I'm not looking at this project. It's already been chosen.
From this perspective, maybe you should give a heads up that hey, this
project isn't worth the time and effort that they're having you put into
it.
Have you ever considered that maybe this is because there's plenty of things
not to like? I don't know how high your standards are, but they must not be as
high as mine. I don't seem to recollect any specific situations where I have
said asterisk isn't worth this or that. I do recollect many specific occassions
where I have asked questions because Asterisk either didn't work the way I
expected, didn't work the way the docs implied, or didn't work in a Enterprise
Class' fashion that Digium states it as. You try spending all trying to get
something apparently simple to work, and see how much it frustrates you
sometime. Your statement about me 'worrying about registrations' tends to
emphasize the fact that your standards are indeed not very high. People using
'Enterprise Class' software expect it to work in a 'Enterprise Class' fashion.
That means that your service doesn't go down for N number of minutes while you
wait for a phone to reregister, in order to get around some As!
terisk HA limitation.
Considering our system is in the process of converting up to about 10,000
phones, and we're pretty much capable of downing any system we want at any
given time and not lose a single phone call, I'm pretty confident in
Asterisk's capabilities. My standards are extremely high in what I chose
to use. Several projects were decided against, and we chose asterisk,
because of all the projects out there, it was the most robust and most
capable. All of our phones are registered with the call servers, so if
something goes totally wrong with one, even if we lose a registration, the
other one takes complete control of the call load for either that phone,
that conversation, or if need be, every single phone call until the other
server comes back up. I'm sorry you're having so many problems getting
yours to work, and we're here to help with that, so ask nicely and don't
be rude about it.
It does have to remain in the call path if you want DTMF services such as call
recording, which we do. Not sure where you where going with the rest of that
paragraph.
Hmmm... sounds to me like that's a problem with any pbx... what happens
when your traditional pbx loses power mid conversation? If you don't set
up your system right in the first place, you just lost everything, not
just some DTMF and recording. What I was getting at, is that you're
ragging on asterisk when you should be considering what all it CAN do for
you, not what all it CAN'T. Make what doesn't work work, and you'll get
much farther with it. There's a reason it's open source.
Telecom customers of an 'Enterprise Class' pbx solution don't expect to have to
wait minutes, with no ability to receive calls, for updates to happen to their
account. Now, I would give constructive criticisim if I knew how it worked. I
spend all my time just trying to understand that, between bad documentation,
and downright hostile attitudes towards anything bad said about Asterisk by the
likes of yourself. I've spent the last several hours dicking around with Queue
functionality and it's behaving not at all like the docs say. How can I make a
constructive criticism about something I don't understane the function of? How
can I make a constructive criticism about how realtime works when it isn't
properly documented anywhere? If there where some hard and fast facts, I could
counter those and constructively say why I didn't like it, but such a thing
doesn't exist so I'm stuck with bits and pieces here and there and trying to
piece it's function together from my own observa!
tions.
Read my earlier comments on your enterprise class stuff. If a server goes
down, my users don't HAVE to wait a few minutes, they have immediate phone
usage because the other servers pick up the load. It's been like that for
well over six months now, with the only major problems being when I was
testing a new function of the HA stuff. At this point, it's about a one
day tops process to install another server if the load gets too high.
We've even successfully gotten the queueing system working, and will have
it running in our helpdesk pretty soon, so I'm sorry that's not working
for you. But when you message the list about how it's totally screwed up
and completely against documentation, maybe the constructive criticsm
could be "once we get this working, maybe we should look at the
documentation and make it match up to what REALLY happens." Many more
people would be far more inclined to help out.
Which rude remarks towards developers are you specifically referring to? I
don't seem to recollect any. I have actually received a number of personal
emails from people who completely understand where I am coming from and are
just as frustrated as I, both my Asterisk's limitations (specifically HA), and
the hostile attitudes towards people who even consider questioning Asterisk's
ability to save the world.
I seem to remember when you first got on this list, berating the digium
crew for claiming that this was an enterprise grade project... Distinctly
infact, and I have the emails on my work box to prove it. It was about a
week of complaining about the developers doing a crappy job. But that's
neither here nor there. As for the HA issues, read above. I'm MORE than
happy to help out with any problems you may have with HA and whatnot,
we're even planning on publishing our dialplan online most likely when we
get it finished, along with the rest of our configs, so everyone can
benefit from it. Asterisk may not be the best out there, but it's free,
it does quite a bit more than anything before it, and the best part is
it's open so if there's something you don't like, you can fix it. That's
why people are so adamant about it.
I'm sorry. It's been a very long day and regardless of the problems
you're having, we have our own problems too. I shouldn't have said
anything. I'm here to help people, and I probably over-reacted with my
original email. All I'm asking is that if you don't like it, or think it
needs something better, let us know in a manner that people will be
receptive of it. I'm sure you're very capable in what you're doing, and
everyone's been through the frustration before. I fought with T1 lines
for 2 months because I had never touched one before. It's rough, but
we're all here to help out, and we're all probably working just as hard as
you are to get the various parts working for us.
--
Aaron Daniel
Computer Systems Technician
Sam Houston State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(936) 294-4198
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