[asterisk-users] To use asterisk or proprietary hardware, that is the question

[Matt]

If the harddrive is the only thing you are concerned about... dont' be.

Many proprietary phone systems use hard drives.    Toshiba, Samsung, and
Nortel to name a few run some of their features off hard drives.   We had a
Nortell system some years ago that ran the entire ACD system off a hard
disk.   Glad we got rid of that thing before the hard drive died!  That was
always a fear of mine...

Now.. back to your issue.
Setup a crontab to restart asterisk every night.   Use a version of asterisk
you know well (I like 1.2.6) and know is stable.    Finally, setup RAID-5 on
the hard drives.  That way if one dies, you can still replace it without
data loss.   You aren't going to suffer corruption of anything, and if
somehow you DO get corruption of a hard disk, I don't see why that couldn't
happen to the flash of a fanless system, or a proprietary system.

What the heck are you doing that you need fanless... and a system that can
never have any maintence, anyway?    Even a Nortel or Samsung may need
maintence from time to time.

On 2/24/07, shadowym <shadowym at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi there,
>
> Here is my dilema.  I have a new small business customer that wants me to
> put in a VoIP phone system for them.  Based on their requirements, I have
> determined that it needs to be a "set it and forget it" type of thing like
> a
> lot of small business proprietary systems.
>
> At the same time they would like to be able to do minor dial plan changes
> themselves so I have determine that a GUI like FreePBX or similar
> alternative (free or commercial) is appropriate.
>
> I have some concerns about using Asterisk for this. As much as I am in
> support of the whole Asterisk revolution, I just do not feel confident
> enough in Asterisk on a Hard Drive as a "set it and forget it" setup
> running
> month after month, year after year.  I am hoping someone can convince me
> otherwise.  I'm concerned about hard drive corruptions/failures, memory
> leaks, software bugs etc.  I have the budget to buy good quality hardware
> so
> if I was to go with Asterisk I would go industrial grade fanless computer,
> power conditioned UPS etc.  I am not concerned about the reliability of
> most
> of the hardware.  It's the hard drive and the software that runs on it
> that
> worries me.  I will obviously use a mature stable Asterisk release and the
> most stable Linux version which I won't bother naming just to keep the
> discussion focussed.
>
> I have other Asterisk installs that went well but they were in
> environments
> where there were IT people around who were prepared to deal with some
> Linux
> administration and I could provide ongoing support for more major things.
> That is not the case here.  Some of those sites have been running for
> months
> untouched, some needed some updates and reboots for various issues.  I
> don't
> think this customer would look very favorably on me having to come in and
> add patches or have to reboot once a month or whatever.  Their expection
> is
> the same as they would have with any other phone system that mounts on the
> wall and "just works" for years.  I think that is a reasonable
> expectation.
>
> I am looking at putting in an Epygi proprietary VoIP system in
> instead.  It
> is mostly hardware based although apparently runs Linux.  It has a GUI, is
> supposedly plug and play most of the time, and most importantly, does not
> use a Hard Drive.  I have heard good things about them so for arguments
> sake, let's assume voice quality, features, and the enduser experience are
> approximately the same as using an Asterisk/Analog FXO Card/hardware echo
> cancel solution.  Flexibility, scalability, upgradeability are non-issues
> because the requirements are fixed.  The Eqygi will end up costing a few
> hundred dollars more but for arguments sake let's assume cost's are
> approximately the same.
>
> Astlinux would work except it does not currently meet some key
> requirements
> (GUI, Sangoma Analog card support).  Otherwise it would be a GREAT
> distribution for "set it and forget it" running without a Hard Drive IMHO.
>
> Anyways, I am hoping I can get enough positive feedback about "set it and
> forget it" experiences to convince me to use Asterisk/FreePBX instead of a
> more proprietary VoIP solution.  Either way I will be using the same SIP
> phones so that is a non-issue as well.
>
> Basic Requirements are as follows:
> Wall Mount
> *6 local network SIP extensions
> *4 remote SIP extension over ADSL or cable
> *4 incoming analog phone lines in a hunt group
> *features such as auto attendant, voicemail to email, forward to pager for
> after hours emergency etc.  Nothing too special
>
> Any help, advice, experiences etc. would be greatly appreciated.
>
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