[Asterisk-Users] Reasons why I shouldn't use Asterisk?

[Clif Jones]

This company seems to think pros outweigh the cons for Asterisk:
www.voicepulse.com
/. reported today that VoicePulse uses a variation of Asterisk to run
their Broadband Phone Service.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/05/1319251&mode=thread&tid=126

Steven Critchfield wrote:

>On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 09:36, WipeOut wrote:
>  
>
>>Gavin Hamill wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>It would seem an odd question, but I'm trying to put together a little
>>>presentation on 'Why Asterisk?' and need to list Pros and Cons.... I've
>>>got plenty of Pros (including the availability of commercial support),
>>>but the only Con I can think of is 'Relatively few installations
>>>worldwide'
>>>
>>>Can anyone think of any others?
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>No built in high availability or clustering options making it as 
>>reliable as the harware, OS and apps..
>>
>>Last time I looked it up PC systems combined hardware components average 
>>reliability was about 96% uptime(This was a while back so the percentage 
>>may not be accurate).. This is a problem for telecom's system whos 
>>uptime is usually measured in years and not a percentage of 1 year..
>>
>>No flames please, I realise that there are issues involved with the PSTN 
>>lines, channel banks and some other things in a clustered senario..
>>    
>>
>
>
>I think the number you cited needs qualification to be accurate. Because
>if it where accurate as it stands, I'm due for major downtime in my rack
>as I have several systems approaching 2 years uptime without a single
>hardware failure. These machines also where not new when they where sent
>to the colo facility. In fact they all had been running for about a year
>before hand.
>
>And as a question of the 5 9's reported on telco hardware, As far as I
>know, that is for total system failure. The fact that they could loose
>trunks, or even a portion of a neighbor hood doesn't count against their
>downtime. If it did, I could point to a couple of telcos in this area
>that would have problems meeting those requirements.
>
>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>to back up my claim about uptime,
>my webserver is showing 136 days uptime, this is after a 497 day wrap
>around of the uptime counter. This machine is a Dell pe2450
>
>the mail server is a home built 700 celeron showing the same 136 day
>uptime after the 497 day uptime wrap around.
>
>Due to a hacker, our clients machine is showing 105 days uptime post 497
>day uptime wrap around. Again home built machine.
>
>One of our fileservers is showing 133 days uptime post uptime wrap
>around. This is due to a screw up at the keyboard just 3 days after
>installing it in the colo. Also a home built machine.
>
>Our VPN machine is just getting up to 354 days uptime. This is a super
>micro we purchased and put into service shortly there after.
>
>Our database server just went through a hardware and software upgrade
>that caused it's reboot, now at 185 days uptime. Same hardware as the
>above listed webserver.
>
>The 2 machines in my rack without impressive uptimes are a NT machine
>and my phone gateway that just had a kernel update.
>
>This should probe that good power supply to the machine will help make
>hardware run well for a long time. Why do you think the telco equipment
>runs on 48volts? They are pulling from the batteries 100% of the time.
>This makes a smooth even power flow.
>
>Machines in my office are subjected to poorer quality power and tweaking
>so they don't tend to make it to the 200 day uptime mark very often.
>
>
>  
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