Microsoft Kills Response Point

A blog post at TMC by Tom Keating is indicating that Response Point is dead.

Personally I never thought this product would go much of anywhere... although I must admit I was keeping a weary eye on it. If MS makes up their mind to go after something it can do it. I think MS realized that the customers who might deploy this type of solution don't want to put more reliance in MS products... And the vendors who might choose to install this type of product might not understand it and do poor jobs implementing it.

I think it had some potential but Microsoft has a real muddied message here with Response Point and Office Communications Server. Personally, I'm not thinking that OCS is going to go anywhere either.

sipXecs 3.10.x to 4.0.1 upgrade update...

Looks like the method documented in the sipXecs Wiki works properly. I haven't done it on a production system yet but on my demo box things are clean.

Upgrade instructions: http://sipx-wiki.calivia.com/index.php/SipXecs_4.0.1_Upgrade

Upgrading from 3.10.x to 4.0.1

There still seem to be some bugs in upgrading from 3.10.x to 4.0.1.

Some thing is just going wrong and I'm not sure where the problem lies.  Here's how I have gotten around the problem:

First - BACKUP your 3.10.x system, copy the backups to your local PC and make sure you have the Install CD for your existing version in case you need to go back.

Copy new stable repo file to pbx:

 - Login as root to PBX.

 - cd /etc/yum.repos.d

 - wget http://sipxecssw.org/pub/sipXecs/sipxecs-stable-centos.repo

Perform yum update:

 - yum update

Reboot:

 - reboot

sipXecs won't start up properly.  Install sipxsupervisor with yum:

 - yum install sipxsupervisor

Restart sipXecs services:

 - service sipxecs restart

Login to PBXadministration web console as superadmin.

Perform backup and download configuration / voicemail backups to local PC.

Make sure you know your IP addressing, host name, SIP domain, DNS & DHCP server settings.

Install 4.0.1 fresh from ISO (this will format your hard drive so if you didn't get that backup off the PBX, do it again or you will be SOL).

Restore the 4.0.1 backup to the freshly installed 4.0.1 PBX.

It seems like the long way around to get it done but it works and preserves your configuration. I haven't tried upgrading an HA install yet... 

Tip for Uploading Voicemail Prompts

So, uploading voicemail prompts still isn't available in the web GUI for sipXecs... here's where to copy pre-recorded prompts though.

For AA prompts:

/var/sipxdata/mediaserver/data/prompts

For USER greetings:

/var/sipxdata/mediaserver/data/mailstore/ (where line is the extension, like "200")

The filenames for user greetings at present are: standard.wav, extendedabsence.wav, outofoffice.wav

Release 4.0.1 posted as stable

sipXecs Version 4.0.1 has been posted to the stable repository.

There were a lot of fixes from the 4.0.0 release (110 to be exact).

Reportedly the upgrade from 3.10.x is working also now but I have yet to test it.

.

New sipXecs Book available!

The cat is finally out of the bag... I've been working with Packt Publishing on a book on sipXecs 4.0 (that's why this blog has been a little sparse).

The book is now available in pre-release (what Packt calls Raw) format.

The book title is Building Enterprise Ready Telephony Systems with sipXecs 4.0.

It is available for purchase/download by clicking on the above link.

Thanks!

Mike

New Patton US Tone Set for 5.2 and 5.3 firmware

Got this new US Tone Set from Patton...

profile call-progress-tone US_Dialtone
play 1 1000 350 -13 440 -13

profile call-progress-tone US_Alertingtone
play 1 1000 440 -19 480 -19
pause 2 3000

profile call-progress-tone US_Busytone
play 1 500 480 -24 620 -24
pause 2 500

profile call-progress-tone US_Releasetone
play 1 250 480 -24 620 -24
pause 2 250

profile tone-set US
map call-progress-tone dial-tone US_Dialtone
map call-progress-tone ringback-tone US_Alertingtone
map call-progress-tone busy-tone US_Busytone
map call-progress-tone release-tone US_Releasetone
map call-progress-tone congestion-tone US_Busytone

sipXecs and Skype

Caught this on the SIPFoundry web site ...

When Skype announced Skype for SIP beta applications were available we knew we had to apply. Fortunately we received our acceptance tonight and within minutes sipXbridge was making calls out the Skype for SIP network. Look for more on this when we release sipXecs 4.0 very soon.

Skype could be a major connectivity player... it certainly has become a household term!

sipXecs 4.0 Draws Near...

Picked up on a post to the SipFoundry web site...

After a ton of development it's getting real close. sipXecs release 4.0 has been in its final testing phase now for a while and there are only a few issues left that need to be resolved before release. It's a big release, probably the biggest ever. sipXecs turned into a fully distributed system with centralized management.

Read the rest: SipFoundry

VoIP Trouble Shooter

Found a great on-line resource for diagnosing Voice Traffic Problems.

VoIP Troubleshooter.com provides free online diagnostic tools and information for network managers. The site was originally created and sponsored by Telchemy Incorporated with Acterna joining as a sponsor in 2005.

Check it out: http://www.voiptroubleshooter.com/diagnosis/index.html