Elastix is the bomb-diggity

Thanks to Dustan (my co-worker) for the phrase :p

Elastix is truly the bomb-diggity (bomb just sounds try-hard-rapper-ish).

So yes - I've been working around PABX's for a while now (branch and enterprise) and let's be honest - asterisk is where it's at.

I've been observing Cisco UCM 8 and 9 for the last couple of months and it works.

But the interface.

OMG it's clunky.

And the licensing costs.

Oy Vei.

My natural engineer instinct when looking at the Cisco Unified Call Manager interface is:

Run.

This crap is old, outdated, non-nonsensical and inefficient.

So - what else do you run?

Well, there has been a FUCKING HUGE community effort to make an open-source voice platform that JUST WORKS in a SENSIBLE MANNER.

Enter the Elastix.

One thing first - Elastix is based on ASTERISK - the core of open source voice.

ASTERISK has a commercial arm called Digium

Digium's product is OK, but Elastix is better.

Cisco UCM ESX 5.1 VM

Just a quick one...

If you're playing around with Cisco UCM and want to spin it up in VMWare there's one important thing to be aware of.

Make sure you set the SCSI adapter type to LSI Logic SAS Controller or the installer will barf error messages re server hardware compatibility.

Sigh - don't really enjoy working on UCM.

Have played with quite a few voice servers and this one takes the cake for most illogical and all-over-the-place menu system I've used.

The whole having a separate product for voicemail and IVR seems a bit late 80's as well...

At least it seems pretty stable and doesn't start having random issues like other PABX's.

Or maybe I haven't been using it long enough...

Unified Comms Research

Well I've recently been looking at Unified Comms solutions and as you'll quickly realise there's two big players in this market - Microsoft Lync and Cisco (yeah...we-don't-really-have-any-specific-branding-for-the-whole-solution).

As I get started with my research it's becoming apparent that Microsoft has made a concerted effort to make clear exactly what is required (server infrastructure-wise) to build out an environment for a set of given requirements - they've actually released a server planning tool that specs exactly what you will need.

From quickly running through it I can see that for a 200 user environment with all features enabled (voice, video conferencing both internal and external, mobile device support, calendar presence sync and well everything really) I will need:

With Lync I can get my hands on preview versions of all products straight off the web and they even provide guides on how to set it all up.

I can run them all as virtual servers and it's all looks very straight forward to install.

The videos I've watched on what it's like to actually use the client are impressive - every office sloths dream come true really...

With Cisco it's a whole other story.

I have to go through a vendor to get our hands on some kit, then I'll have them hassling me for a sale for the next few months...

Cisco's not even clear really on which of their products make up a "UC solution" (hell, they've re-branded and abandoned half of their voice and VC solutions over the last couple of years so why should anything change).

Can't find any clear info on their website either that says "if you want a, b and c, then you need products x, y and z.

The Cisco UC platform appears to be essentially composed of the following server platforms:

• Unified Call Manager Servers (Publisher and Subscriber)
• WebEx (shudder) Service
• Unified Presence Server
• Jabber Client
• Voice Gateway Hardware (CME)
• More I haven't found yet...

Gotta say Cisco really seems to be giving off this vibe when it comes to UC:

Entry barrier is definitely lower with Microsoft....