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. _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users