asterisk users - Nov 2003 - Reasons why I shouldn't use Asterisk?

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?

Cheeres,
Gavin.

On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 09:08, 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'
Your listed con is only a con if you have to point to others failures to
cover your own. It is lemming thinking.
> Can anyone think of any others?
If your company has a few decent programmers with a good knowledge of
open source software and software debugging, the few access of the
source code is the greatest PRO. 

I think the only Con we could think up when we initially deployed was
our question of the longevity of the Digium company. Every time I get to
hear from Mark about how the company is doing, the less this concern
becomes. This was only a concern because of the need to have affordable
and well supported channels into asterisk. We choose to download all the
software at that point and all the schematics and information, burn it
to CD, and store it away in our lock box as a safety net. 

I'd say the only other cons you could list are really in driver support
areas right now, but knowing that those are moving targets and can
potentially be fixed or avoided lowers those risks. 

-- 
Steven Critchfield  <critch@basesys.com>

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..

Later..

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?
Cons:
* Not a full SIP proxy
If you're looking for a SIP proxy that follows the RFC, Asterisk is not your
choice.
...yet. There's work going on to fix this.

* No release handling
There are new schemes planned for stable/development branches but right now,
there is only your pick of a CVS date and you're on your own to see if
it's stable.
New functions aren't downported to older, stable, versions.

* Limited hardware support
The software is pretty well tied to Digium hardware for PSTN connectivity.

(Myself, I have no problem with this, but it could be seen as a
"con").

/O

One of the biggest cons is the lack of friendly interface for
configuration.  However, most PBXs in use don't have one either, unless
they are about 5 years old or newer, in which case it probably wouldn't
be on the chopping block.

I still think the pros outweigh the cons, or else I wouldn't be on this
list :)

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-admin@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-admin@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Gavin Hamill
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 9:08 AM
To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Reasons why I shouldn't use Asterisk?

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?

Cheeres,
Gavin.


_______________________________________________
Asterisk-Users mailing list
Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users

--- Gavin Hamill <gdh@acentral.co.uk> 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'
What's "few" there must be many thousands of installations.

Reasons not to buy it, I think all revolve around the fact
that Digium is a very small bussiness and could easly vanish.
and while there are numerus small consulting firms that could
step in few have to ability to actually write new core PBX code
or device drivers and continue development.  Even those few might
see that someone motivated and talented failed and not want to
step in.

That said, if you have some technical skills you don't need
support and if all else fails there are other Open Source
projects that you could fall back on.  So the risk is quite
low.  It is _very_ low if you take the time to make plans to
cover yourself.  In the end, you have the Asterisk code, you
don't get this if you buy a comercial PBX system.

The other reason not to buy is that it simply may not be a good
technical "fit".  Clearly Asterisk is not what you'd want
if your company had 10,000 phone extensions
> 
> Can anyone think of any others?
> 
> Cheeres,
> Gavin.
> 
> 
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> Can anyone think of any others?
mmh... some idea here
* experienced linux user for production use
  (able to di compilation, knows how the shell works,
   able to debug code & kernel probs, blah blah blah)
* interoperating with other telco (even only lines...)
  needs some background in telecom world... like
  "what I must do if my pri doesn't work" ?
  I learned to debug pri messages, when a E1 of one
  customer didn't worked...
  also other issues... like echo or similar
* must know how the net works... expecially in VoIP
  applications
* again... a very experienced linux man to deploy
  robust & reliable * servers ...

just my 2 cents
Matteo.

-- 
Brancaleoni Matteo <mbrancaleoni@espia.it>
Espia - Emmegi Srl

>> Can anyone think of any others?
>
Here is the short list I have!

1) Lack of graphical interface.
2) Un-freindly user interface (Command prompt only)
3) Network and Telephony person needed at site.
4) No standard SIP Phone nor IAX phone available.
and the biggest one I feel is a major problem!

5) Voicemail can not be configured unless you re program it yourself. And is not
based on any standards!

Gavin,

So you want a few reasons why you shouldn't use asterisk,
I can think of some:

Don't want to use a reliable operating system (linux)
Don't have the expertise to use the best operating system that is initially 
a very low cost to acquire
You can decide when to upgrade, not being forced to do so
It is open source and therefore there is some level of expertise to use it
Documentation isn't good but improving (thanks to Steven, Olle, etc)
Isn't yet mature (but what software is)
Don't want to use telephony hardware that can support more powerful 
processors and support the increasing number of applications as they come along
Don't want to avail yourselves of the many experts that provide their 
expertise for the support of others - for free
Don't want to use the flexibility of having access to the source to make 
special improvements that only customers can demand
Can't abide responsive solutions to problems

Is this sufficient Gavin?

Peter

At 15:08 5/11/03 +0000, you 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?
>
>Cheeres,
>Gavin.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Asterisk-Users mailing list
>Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
>http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Tilghman Lesher <tilghman@mail.jeffandtilghman.com>
>> and the biggest one I feel is a major problem!
>>
>> 5) Voicemail can not be configured unless you re program it
>> yourself. And is not based on any standards!
>
>I'm curious as to what you find unconfigurable in Voicemail.  I'm
>also wondering if you have an RFC for voicemail in mind (for
>standardization).
What the major problem is folders and how they work!  Also once you get into the
folders the prompts will not play to what to do with them. You have to pick
advanced options to know what the other keys do!  You can not move around fast
and if you press the wrong key it will undelete the message and it puts it in
the old messages folder.  Users then complain that there light is still
flashing.  Most other voicemail system if you delete the message it moves to the
next!  And you can configure it not to have delete folder and old folders.
>
>-Tilghman
>
>_______________________________________________
>Asterisk-Users mailing list
>Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
>http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Tilghman Lesher <tilghman@mail.jeffandtilghman.com>
>On Wednesday 05 November 2003 18:41, Ariel Batista wrote:
>> >> and the biggest one I feel is a major problem!
>> >>
>> >> 5) Voicemail can not be configured unless you re program it
>> >> yourself. And is not based on any standards!
>> >
>> >I'm curious as to what you find unconfigurable in Voicemail. 
I'm
>> >also wondering if you have an RFC for voicemail in mind (for
>> >standardization).
>>
>> What the major problem is folders and how they work!  Also once you
>> get into the folders the prompts will not play to what to do with
>> them. You have to pick advanced options to know what the other keys
>> do!  You can not move around fast and if you press the wrong key it
>> will undelete the message and it puts it in the old messages folder. 
>> Users then complain that there light is still flashing.  Most other
>> voicemail system if you delete the message it moves to the next!  And
>> you can configure it not to have delete folder and old folders.
>
>OK, let me get this straight.  Because the Asterisk voicemail menu is
>fault tolerant and lets you undo a delete, it's therefore unacceptable.
>
>It sounds more like you're having a slight learning curve with getting
>up to speed on a new system.  I'm not sure why you fault Asterisk for
>this, as every system out there is going to have a learning curve.  As
>Steve Underwood pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there are no
>standards for voicemail applications, so every system is going to be
>different.
I would agree with you that there is a learning curve with the systems.  And
that there are no standards.  But what we did is replace another voicemail
system with Asterisks.  And we are planning on changing others the same way.  I
do like the feature like you said of having the un-delete.  But you should be
able to configure the features you want!  2nd all the voice mail systems I have
used when you delete a message it moves on the the next.  Asterisk does not.
Then after you hear your new messages it just leaves you there. It will not even
play the prompt to go into the old folders unless you hit the advance option. I
like Asterisk and plan on using it.  But you have to understand that when you
install this to normal users that are used to other voice mail system they will
call you every day for weeks about this.
>
>Personally, I like the fact that I have to explicitly delete a message
>for it to get deleted and that if I delete a message accidently, I can
>undo that (and more importantly, the non-techies in the office can
>also do that).  This is a feature, not a bug.
Please do not take this the wrong way.  I am trying to get a system that will
allow us to configure it so we can get it out to more people!  It's far
better then the nortel's and others in the cost and ability to change. There
is a future here.  It needs to move out of the geeks (My self included) use and
into the mass media!