more on University dumps Cisco VoIP for open-source Asterisk

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Slavitch <michael.slavitch () e2exchange com>
Date: January 3, 2007 10:50:14 AM EST
To: dave () farber net, tim () oreilly com, hsinnrei () adobe com
Subject: Re: [IP] University dumps Cisco VoIP for open-source Asterisk

"Proprietary" vs "Open Source"  may well be the wrong battle to  
fight.  The real fight may be over walled gardens vs open standards.

This podcast describes a similar situation using commercial software  
that embraces open standards.

http://lippisreport.com/2006/11/13/unified-communications-at-pembina- 
trails/

"Don Reece the Director of Information Technology at Pembina Trails,  
a Public School Division in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada joins the  
Lippis Report podcast to discuss his newly installed unified  
communications implementation. Pembina Trails has an enrollment of  
approximately 14,000. They have a network of dark fiber backbone  
between sites running at 1 Gigabit, Microsoft Active Directory and  
Exchange, Dell Ethernet Switches and a very old voice system. It was  
time to upgrade the voice system, so they did it with Objectworld's  
Unified Communications Server and saved over $200K while offering a  
state-of-the-art IP telephony system. Don goes into all the details.  
It's a great listen. Enjoy Nick."


Open Source is not useful if the protocols used in them are closed  
and not in wide use. In that case one silo is replaced with another  
silo.

This podcast describes how Pembina Trails School Division ignored   
Cisco VOIP and opted for open-standards based commercial software.   
Their reasoning?  They could use any switch, any SIP phone, any  
gateway, and integrate with any other SIP based system using open  
standards.  While it does describe my employer's software the  
reasoning could apply to any standards-based install, including  
Asterisk.

Fair warning is that they replaced it with unified communications  
software  from my employer.   While my employer sold them the core  
server software they could pick and choose all the other components  
as they saw fit, from platform to phones to networking equipment.

What made this possible is the SIP protocol, which is why I included  
Henry in this email. Without SIP this would be impossible. Thank  
Henry for this effort.

The kicker is that if we screwed up and didn't meet expectations they  
could move over to Asterisk or another commercial vendor without  
changing any hardware.  It could be done in a weekend.  This of  
course keeps us on our toes and enforces a discipline that is  
woefully absent from the PBX industry, which is still acting as if it  
was the DEC PDP-11 era when we are in fact in an era of personal  
supercomputers.  We designed our software to be SIP down to its  
bones, unlike Asterisk, which is ultimately based on its own protocols.
One key point: Asterisk is not free.  It requires expertise to set up  
and expertise to manage as like all Linux based applications it comes  
as a platform for enthusiasts and experts, and requires care and  
feeding.

The advantage of commercial software that uses open standards is that  
it allows for investments in areas such as automation and ease of  
use.  This lowers the bar such that these systems can be installed  
and managed by non-technical people. This eliminates a key cost of  
running computer systems.  O'Reilly and Associates might well be the  
perfect site for an Asterisk deployment.  An accountant's office  
isn't.  A key goal that I laid out three years ago was that our  
software could be fully maintained by a receptionist, the real power  
behind the throne in all small offices.  Never, ever piss off the  
receptionist.

Give a listen.  Don is an honest broker and keeps us on our toes.

Regards

Michael



On 1/3/07, David Farber < dave () farber net> wrote:

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Tim O'Reilly" < tim () oreilly com>
Date: January 2, 2007 11:22:02 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] University dumps Cisco VoIP for open-source Asterisk

O'Reilly dumped our proprietary PBX for asterisk about a year ago,
and happily chose "free" over three proposals costing hundreds of
thousands of dollars for proprietary VoIP PBX alternatives.  Since
then, we've enjoyed asterisk's enormous flexibility.  If there was
ever a sweet spot for open source, it's VoIP, and I'm surprised that
more people haven't been paying attention to Asterisk and Freeswitch
(another open source pbx.)  There are huge cost savings possible, and
the flexibility and control that comes with both open source and VoIP
really make it possible to make your voice communications part of
your digital toolbox, rather than some anachronistic backwater.

I never listen to voice mail on my phone any more.  It's really sweet
to get it as an email attachment, and to be able to forward it as
easily as any other email.  And programming phone applications is
finally starting to get out of the stone age.

If your org isn't using asterisk, it should be.  I'll also point out
that the implementation is relatively painless.  And if you have
trouble, there are good books available, including ones from yours
truly :-)

Meanwhile, this message reminds me to make the same offer I've made
for past O'Reilly conferences. The first five IP readers to respond
can get a free pass to the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference to
be held February 27 to March 1, 2007 at the San Francisco Airport
Marriott.

The conference doesn't focus exclusively on Asterisk, but there's a
lot of Asterisk-related content, including a keynote from Mark
Spencer, the founder of Digium and the creator of Asterisk, as well
as some great sessions on asterisk and VoIP techniques, including the
launch of a new framework for programming Asterisk on Ruby.  Another
very cool session at the conference is a workshop entitled Calls in
the Utility Computing Cloud - Experiments in on demand ultra scalable
telephony Using Amazon EC2 and S3  - This is freeswitch and Asterisk
both - This is really exciting stuff. They are using Ec2 to create on
demand scalable phone networks - something that was not possible
before. You basically had to over-specify and pray your network never
reached capacity.

For more information about the conference, see  http://
conferences.oreillynet.com/etel2007/

The actual program is at http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/50/
schedule.html  (For some reason, Mark Spencer's keynote isn't listed,
but the conference chair reassures me that he will be there.)

To get one of the free passes, send email to Kathleen Bruno -
kbruno () oreilly com -- and tell her about the message on IP.  Kathleen
is on holiday; back in the office Thursday Jan 4, so don't expect an
immediate reply.

Also, here's a 15% discount code you can use if you aren't lucky
enough to get one of the free passes: etel07tim

For more details on the conference, see http://
conferences.oreilly.com/etel.

To register using the IP discount, send email to Kathleen Bruno,
kbruno at oreilly.com.  She's still on holiday till tomorrow, but
will get back to you as soon as possible to let you know if you were
one of the first responders.

_________________________________________
Tim O'Reilly, Founder & CEO, O'Reilly Media,
1005 Gravenstein Highway N., Sebastopol, CA 95472
+1-707-827-7150 http://tim.oreilly.com






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