 08:51:04AM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

Yeah, and if you cut a jumper on a VAX11/780, it went twice as fast.

So *what*, Steve? Are they not allowed to make money?

Sure they are allowed to make money but don't lie and say it is not
about the money, "It is about support". Yeah supporting the company's
cash flow.

If that were all it was about, then you could call sales and get an infinite
number of licenses for a particular machine. Go ahead and try it. Call them.
There is a hard upper limit on the number of licenses they will sell for a
single machine, because any more is not supportable.

They may say, "Let us call you back on that," because the next thing they're
going to do is consult with Engineering and Support and find out if that is
doable. The maximum number of calls that you can buy for a single machine
is really about what is supportable (because if we sell more, and it doesn't
work, it's going to cost us in support time, on the phone, and possibly ending
up with a customer refund, because what (hypothetically) was sold was not
supportable).

Yes, the various tiers below that absolute limit is about money; it's about
charging based upon what we think it will cost us to support that number
of users, should something go wrong, and the customer needs to call in. And
yes, there's a bit of profit margin in there. I don't completely understand
the formula, and I don't pretend to. However, to say that the maximum number
of supportable users on a platform is about making money is just completely
wrong. The maximum number is about avoiding a situation where we would
lose money.

Quote:

I can express my opinion and I did. Maybe Digium will take notice,
maybe they won't.

Maybe next they will charge $250 for "conference bridge" capabilities.
It's a joke to cripple things that can be enabled by flicking a
switch. Your system comes with eight ports of VM but for another $250
we can give you 12......

I wasn't aware that you were a customer of either Switchvox or Business
Edition. Last I checked, the open source version that you use is not
constrained in that way (and it isn't likely to be constrained in the future,
either). The whole reason that Business Edition exists is because some
customers demand professional support for Asterisk, and paying for that
support costs money. That's all. Business Edition does not significantly
differ from the open source version -- the only reason we put a license
code on it is to ensure that when people call in for support, they have
essentially already prepaid for that support.

--
Tilghman

mgraves at mstvp.com
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 7:07 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sat, 17 May 2008 18:32:57 -0500, Tilghman Lesher wrote:

Quote:

Maybe next they will charge $250 for "conference bridge" capabilities.
It's a joke to cripple things that can be enabled by flicking a
switch. Your system comes with eight ports of VM but for another $250
we can give you 12......

Forgive me for jumping in on this, but that's terribly naive.

I work in the broadcast and TV production business. Some time ago a
major company called Quantel created a hardware system called "Edit
Box." It was wickedly fast and could do things with multiple streams of
uncompressed video in real-time. It was way beyond PCs, Macs or *nix
boxes of the day. It started at $500,000 USD for four streams.

I was at a Chicago post production facility the day that Quantel
delivered an "upgrade" that allowed the system to manipulate 8
simultaneous video streams. The field service tech walk in with a disk
and installed a software patch. Voila, twice as many layers.

That upgrade cost another $250,000.

This kind of thing goes on all the time. The hardware has the core
capabilities but licensing controls your access to it. You get what you
pay for.

Michael
--
Michael Graves
mgraves<at>mstvp.com
http://blog.mgraves.org
o713-861-4005
c713-201-1262
sip:mjgraves at pixelpower.onsip.com
skype mjgraves
54245 at fwd.pulver.com

jra at baylink.com
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 11:28 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 06:34:12PM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

End of life date for Asterisk 1.2 was August 1, 2007.....

Well, my app won't *run* on 1.4 reliably yet, so I hope they get it
fixed soon...

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
Those who count the vote decide everything.
-- (Joseph Stalin)

jra at baylink.com
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 11:32 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 06:43:51PM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

"Feature pricing" (also called "value pricing") is a time honored
tradition -- especially in the telecom business.

Ever wonder why your telco charged you $2.50 a month for call waiting
when it involved exactly, let me see, right: *no hardware at all*?

Because they could.

And more to the point: because Nortel charged *them* $20k a year[1] to
enable the feature in the generic, and they were damn sure gonna get
that money back from someone.

In this case, *they give away the entire source package. For free*.

I like you a lot, Steve, generally, but it feels a bit like you're
whining, on this one, to me...

Cheers,
-- jra
[1] These features were indeed charged for, though usually in packages;
I don't have exact numbers -- though I *do* have a DMS 100 Feature
Portfolio on my bookshelf, so I could give you a feature number, if you
like.
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
Those who count the vote decide everything.
-- (Joseph Stalin)

jra at baylink.com
Guest

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 11:34 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 07:07:51PM -0500, Michael Graves wrote:

Quote:

I work in the broadcast and TV production business. Some time ago a
major company called Quantel created a hardware system called "Edit
Box." It was wickedly fast and could do things with multiple streams of
uncompressed video in real-time. It was way beyond PCs, Macs or *nix
boxes of the day. It started at $500,000 USD for four streams.

... and now I can do that on a Mac laptop.

Aren't you glad *you* didn't have to write that check? Smile

stotaro at totarotechn...
Guest

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 1:45 am Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 12:32 AM, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:

Quote:

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 06:43:51PM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

Let me clarify this a bit with some ramblings if anyone cares to read,
if not move along.

Yes, I was whining a bit.

I always recommend what I think fits best for a customer. I am not in
the "Digium Foodchain" because of the first statement. I swear
allegiance to nobody except my customers, who are trusting me to ask
the right questions, feel them out, be a mind reader to a degree, and
deliver the best customized solution for them that I can.

I have purchased and installed SwitchVoxen a couple of times, more
than a year before they were acquired by Digium. I am not positive,
but I am pretty sure the pricing model was much different. Anyways,
if you google my name and SwitchVox you will see that I have always
(time and time again) said it was a great product, and it is.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=7jw&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=steve+totaro+switchvox&spell=1

I guess I hate to see something I have viewed as such a huge paradigm
shift and disruptive force from selling boxes to selling knowledge. I
hate to see things going back to the status quo of the old world (such
as feature pricing).

BUT, as stated, I am not forced to use SwitchVox or any commercial
product for that matter and Digium has to make money too so I was off
base on that. While SwitchVox is Asterisk, Asterisk is not Switchvox.
AsteriskNow is Asterisk but not now.....

I do however, think that Digium should provide some rough concurrent
call figures and I guess that is how I got off topic on this SwitchVox
tangent. There are some common feature sets, especially when looking
at PBX functionality with or without Zap or transcoding hardware that
could be published (with a disclaimer of course). There are also
common server platforms but that is more of a moving target.

Maybe if Sangoma publishes some along those lines, then Digium will
follow suit.

Maybe just side by side benchmarking would be sufficient to both give
an idea on scaling and also compare like hardware from different
vendors. I would probably even throw FreeSwitch into mix. Word has
it that FS can scale up much larger for setting up and tearing down
calls. I am an FS newb as of now so it is hearsay.

I like Digium and how they are "Boldly Going Where no Man has Gone
Before (before the politically correct version Smile

It must be hard
coming up with a new business model and while they do things such as
EOLing 1.2 and putting out untested, broken 1.4 code (I could go on
but I am don't want to come across as bashing Digium).

I want to be supportive and thankful, so thanks Digium (and everyone
else in the community).

Thanks,
Steve Totaro

bwentdg at pipeline.com
Guest

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 1:58 am Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

Glad I was able to foster some good open discussion.
Hopefully DIGIUM will take to heart some of the thoughts expressed here
and end up with a BETTER SOLUTION for ALL.

Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

Inline

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 11:44 AM, Tilghman Lesher
<tilghman at mail.jeffandtilghman.com> wrote:

Quote:

On Friday 16 May 2008 09:11:11 Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 9:56 AM, Tilghman Lesher wrote:

Quote:

On Friday 16 May 2008 06:59:15 Al Baker wrote:

Quote:

this is one very weak area for *. There is NO ANSWER.
Now in fairness to *, the answer DOES depend on a # of critical
variables. How much CODEC to CODEC transcription is going on.
How many MEET Me conferences are going on.

On the other hand, DIGIUM COULD, since they have a lab take 4-5
'standard' workloads
on two of the most common hardware boxes, say Dell & HP, and run x # of
transcriptions and
show the #'s.
Then x # of meet-me conferences.

Face it the DB Industry did this 15-2- YEARS ago with TP benckmarks

Rockwell and NORTEL can tell you this for every piece of hardware they
sell.

It is a an area DIGIUM need to "man-up" in.

I'm not sure what your problem is with Digium. They sell several
machines for which they publish very specific numbers as to how many
users those machines will support (the Switchvox appliances). Note that
these machines are configurable only from the web interface, and they do
not allow you to install additional software. In other words, when they
give you a specific machine, with a ton of those variables controlled,
they can give you a number.

Digium is under no obligation to give you numbers for your own hardware.
That's up to you (and you get to control your own set of variables).

It seems any constructive criticism offered, you take as an attack
against Digium. That is not a good attitude.

I don't see how you figured out what I was thinking. Al said Digium doesn't
publish any numbers, and I responded, saying that he was incorrect; Digium
does indeed publish numbers (they're just not for his hardware).

"I'm not sure what your problem is with Digium." Proof, period.

Quote:

While under no obligation, it certainly would help sales.

Whose sales? If you're talking about the appliances, then yes, I'm sure the
publication of those numbers help with sales. If you mean your own sales,
well, you're right, Digium's numbers probably don't help your sales. You
could certainly put together a lab and do your own testing. Why don't you do
that?

Sales in general. You don't need to benchmark everything, just a few
basic benchmarks, maybe gear it to your hardware and SIP as a gateway,
then build from there. Most companies do this.

I have my own lab and bechmarks but they are for Sangoma hardware and
very specific servers and all geared to callcenter apps.

Quote:

I take "Appliance Numbers" with a grain of salt. The sales model of
SwitchVox (and most others) is based on number of ports (SoHO, SMB,
Enterprise) not maximum number of ports that the appliance could
actually handle if not artificially constrained.

Consider the maximum number of ports that Switchvox will enable on a single
machine and consider that the maximum number that they're willing to support
comfortably without running into some hard limit. You never want to run into
a hard limit in the field anyway.

High powered ervers are cheap and so are appliances once you settle on
an enclosure and guts and start cranking out boxes. Hard limit....
common.

Quote:

This is in the style of legacy proprietary systems and anther reason
why the sale cycle goes a little tougher than a custom job. Asterisk
with FreePBX (and maybe Druid) eliminate these artificial constraints
on usage.

Yes, but the point of those constraints is to permit support a manageable
job. Yes, you could probably add 2 or 3 or 10 or 15 to the number of calls
that a particular machine could handle, but from a support perspective, it
doesn't matter how many the machine could theoretically handle, it matters
how many it could handle in the particular installation in a supportable
configuration (those are all those pesky variables we've been talking about).

Maybe that is what the official corporate answer is or, you were
brainwashed to believe, but I tend to think it is to sell SMB and
Enterprise software and support. It is all about money. I didn't
fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

Quote:

I have load averages and CPU usage stats in my mind for all the
various usages and hardware through experience in my mind. Of course
they are only valuable to the exact setup I was doing.

Precisely.

--
Tilghman

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mgraves at mstvp.com
Guest

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 8:37 am Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sun, 18 May 2008 00:34:30 -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

Quote:

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 07:07:51PM -0500, Michael Graves wrote:

Quote:

... and now I can do that on a Mac laptop.

Aren't you glad *you* didn't have to write that check? Smile

That tale harkens from around 1997. Even at $750,000 the owners of the
facility made a lot of money with the system. Big investment often
comes with big returns.

Michael
--
Michael Graves
mgraves<at>mstvp.com
http://blog.mgraves.org
o713-861-4005
c713-201-1262
sip:mjgraves at pixelpower.onsip.com
skype mjgraves
54245 at fwd.pulver.com

jra at baylink.com
Guest

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 10:56 am Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 02:45:09AM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

Good. You're hired. Smile

Quote:

I have purchased and installed SwitchVoxen a couple of times, more
than a year before they were acquired by Digium. I am not positive,
but I am pretty sure the pricing model was much different. Anyways,
if you google my name and SwitchVox you will see that I have always
(time and time again) said it was a great product, and it is.

[ URL elided; I'll take your word for it. ]

Quote:

I guess I hate to see something I have viewed as such a huge paradigm
shift and disruptive force from selling boxes to selling knowledge. I
hate to see things going back to the status quo of the old world (such
as feature pricing).

Aha. Got it. And yeah, I have some sympathy for that viewpoint. But
as people would tell *me*: Look! An opportunity!!

Quote:

BUT, as stated, I am not forced to use SwitchVox or any commercial
product for that matter and Digium has to make money too so I was off
base on that. While SwitchVox is Asterisk, Asterisk is not Switchvox.

Exactly.

Quote:

I do however, think that Digium should provide some rough concurrent
call figures and I guess that is how I got off topic on this SwitchVox
tangent. There are some common feature sets, especially when looking
at PBX functionality with or without Zap or transcoding hardware that
could be published (with a disclaimer of course). There are also
common server platforms but that is more of a moving target.

Sure. But can you understand the point Tilghman was making there?
They quote those numbers as "cover our ass" numbers; their intention is
to avoid running up their tech support expense too much.

The task you're after is more properly a community task, I should
think.

Yo, Matt! Feel free to chime in here. Smile

Quote:

Maybe if Sangoma publishes some along those lines, then Digium will
follow suit.

Perhaps.

Quote:

Maybe just side by side benchmarking would be sufficient to both give
an idea on scaling and also compare like hardware from different
vendors. I would probably even throw FreeSwitch into mix. Word has
it that FS can scale up much larger for setting up and tearing down
calls. I am an FS newb as of now so it is hearsay.

Yeah; I liked what I saw from the inside, but some people tell me it's
kinda hincky internally, as well.

Course, a DMS-100 probably is, too. Wink

Quote:

I like Digium and how they are "Boldly Going Where no Man has Gone
Before" (before the politically correct version Smile

You did see the final episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise", right?

Quote:

I'm used to it: I program in filePro. Smile

tilghman at mail.jeffa...
Guest

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 12:24 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sunday 18 May 2008 10:56:00 Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

Quote:

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 02:45:09AM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

Sure. But can you understand the point Tilghman was making there?
They quote those numbers as "cover our ass" numbers; their intention is
to avoid running up their tech support expense too much.

An additional point worth making is that the numbers for Business Edition
aren't based on installation on a very specific machine, where we've tweaked
operating system and Asterisk variables for optimal performance, for the
express purpose of coming out on top of stated benchmarks. They are call
numbers that you can expect will be stable, even if you aren't good at finely
tweaking Linux systems, as, I suspect, most people running production systems
are not.

I can't say that Digium will never publish benchmarks, but I believe that most
people who are concerned with the proper functioning of whatever they've come
to use Asterisk for (call routing, PBX, IVR, or something else) take
benchmarks with an extremely large chunk of salt.

--
Tilghman

stotaro at totarotechn...
Guest

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 1:02 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Asterisk concurrent calls count

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 1:24 PM, Tilghman Lesher
<tilghman at mail.jeffandtilghman.com> wrote:

Quote:

On Sunday 18 May 2008 10:56:00 Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

Quote:

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 02:45:09AM -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:

Quote:

Sure. But can you understand the point Tilghman was making there?
They quote those numbers as "cover our ass" numbers; their intention is
to avoid running up their tech support expense too much.

Asterisk benchmarking is one of the topics that comes up on the list
frequently and consistently for what, like the last six years (that I
have been involved with Asterisk)? I would call that a "Salt
Boulder".

On the wiki there is a long page dedicated to dimensioning. I know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that people really are very interested in
the numbers.

If Digium won't supply benchmarking, then let's have a 3rd party throw
down the gauntlet.

Digium vs Sangoma on stock kernels and stock machines with identical
call load, apps, transcoding. No optimization, just stock, and see at
what load we hit a breaking point.

Then Asterisk vs FreeSwitch on similar apps pushing them to the
breaking point as well.

Nothing but pure numbers.

Thanks,
Steve Totaro

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