[asterisk-users] Is Asterisk ready for Prime-Time?

[Al Baker]

For true "TELCO" reliability, get a TELCO based service such as "CENTREX".
* is cool and I like it and it brings some really cool stuff to the 
table, but, it is NOT
"Carrier Grade" TELCO.
Anyone who tries to sell it to that way is just not being truthful. On 
the other hand there
is a lot of stuff as a VENDOR you can't make "CENTREX" do for you to 
re-sell it.
But to put * in the same class as Rockwell  ACD unit  or a 5ESS  Central 
Office switch for
reliability . Nope, just not the kind of critter.
But, sometime "good enough is good enough".

"You pays your money, you makes your choice"


Drew Gibson wrote:
> The box has been up since we upgraded the UPS, time before was for the 
> disk failure in Feb 2007.
>
> Asterisk has now been up for 5 hours, 44 minutes (yes, by Murphy's Law, 
> I'm troubleshooting a problem but"restart when convenient" does not 
> impact real uptime) but yesterday it had been up for 63+ days (last 
> restart was for queue config changes)
>
> This is stock code on stock OS on stock hardware. We don't tweak it, 
> poke at it, fiddle with it, update it unless necessary. We do OS and 
> Asterisk updates on planned maintenance days infrequently)
>
> KISS and don't fsck with it!
>
> regards,
>
> Drew
>
>  
>
> Mojo with Horan & Company, LLC wrote:
>   
>> An off-the-shelf 5+ year old MSI MS-6378X-L motherboard, 1.6GHz AMD, 512 
>> RAM, 10 extensions, no more than three concurrent calls:
>>
>> [pbx at pbx ~]$ uptime
>>  11:31:45 up 103 days,  1:00,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
>>
>> But:
>> [pbx at pbx ~]$ sudo asterisk -rx 'core show uptime'
>> System uptime: 9 hours, 32 minutes, 25 seconds
>>
>> I reboot every evening :)  Drew, what's the uptime on your asterisk 
>> process on that box that's been up for 193 days?
>>
>> Drew Gibson wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> Bill Andersen wrote:
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>>>> This is not a troll.  I've used my real email because I want this
>>>> taken seriously.  I'm not trying to make anyone mad, I just want
>>>> some real discussion on this issue.  Please bare with me...
>>>>
>>>> I'm a USER of Asterisk.  We purchased 3 commercially available
>>>> "Asterisk Based" PBXs a little over a year ago. (I won't mention
>>>> which one at this point - I don't want to bad mouth them - yet!)
>>>> Two of the systems are very small (5 SIP lines/6 Polycom phones).
>>>> The third is on a PRI with 30 Polycom phones.
>>>>
>>>> My smaller sites work pretty good.  I've only had to restart
>>>> Asterisk every month or so.  However, my 30 station system
>>>> is a continuous headache.  I average a restart at least once a
>>>> week.  Sometimes a couple of times in the week.  I'm always being
>>>> called to "fix" something that just stopped working.
>>>>
>>>> I DON'T WANT TO GET INTO A "Well, don't just complain, tell us
>>>> your setup and we can help you get it working".  This list HAS
>>>> helped me figure out some of the issues.  THANK YOU!  But the
>>>> purpose of this post is more of a fact finding mission.
>>>>
>>>> 1) Was choosing Asterisk for our company the wrong decision...
>>>>
>>>>    a) IF... I expect a phone system to just work.  Once it is
>>>>       configured, a phone system should just work with
>>>>       very little attention.  My previous system was a
>>>>       Comdial with external voice mail on a DOS based PC.
>>>>       I LITERALLY WENT OVER 4 YEARS WITHOUT HAVING TO REMOVE
>>>>       POWER TO THE COMDIAL CONTROL OR RE-BOOT THE VOICE MAIL PC.
>>>>  
>>>>    b) IF... I really only need a phone system that allows an operator
>>>>       to answer each call and transfer them to the appropriate
>>>>       person.  I need voice mail, but very little auto attendant
>>>>       features (mostly after hours).  All the bells and whistles
>>>>       that Asterisk offers are cool, but don't bring that much to
>>>>       the table for our purpose.
>>>>
>>>>    c) IF... Stability is more of an issue than high end features?
>>>>
>>>> 2) Are there any users out there that really DO have an Asterisk
>>>>    system that just works like clockwork?  I'm saying, once setup,
>>>>    run for a year (or more) without any issues?
>>>>
>>>> 3) If SO, Should I simply consider a different vendor?
>>>>
>>>> 4) If NOT, and if my expectations are that a system SHOULD just
>>>>    run and run without any problems.  Is Asterisk simply not my
>>>>    solution.  Is Asterisk not REALLY ready for production.  Because
>>>>    in my mind (as a user of phone services), "dealing" with the
>>>>    phone system, even on a MONTHLY basis, means that the system
>>>>    is NOT really production ready...  Before we installed an
>>>>    Asterisk based PBX, I spent maybe 4 hours per YEAR with phone
>>>>    issues (setting up a new station?).  Since we moved to an
>>>>    Asterisk based PBX, I spend 4 hours (or more) every WEEK!
>>>>
>>>>    Am I expecting too much?
>>>>
>>>> Bill
>>>>
>>>>   
>>>>     
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>> I don't think you are expecting too much.
>>>
>>> We have:-
>>>
>>> 130 physical extensions including 24x7 inbound call centre
>>>
>>> Debian on Dell server
>>>
>>> root at asterisk:~# uptime
>>>  13:15:31 up 192 days, 23:49,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
>>>
>>> (Power was removed to switch to new UPS)
>>>
>>> asterisk*CLI> show version
>>> Asterisk 1.2.24 built by root @ asterisk on a i686 running Linux on 
>>> 2007-09-08 17:17:07 UTC
>>> asterisk*CLI> show uptime
>>> System uptime: 63 days, 4 hours, 26 minutes, 40 seconds
>>>
>>> (Asterisk was restarted after queue config changes)
>>>
>>>
>>> We had a single power supply and single drive fail in one incident in 
>>> Feb 2007 (one drive of RAID 1). System stayed up but was taken down for 
>>> 15 minutes to swap the drive. PS was hot-swapped when it arrived later.
>>>
>>>
>>> regards,
>>>
>>> Drew
>>>
>>>     
>>>       
>
>