[Help] Advice on Trial Enviroment

[stepheng]

Hi All,

I've been doing basic installs of Asterisk for just over a year now and have found that taking a gradual introduction into it really helped and avoided any pitfalls of over-committing to customers.

I've known about ViCidial for a while but despite all good intentions never had an opportunity to spend time on it.

One of my existing clients has a need for a dialer, initially for 4 agents but with potential growth in the next three months to 50 agents. I appreciate that predictive is not an option due to the numbers so the agent\line ratio will be 1:1. All calls are to be recorded

I've discussed ViCidial as an option with him and he is keen to try it out. We've agreed to a 4 agent trial of 2-4 weeks with me picking up the tab for the hardware. This way he gets to see the dialer in action on a 'no win no fee' basis and I get to work with the system in a live environment with a lot of pressure taken away.

From my side I'd like to set up the trial system as cost effectively as possible but still want the system to make the best impression possible.

With this in mind I've spec'd the following.

1 X Dell PowerEdge SC1430
1 X Dual Core Intel Xeon 5050 3.00 GHZ
1 X 2 GB RAM
3 X 80 GB SATA Hard Drives (7200 RPM)
Asterisk 1.2.17
astguiclient 2.03
Unbuntu 6.06 (LTS)
Digium TDM04B
4 X Grandstream GXP 2000

(It's worth mentioning that I'm using the Digium to keep the install as simple as possible. I'm having to use a 4 port analogue Card as the trial is being run from rented office space and trunking to the building voice switch would take take forever to arrange and put in place).

None of the above is set in stone so I've no issues changing any of it but I do want to keep an eye on cost. If the trial goes well and extra heads are requested, the above would be replaced with a more suitable production environment.

I'd appreciate any advice with regards to the suitability of the options I've laid out above.

Cheers

Stephen

[mflorell]

Two things:
- You should consider either using WD Raptor SATA drives or SCSI drives if you will be recording all calls. Standard SATA and IDE drives are not deisgned for that kind of stress.
- You should consider using SIP or IAX trunks instead of POTS lines due to signalling reliability.

[stepheng]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for taking time out to field 'newbie' questions, much appreciated.

I'd like to use an IAX trunk but I'm planning on a worst case senerio of rubbish internet connectivity (More joys of having a customer who is in rented office space). For his part the customer has requested an upgrade so there is still a chance I'll be able to go down this route.

I'd like to stick with the Sangoma analogue cards if I'm forced down the PSTN route as the hardware echo cancelation is added peace of mind, but I'm wary of adding in more options that could trip me up. I'm maybe being overly cautious?

Would I get away with a single 150GB WD Raptor drive or do I have to stop being a skinflint and bite the bullet for 3 drives in a Raid 5? I'd be running a scheduled task every night to ftp the call recordings off the server.

While I'm on, kudos on the managers manual. Just finished my first read through and I'm even more positive about the trial. I'd recommend anyone who is evening thinking of using the software to download.

Cheers

Stephen

[aster1]

For 4 agents you really dont need that huge hardware . I am running 10 agents predictive with answering machine detection and dial ratioat 6 , all recorded , on a Core2Duo 1.8 ghz with a 160 gb seagate sata ( simple drive) and 1 GB ddr2 ram . System load is always around 0.8-1.2 max . I agree that higher end configurations are much more reliable for production servers but really you dont need to spend that much for just testing . I have had no problems with my config yet