[Asterisk-Users] IVR only system with scalibility with asterisk???

[PJ Welsh]

Hello all:

	Thank you for taking the time to read this post. 

Background:
I am a new user to IVR systems and asterisk. I have been tasked with helping to set up a system that will only handle IVR (eg no PBX functions) incomming calls for 45 or so people that will call in 3 or 4 time each day during (approx) normal business hours. We have started to look at the Ivrs perl module from http://search.cpan.org/author/MUKUND/. We are having limited success. I found the asterisk software and have trugded through the last several months looking for IVR specific comments with minimal success.

Issues:
1.  We need to have a working system by "yesterday" (since we were told yesterday ;) my problem not yours). Realy, how easy is asterisk to develop for in a IVR message -> response -> authorize/validate -> contiune scenario? We will need to do database lookups.

2. We expect that we will end up greater than 100 users that will call in 3 or 4 time each day during (approx) normal business hours in the next couple of months. We also have the possibility that the next step may involve several hundred users. How can I provide something now and scale UP from a "commidity" PC (running GNU/Linux of course)? The Wildcard X100P only has 1 port. Are there other higher density options that "just work"? I've seen mentioned an Intel/Dialogic card that looks high density and expensive and interesting. I don't mind having a farm of these things on commidity hardware... within reason. Again, I'm a newbe trying to get myself up to speed on this topic.

3. I need to provide a working model very soon. What is cheapest way to put together a system with AVAILIBLE parts? There seems to be a shortage of some of the cards on the yahoo store front.

So, looking for everything...

Thank you very much.