[asterisk-users] Building the Perfect Box

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 09:37:06AM +0100, Conrad Wood wrote:
> > > 7. Relationship with provider. What is their SLA? Is it the
> > > incumbent or the clec? An incumbent will be more expensive
> > > and more difficult to deal with but they will tend to be more
> > > reliable. A clec will be cheaper and they will be way more
> > > accomodating but you will most likely not get five 9's from them.
> > > A VoIP provider should never be trusted, period. You will not get
> > > five nines from them, ever. Plan failover situations accordingly.
> >
> > "SLA? What's a 'SLA'?" :-)
>
> Service Level Agreement. Normally it means if your line fails you
> get £50 or so. Maybe £100. But *never* enough to compensate for the
> trouble. You have to have a backup plan.

I'm sorry.  You seem to have fallen into the sar-chasm.

And I thought the smiley would be enough hint.  :-)

> > Amusingly, a client's * box went down this morning. I didn't get the
> > washout, but the mitigation wasn't well planned either -- everyone
> > with an Asterisk box should know what they're going to do if it
> > falls over, in detail. In a notebook. Just like when the nuclear
> > missles start going.
>
> Yes of course. These notebooks tend to get forgotten in a cupboard
> until the day they're needed. And then they're so out of date that
> they're more damaging that useful. Do you update the text on the
> server itself somewhere? How do you go about keeping it up-to-date?
> "Just discipline"? Do you work in a team with others?

I think it's possible to discipline yourself on this front, yes.  How
often does an operational *-box change enough that you have to modify
your recovery procedures, anyway?

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

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