SUGGESTIONS Cloud, Pi or ??

[cantdecide]

So many choices/too many choices
Is the voice quality equally good if PIAF is run as a service vs on a dedicated local device?
If a local device is better, is a Pi 3 just as good as a dedicated "real" computer?
Finally, what are the pros/cons to PIAF over the Grandstream 6xxx UCMs? I believe the advantage of the UCM is automatic configuration if you have Grandstream phones, which I will be getting.
Thanks so much!

 

[krzykat]

Which Grandstream phones? I have GXP2140 and GXP2160 with the auto-provisioning on incrediblePBX working.

 

[wardmundy]

The UCMs use the old AsteriskGUI code. By today's standards, it is riddled with security issues, some of which were major design flaws. We fixed many of them when we first introduced Incredible PBX for AsteriskGUI; however, when Digium completely dropped support of the product, we did as well. Whatever platform you choose, we wouldn't recommend the UCMs.

As for the other choices, there are free 4-month trials of Incredible PBX on either the XiVO or CentOS 7 or even CentOS 6 platform with Vultr. Just see the latest couple articles on Nerd Vittles for details. And a Raspberry Pi 3 solution will only set you back about $50 so try that as well. What works for some individuals doesn't necessarily work for others so take the time to do a little experimentation on your own.

 

[jerrm]

Differences in quality for local vs cloud is usually minimal and one is not necessarily better than the other. If you have a lot of local-to-local extension traffic, then local hosting begins to make more sense. A Pi3 is more than adequate for a small office - 10 extensions easy, maybe more depending on traffic patterns.

Only pro of the UCMs with GS phones is not so much just auto provisioning, but there are some phone features exclusive (or nearly-so) to pairing with a UCM box. Also GS support seems to have tunnel vision, they will initially answer virtually any question assuming the phone is connected to one of their UCM boxes (even when stated up front it is not).

 

[jerrm]

Which Grandstream phones? I have GXP2140 and GXP2160 with the auto-provisioning on incrediblePBX working.

Ooh... Please post.

 

[cantdecide]

I have ordered 2 GXP2170s and 5 of the cordless DP720s.
I signed up for Vultr last night, installed Incredible PBX, and tried to log in this morning--neither ssh nor webmin connects. Vultr's tech support was very responsive, but they want me to assign static IPs to my PCs, and I'm not sure I want to do that, seeing as they are laptops that sometimes travel with me.
I will have a lot of extension to extension traffic...we use intercom and paging a lot, so local sounds like the way to go. I'm comfortable with Pi's...I use them as thin clients on my network and they're far better than HP's thin clients. I'll just order another one.
Thanks, everyone!

 

[krzykat]

Grandstream GXPHDC from: http://forums.grandstream.com/forums/index.php?topic=19099.0

 

[cantdecide]

Thank you!

 

[krzykat]

Thank you!

You're welcome. If you tweak it to add the GXP-2170, let me know.

 

[cantdecide]

You're welcome. If you tweak it to add the GXP-2170, let me know.

How do I add the template file you linked to PIAF? I'm comfortable with linux, just don't know where it goes, and the default template doesn't have the DP series. Thanks.

 

[krzykat]

From the FeePBX menu - Connectivity - OSS Endpoint Advanced Settings.

Package Import/Export - Brand Package - and then choose/ import.

 

[JonRW]

I've finally given up on the Pi 3 as a suitable solution for my little office (two physical extensions, and a few soft-phones). Every two or three weeks dreaded 'corruption' hit the SD card, and it will refuse to reboot. I tried any number of power adapters and better quality cards, to no avail. After the fourth time I stayed at the office late, trying to get a fresh install before the next day's business, it hit me that I may be betting too much on a $30 hobbyist computer.

So if you're going to play with a pi, set up an incrediblebackup cron job, and get them downloaded regularly! Or a plug-and-play replacement image of a working server. Or a cloud failover. Or all three.

CloudatCost seemed to have some hiccups, so I'm currently running a Vultr instance (with regular backups, naturally); we'll see how it goes.

 

[jerrm]

I've finally given up on the Pi 3 as a suitable solution for my little office (two physical extensions, and a few soft-phones). Every two or three weeks dreaded 'corruption' hit the SD card, and it will refuse to reboot. I tried any number of power adapters and better quality cards, to no avail. After the fourth time I stayed at the office late, trying to get a fresh install before the next day's business, it hit me that I may be betting too much on a $30 hobbyist computer.

So if you're going to play with a pi, set up an incrediblebackup cron job, and get them downloaded regularly! Or a plug-and-play replacement image of a working server. Or a cloud failover. Or all three.

CloudatCost seemed to have some hiccups, so I'm currently running a Vultr instance (with regular backups, naturally); we'll see how it goes.

I've got three Pi's in production, 5-10 extensions each, no issues. Started mostly as an experiment, and I do keep full backups, but so far haven't had to use one. Oldest is about 8-9 months, I "rebuilt" when the Pi3 came out, previously on a Pi2. I do have some settings tweaked to reduce disk writes, but I don't know if they really make any difference. They are all on UPS.

 

[JonRW]

I've got three Pi's in production, 5-10 extensions each, no issues...

All of the RPis are incredible, and I'm sure most of them are fine. But based on anecdata, more than a few pi 3s are unstable above a few weeks. There are too many "that's the way it goes; time for a clean install" threads in Pi/Centos forums. I've seen lots of guesses about power supply, read-writes, and CF card quality, but nothing certain. I was on a UPS, with an official power supply, and high-quality CF cards.

It could be something obvious, it could be the grid in my neighborhood, or a quirk deep, deep in the hardware. Unfortunately, you won't know in advance, and if it dies, it dies hard and makes it difficult to trace; I couldn't get in by ssh or even a keyboard and monitor after a reboot.

I'm not unhappy with the pi; it's a $30 miracle with a thousand uses. But as much as I loved the idea of pbxs in tiny boxes, they still have the thrills of a kit, in a way that, say, my $100 Foxconn/Atom bookshelf unit never had. Odds are that any given pi will be fine; just recognize the ecosystem is still a little bleeding edge, and make sure you have a recovery/backup plan for failure.

 

[jerrm]

All of the RPis are incredible, and I'm sure most of them are fine. But based on anecdata, more than a few pi 3s are unstable above a few weeks. There are too many "that's the way it goes; time for a clean install" threads in Pi/Centos forums. I've seen lots of guesses about power supply, read-writes, and CF card quality, but nothing certain. I was on a UPS, with an official power supply, and high-quality CF cards.

Probably 1 in 3 Pi3's I've tested have been bad out of the box. I stress test pretty extensively before putting into service. Of the ones that pass, I haven't had issues. I never saw the same failures on a Pi2 unless it was overclocked.

Luckily Micro Center is a half mile away, so returns/exchanges are a snap.

 

[Dave Gray]

Hmm. I've had an original Pi running in my house for... a while now. GUI is a bit slow, but it handles 3-5 extensions, 2 trunks and a Google voice trunk with no issues. My wife doesn't know it even exists - that's pretty close to perfect for me.
I'm in Florida and power blinks are happening way too often (just got a puff piece from Duke Energy, telling me how much better it is now that they've installed a "smart grid" - I'm seeing blinks 2-3 times a week, which never used to happen.) Pi isn't on a UPS, but it always recovers. I had purchased a Beaglebone Black as a potential replacement, but in testing, the BBB can't handle power glitches - most times it fails to restart. (Yes, that was a while ago.) Guess I'll figure out something to do with it...

 

[wardmundy]

And we have one up the road at our beach house, and it reboots every night just to be sure Time Warner doesn't blow it out of the water. It's been chugging along almost two years without a hiccup. What type microSD cards are you using, @JonRW ??

 

[JonRW]

BBB

I had a similar experience with the BBB. Pi 2 has always been fairly stable as a Centos box for me (I don't have it tasked to voip).

What type microSD cards are you using, @JonRW ??

I've tried microcenter class 10 generics, emtec, and sandisk. I haven't tried Samsungs yet, I suppose.

 

[dbdataplus]

Rasberry seems to solve a major drawback to deploying PIAF. It solves the problem of a field failure and how horribly long it takes to generate a CENTOS system from scratch followed by the PIAF from scratch before reloading the backup.

As many of you know, this process is further extended by the various management employees that will invariably interrupt the critical work in order to ask how long it will take -- and then further delay the repair by trying to impress upon you how important it is that you get their communications back on line.

I imagine the reason Pi solves this problem is that the designs and chipsets are identical and so an image copy of the final product can be used? In any case the value of installing images is great -- the way is should have been all along.

But the quality issues you discuss are terrifying for anything approaching a commercial installation.

So my obvious question is this: Has any other manufacturer come up with the same concept at a higher price and quality point? I mean seriously? $35? I'd gladly go $38 or even $39! OK seriously ... $200 or $300 -- if it was higher quality but the concept of identical components was retained?

 

[henry]

OK seriously ... $200 or $300...

It's hard to make a business case for such RPi.

Remember the explanation why they went smaller/cheaper with the Zero model? Because Eric Schmidt said so
http://www.geek.com/chips/60-raspberry-pi-scrapped-after-chat-with-googles-eric-schmidt-1640563/

I believe one of the weakest points in the RPi is its power supply sensitivity.
And since the first model was released the talk is going on about PoE.
Never happened. From what I read, too expensive...

The point you make is similar to the one made by Scott McNealy against Windows/Microsoft.
The latter is still around while the former is gone...