Recommendations?

[B.lee2]

I'm looking to set up a very small call centre which support 4-5 incoming/outgoing connections via VOiP.

I am quite new to all things linux and minus some dabbling with Ubuntu, I don't have much experience with it.

I have a VPS with CentOS, AsteriskNOW 1.7, asterisk 1.6 and FreePBX 2.9.0.

Is there instructions to install vicidial with this setup?
Or is it not worth the headache and I
should simply rent a PBX with Goautodial instead?

[williamconley]

for a 4-5 connection system, you should grab the nearest Pentium 4 and install Vicibox on it.

Vicibox.com

Do it now, stop trying to "figure it out" without having it running. It gets much easier when you have a functional system to "figure it out" on.

The Vicidial Group also leases boxes (if you want one that is guaranteed to be UP!). As does Poundteam Incorporated, of course. But for a 4-5 connection system ... you don't need much of a machine (the lowest one we lease is a Pentium 4 equivalent, but since you probably have one of those lying around ... why lease?)

[B.lee2]

Aight, I missed your response, thanks a lot though...

What's the difference between Vicibox and Goautodial? Will I have to go through another 10 hours + install in order to install vicibox?

I have time to spare, the major difference I see is the underlying flavor of linux, but since I'm not experienced enough to have a clear preference either way.

[williamconley]

it's your pentium 4 with your hard drive and processor. nobody else can answer the speed question.

differences have been covered extensively (quite), but basically:

goautodial is gardo and he has added a few cool toys to the interface (including borrowing the top 2" in many places for his logo) and borrowed a very cool agent interface which people like a lot. also: it's in CentOS which many people like. on the downside: centos is not supported by the Vicidial Group (or the community at large, just a couple of us, so OS issues would have to be handled by luck or elsewhere unless gardo or myself or a couple others are available). Also, that pretty agent interface will become useless if you upgrade to the "latest SVN" (which is often very tempting cuz there's cool new stuff in it quite often ...).

vicibox is by Kumba, and supported by anyone who does Vicidial. It's in OpenSuSE and gets updated more often than goauto (because the SuSE Studio makes it easier, or because Kumba is anal retentive about updates, don't know which, but it works for me! LOL, had an upgrade last week!). Also, it is designed to allow standalone or cluster install out-of-the-box including setup of an archive server in the cluster. No commercialness in the installation. Pure Vicidial (but no pretty screen ...). It will install latest stable, SVN installed on the disk, or latest SVN if you ask it to AND tell it to update the OS during installation. With SVN installation, upgrades can be handled in 60 seconds plus a reboot. And you CAN use the pretty goauto screen, if you want, but you have to be sure to install an SVN or release old enough to be compatible with it. (and then steal the pretty goauto screen from a goauto disk).

my advice: if you NEED CentOS or MUST HAVE the pretty screen, install GoAuto ... otherwise, stick to Vicibox.

[jimm1909]

for a 4-5 connection system, you should grab the nearest Pentium 4 and install Vicibox on it.

Do it now, stop trying to "figure it out" without having it running. It gets much easier when you have a functional system to "figure it out" on.

The Vicidial Group also leases boxes (if you want one that is guaranteed to be UP!). As does Poundteam Incorporated, of course. But for a 4-5 connection system ... you don't need much of a machine (the lowest one we lease is a Pentium 4 equivalent, but since you probably have one of those lying around ... why lease?)

I tried this exact set up and it worked very well for me.

Thanks,

-Jim

[B.lee2]

Hey, I am just finishing to set it up in the office, I noticed that the install manual asked for a static IP, is it absolutly nescessary that I get one?

[williamconley]

no, but if your ip address changes your system will stop working until you run the ip update script (reference in the ssh login splash screen) and of course repoint all your agents to the new ip and possibly change sip.conf and perhaps change your ip address at all your voip providers ... but we have several clients using dynamic ip addresses quite successfully.

it depends a lot more on your bandwidth (quality and quantity) and how often the IP changes (hourly IP changes are ... cumbersome, but every six months is merely an annoyance).