[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk as a stand alone voice mail server

[John Todd]

The downside right now to using Asterisk as a VM server is that there 
is no "easy" way to get message waiting indications back into your 
upstream PBX platform so that message waiting lights work as 
expected.  I posted the spec for SMDI (Bellcore spec TSR-TSY-000283) 
on the 13th of last month 
(http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-dev/2003-June/000884.html) 
if anyone wants to take up the flag and start writing code.  I see 
that SMDI is supported by Cisco Call Manager (at least, in >v3.0 that 
I've found) but I don't know if they support it _inbound_ and if it's 
TCP or serial or what.  I have not done any research on Cisco's 
implementation.  It does not appear that writing an SMDI interface 
for Asterisk would be of great difficulty, so if Cisco supports the 
standard, it would be a day or two of work by a clever programmer to 
get a module together.

Other than that "gotcha", Asterisk works quite well as a voicemail 
server.  There are some quirks to the existing Voicemail and 
Voicemail2 applications, but if you find bugs they are (usually) 
fixed quickly.  Shortly, the envelope functions should be in place 
which are the last remaining pieces that are "basic" functionality 
that is expected to work in a voicemail system but is currently 
missing.  ("Message one received at three fifty two pm july tenth") 
I would strongly suggest that your VM access be via IP or PRI 
channels; using analog channels is certainly possible, but not 
desirable if you have other options.


>I'm sure asterisk would make a great stand alone voice mail server.
>Basically I want to get rid of our voice mail system and replace it with
>*, but the problem is we use a cisco cluster with skinny clients. So I
>was thinking the way to contact a * server, would be through our 3640.
>But so far any attempt has failed. I am wondering if anyone has done
>something similar. Just want to verify the idea is sound. Please keep in
>mind I just heard of * a few days ago and don't know much about it.
>Though it seems pretty easy to use. At least configuring a couple
>clients was not that tough. Thanks to John Todd for his easy to follow
>guide at www.onlamp.com.

Yer welcome.

>Anyone with something similar? if so some info on what you did would
>help a lot.
>
>Thanks all,
>
>Ron E.


JT