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bob


Registration Date: 01.01.1970
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RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

Zitat:
Originally posted by i-p-tel

The distributed concept of PBXes allows everybody - including the free users - to jump to a different server if there are issues of any kind on one of the servers. This can be controlled from the Personal Data tab.

An automatic system can perform this kind of failover but sometimes a manual intervention becomes necessary. If this is too much of a hassle for you you can prepare in advance and set up a permanent second account on another server - just one possible option.

We are working hard on fixing the issue on www3. The server became unstable after adding new RAM. We did not expect that. One could only expect such effects for too less of RAM. What does not help at all, is complaining while we are doing our best to solve the issue.

Thanks!


As you can see from the availability report (http://pbxes.org/status) - service state breakdown for service HTTP - www3 was available all day with short interruptions of a few minutes each. This would have allowed a server switch under manual control to avoid them.

I am sure Diafora will add further details on how to setup a second account as backup.


So basically your advice is to setup a second account as backup, meaning pbxes isn't failsafe anymore.

I think the main reason many users choose pbxes.com was that you promote a failsafe system.

In reality this now does not seem to work as it should do. Also ask yourself the question how would it look from a marketing point of view where you promote a failsafe system but giving customers the advice to be 100% you have to get a second account.

When a server is down there is no way to manually transfer an account to antoher server. One has to wait for an automatic transfer. In case of www3 down the transfer is to www4 which is a USA based server, that has higher ping times from europe. Not the best solution.

As for complaining while you are doing your best to solve the issue.

Hello wake up we are your customers we are paying you for a service, you are not paying us or should we be happy to pay you and be allowed to use your service ?
If something is not working we have the right to complain. It might be frustrating to have customers that complain but I have told you this serverl times you fail to inform customers and only after many many complains we sometimes get some information.

Many companies have special pages where the write a short message there is a problem we are working on it , cause of the problem and he you inform customers.
It's easy to do this even on the forum, make a special section where no one can respond.
In this case you would have written, www3 is down we are investigating the problem.
Second message, problem found adding more ram caused server problems, we took out the extra ram and server is stable now. We will investigate the cause of this problem.

Seems very simple, costing only a few minutes to write and you take customers serious and informing them.

Als When you do answer questions or complaints they are short or only refering to another thread or you now complain that we should not complain.

Also many users will confirm that the last years there have been more and more problems.

You can continue to delte threads when customers are looking for another solution or just take them serious.

21.07.2010 08:29 bobmats is offline Search for Posts by bobmats Add bobmats to your Buddy List
cms
Grünschnabel


Registration Date: 28.06.2009
Posts: 26

RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

The backup system with 2 different accounts seems to cause problems with Budgetphone lines. In my test setup, I ran my own Asterisk in our datacenter and registered my budgetphonelines as trunks in both pbxes and my own server.
The result: budgetphone got confused, calls were ringing at extensions but voice did not come thru as they seemed to be routed to the wrong server.
I am not sure however if that will happen also if I use 2 budgetphones, altough I expect it to go wrong as there are 2 different IP's registered at that time at Budgetphone for the same incomingline and thus might cause problems according to budgetphone...

22.07.2010 07:58 cms is offline Search for Posts by cms Add cms to your Buddy List
bob


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RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

I have several budgetphone lines too so 2 account is not the solution than.

Funny thing remains that now we need a second account to make things failsafe while pbxes itself should be failsafe without the user having to do things.

It's like telling someone that has hosting on cloud hosting that they need a second account in the cloud on a different server just in case one goed down.

Biggest problem remains the lack of information in case of problem. Last problem is a good example. www3 down, stwitched to www4 which is US server, than back to www3 and all extensions are dead.

At that point pbxes fails to give support and the solution was to manually switch to www1 so extensions would register. The only thing they can tell is get a second account to make it failsafe.
This is only to hide the poor support they are giving.

All that problem solving by the customer take time, cost money and is very frustrating. But wait we should not complain is the other answer they are trying to solve things.

22.07.2010 08:33 bobmats is offline Search for Posts by bobmats Add bobmats to your Buddy List
mhc
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Registration Date: 06.07.2010
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RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

Hi bobmats,

I know I'm quite new still to this service so obviously not got the history with them that you may have, but I'm afraid I feel I have to disagree with some of what you are directing at PBXes, in my mind they are providing a fantastic product at an unbelievably reasonable price....is it perfect? No, not at all but what is these days?

I fully agree with you re communication, it should be better, there should be some better details around this backup account idea, probably in the wiki, including specific details on some common setups, such as one inbound SIP URI as I use or budgetphone lines as you use. And there should be better communication when thing do break. I'm sure the PBXes guys will take that on board on do something about it.

I'm afraid where I don't agree though is around your comments about the system not being fail-safe..... personally although this phrase is thrown around IT marketing material like it's going out of fashion at times, I've never really considered what this truly means until today.....one definition I found in the dictionary was "a system or plan that comes into operation in the event of something going wrong"....well I have to say that PBXes automatically switching our accounts to another server probably does fulfil this definition to be fair.

You also say "It's like telling someone that has hosting on cloud hosting that they need a second account in the cloud on a different server just in case one goed down."..... the reality of I.T. is that that's EXACTLY what you should be doing....I learnt a long time ago if something can go wrong, it will! Maybe not today, tomorrow, next week or even next year but 'at some point' it WILL go wrong esp. where hardware is concerned....just because you use a 'cloud' service doesn't mean there isn't physical hardware at the other side of the service, there is and it WILL fail at some point. Admittedly the general nature of cloud services is their ability to recover from issues is usually much better but still won't guarantee 100% uptime.

If something is that critical to you/your business then you MUST have a backup plan of your own, in my own case, using your clouding hosting as an example, my main hosting servers are with Amazon AWS in their EU zone, however I backup my data to their US zone as well as a hard drive in my office and therefore in the event of a major issue with their EU zone I can fairly quickly get back up and running in their US zone. I also have an account with Rackspace so in the unlikely even of Amazon going down completely, again fairly quickly I can have my data up on a Rackspace server.

Mark

22.07.2010 12:08 mhcg is offline Search for Posts by mhcg Add mhcg to your Buddy List
Dia
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Registration Date: 03.03.2006
Posts: 1443

RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

@cms: Just to keep things as simple as possible, setup one of your BudgetPhone trunks on two ATAs or IP phones on different connections with distinct IPs. It is very important that the two SIP UAs connect via distinct public IPs, so the ITSPs' SIP Proxies don't get confused, and mixup the packets.

Then call your DID from the PSTN and watch if the call rings on both SIP UAs simultaneously. If it does, then if you answer the call from any of two SIP UAs, you should be able to talk without any issues and the other SIP UA should stop ringing almost immediately.

If the above call scenario works as described, then your ITSP supports concurrent registrations properly. If not, start asking them why they don't support it, and when will they start supporting it, since it is vital for the fail-over of your inbound calls. Some ITSPs support it from the beginning, whereas others need some gentle or not so gentle reminders and requests to do the right thing.

This is the shape of things to come, so the faster they comply, the better it will be for everyone. If you have opted to acquire DIDs from more than one ITSP for the same location, and one of the ITSPs supports concurrent registrations, then use this as an argument to convince the other ITSP to do so as well.

22.07.2010 12:35 Diafora is offline Search for Posts by Diafora Add Diafora to your Buddy List
tel
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Registration Date: 28.07.2008
Posts: 252

RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

@Diafora

Hi again,
With both lines accepting incoming calls from PBXes accounts to the single FXS then it is perfect to further improve service for a nominal outlay.
Excellent !
Regards
Ron

22.07.2010 13:20 telagente00 is offline Search for Posts by telagente00 Add telagente00 to your Buddy List
bob


Registration Date: 01.01.1970
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RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

@mhcg

I have been using pbxes for 3 maybe 4 years now. Have lost track.

In the early days no problem, some small ones but not long.

Many people choose pbxes because it should be failsafe. I like many others have a company and rely on phone lines working and customers being able to reach me. I think you have to agree that phone lines are still important. If not working some customers might call back new customer might just call another company.

The price for pbxes was very good several years ago and is ok these days.

4 years ago cloud hosting was not around and these these days there are many customers that offer servers having images on a san. In case one server goes down the vps or dedicated server is started on a backup machine. These technologies are becoming cheaper and cheaper and are available at lower prices. This not only means lower prices also reliability using systems like that are increasing.
Yes fire in a datacenter can always be an issue but this is not very common.

Yes when paying your account should be switched to another server automatically and this works most of the time. As I am mainly in the office and have many calls a day I normally notice when something goes wrong.

It has happened several times that a server was very slow and was beginning to show problems. The problem is that the failsafe system that transfers you to anther account not always seems to work and it might take some time before it does.
If a server does not respond anymore one can't change to antoher server by hand. I have requested that there is a status panel where someone can login and control the account and switch to another server.
As you might be aware many webhosters have a system where you can login to a control panel which is not on your server and you can restart your vps or dedicated server if it's down. A system like that would be a big step for pbxes.

The last year we had lots of problem with a paris server very unstable at certain point to the point where they took the server offline. There were only 2 European servers now.

As you will be aware there is a good reason to use a european server when located in the EU, ping times are lower and improves call quality.
When www3 has problems my account any probably many others changed to www4 which is a usa based server. This meant higher ping times and reduced call quality.

I still wonder why there has been no replacement server for the paris server. This can be a uk or nl based server. There ara many reliably hosting companies.

In the end it all comes down to price and the choices you make. Given the fact that pbxes has not decreased their prices and yes i mean decreased because after 4 years one should know that hosting has become cheaper of is now offering more cpu power, more memory, more bandwidth for the same price compared to 4 years ago. Or you could go for paying more and have backup server, raid 5 6 50 or 60 and not a software raid 1.

I don't know the setup of pbxes and they will probably not share this but I have the impression that the servers they are using now are more prowerfull compared to 4 years ago. This means more users on the same server. Prices has been the same so profit is higher. Last year there were 2 servers having hdd problems failing. If you have a raid 5 setup this is no problem, but I believe they only had software raid 1.

I see no evidence that withoing a datacenter a failsafe solution is used. This can be 2 second server, raid 5/6 50'/60 or san storage. Sure this cost more but the question is what do you choose reliability or maximuzing profit.

As for reliability I use online accounting from a dtuch company. Have used it 2.5 years now and never has any problems, no downtime besides maintance which they announce in advance. Whenever they do update the system this in always tested. So yes reliability is possible and I am still amzed for only paying 69 euro per month including telephone en online support.

This also brings up the question of free accounts. It's nice to have these and maybe the growth of pbxes is caused by these accounts. On the other side free account are on the same server as paid accounts and more users seem to also cause problems. From my point of view you should realy seperate free and paid accounts. Free is free and gives you no right to complain. Paid is paid and should mean that you can rely on a service and can complain.

I have brought up the complaining part several times and the lack of communication op iptel. I would not even call it customer friendly hence he even complains that we are complaining, this is turning the world around.

There are more unlogical thing in the way he does business. Datavolume has become cheaper the last years but a premium account is still limited to 5000 minutes. Given the fact that bandwidth has become cheaper this should be 10.000 minutes now.

The nexdt unlogical thing is that to make it failsafe we should get a second account. Now here comes the strange part. You can resell yourself a second account for 5 or 6 euro but if you go over 5000 minutes you have to get a second account but this cost 10,95.
Can someone please explain the logic behind this.
1 you buy yourself a second account using a new username costing 5-6 euro
2 you buy a second account under the same username costing 10,95

Logic ????

This brings me to the end of my story. In computerland hosting you get more for the same money everytime. pbxes 4 years ago was low price good system. One thing pbxes does not offer is service or you have to pay for that. There is no support phone nor email only this forum and you never know if they respond to a problem when or how fast and many times they will not give you more information when solved or what the problem was.
vps hosting has become cheaper and failsafe vps'es are cheaper and cheaper and some even offer elastix or asterisk images. In 1 or 2 years these vps will over even more bandwidth memory and cpu power at the same price and more reliability and will pbxes still offer the same of will they offer more for the same money or more reliability.

In the end a vps running your own elastic, freepbx or asterisk system will become more interesting. No 5000 minute limit, true phone support. pbxes will become less and less interesting.

to setup pbxes you do need to know a little bit about computers and settingup and setting up your own asterisk based server is becoming easier everytime and is not that complicated anyomore when hosting companies have images installed.

In the end pbxes still over good value for the money, but it used to be more value for the money.
reliability is not as good as it was several year ago.
Support is still very poor
Communication used to be possible through a telephone number in the beginning and thru email, this has been stopped and only forum communiaction is possible, thus meaning less support.

Given all these facts pbxes is offering less and less value for money and if they keep on going this way they will start loosing customers.

22.07.2010 17:45 bobmats is offline Search for Posts by bobmats Add bobmats to your Buddy List
mhc
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Registration Date: 06.07.2010
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RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

Not quite sure why you've directed that at me bobmats, it's not like I can actually do anything about your issues with pbxes!

Your comments about running your own box rather than using pbxes.com I did find slightly ironic though as I've moved from running my own trixbox box to using pbxes.com as for the sake of a couple euro's a month, I'd rather use my talents to run my business than worry about keeping my phone system running.

Mark

22.07.2010 22:03 mhcg is offline Search for Posts by mhcg Add mhcg to your Buddy List
bob


Registration Date: 01.01.1970
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RE: all extensions dead Post Reply with Quote Edit/Delete Post Report Post to a Moderator       IP Information Go to the top of this page

You are right that is for the moment what is keeping me of setting up my own pbxes, it take more time.

But it also takes time when pbxes is offline again, I have to figure out myself how to get things going again and paying for a service that gives almost 0 communication and has a track record of becomming less reliable comparred to several years ago.

Also take a good look at the statistics 65489 accounts and 71955 extensions. This is around 1.1 extension per account. Most business and paying users would have more accounts so I really wonder how many free accounts there are and why paying accounts would have to pay for free accounts that also use the same cpu power and could be the reason of the less and less reliability.

But at the end of the year I will evalute the system and if pbxes has not improved in reliability but most important communication I will move on. The problem is that I have the feeling that communication will not change as it has become worse over time, in the end this will be iptels biggest problem.

This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by bob on 12.08.2010 at 08:57.

23.07.2010 07:37 bobmats is offline Search for Posts by bobmats Add bobmats to your Buddy List
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