Looking at vicidial

[bgoldstein]

Hello-

Hosted PBX provider here and looking at vicidial as an offering as we frequently get requests for this functionality. We currently use fusionPBX (freeswitch based) but are aware that vicidial is asterisk based. My questions are:

How well does vicidial/asterisk work in a virtualized environment?
Can a single installation be configured for several different customers using the s/w (multi-tenant)
How much does it support offloading different tasks (database, webserver, etc.) to different servers?
Can it be interfaced with production CRM such as Salesforce, MS, or open source (i.e.sugar)?
What is vicibox and should we be looking at that?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[mflorell]

VICIdial is not built for virtual environments, it's a real-time system and it relies on a reliable Linux timer, something that is very much unreliable on virtual systems. We do not recommend using VICIdial on virtual hardware. Using a virtual system for more than a handful of calls usually results in incomplete logging, call audio problems and recordings with missing audio segments.

VICIdial is not designed to be multi-tenant.

You can offload the web and database functions to other servers, and yes this does help to reduce load. For both Apache and MySQL you can use virtual hosts to host multiple clients on the same webserver and database hardware.

We have helped to clients to integrate with dozens of different CRM systems, and VICIdial also has it's own APIs as well.

VICIbox is our ISO installer that installs a working OpenSuSE Linux build with all you need to run VICIdial on it.

[williamconley]

VICIdial is not designed to be multi-tenant.

However ... this depends on the functionality you intend to expose to the tenants. The Vicidial Group has made a lot of headway on configuring the system for Multi-Tenant and are still focused on completing this task over time, as clients pay, I assume. But while focused on that concept, they may lose track of the fact that there are a lot of circumstances where the present functions already qualify.

So when you say "Multi-Tenant" remember that this is open to subjective interpretation. It's entirely possible that your usage would fit within the present multi-tenancy features (or close enough that some modification would finish it off).

We have also built completely "non-vicidial" interfaces to supplant the Admin features in some environments to allow multi-tenancy. But that was a while ago, before much of the present feature was built. These days, it's more of a "lock out one or two features and build a custom interface for just that portion" and check the next update to see if The Vicidial Group has updated that particular section yet. Or you can just go to The Vicidial Group directly and have them add the piece(s) you are missing by sponsoring those updates at the source.

And as Matt said: Yes, you should be looking at Vicibox.com's iso installer as your starting point. My advice is to have a technician install it in a Virtual server for testing, several times for comfort (with ONE agent it's quite reliable while virtual, just don't go past that). IE: Perfect for development before deployment as well as testing.

After installing with the installer (which has a PDF on the site for installation), switch to The Vicidial Manager's Manual available on EFLO.net (The Vicidial Group's main site). Start at page one and don't skip anything. When you decide you don't need a section and want to skip it, slap yourself, go back and do that section anyway. You'll get a working system that way. If you hit a snag, come back here and look it up or post the manual version, page number, line number, and relevant configuration options plus your problem ... the easier you make it, the more likely it'll be for someone to just answer your question.

Do not attempt to use a mysql cluster. Vicidial requires real-time access to data. However: One mysql server can be used for many Vicidial installations if it has some power. Especially if the Vicidial systems in question are not heavy users. Plus: Vicidial itself can be built as a multi-server system or as several individual servers sharing a DB server (each system having its own DB) or each server standalone with all functions installed.

Happy Hunting.

[bgoldstein]

Thank you for your answers - appreciate it very much