beelinebill November 29th, 2009

In July 2009, Part 1 of this series was published and I am pleased to say I have finally completed part 2.  As a reminder, the three part series includes these three blog posts:

1. Introduction to Open Source Policy for IP Telephony in the Enterprise:  “Open Source Policy for IP Telephony:  Are You Behind or Ahead of the Curve?”
2. Business Analysis of Open Source vs. Traditional Telephony: “The Metrics of Open Source Policy for IP Telephony “
3. Best Practices as applied to implementation of an Open Source IP Telephony solution: “Open Source Policy Meets ROI”

In 2009, we have seen an uptake of adoption of open source telephony software. As discussed previously, industry analysts have started to buy into the fact that most if not all enterprises and even small businesses will adopt a hybrid open source/traditional mix of best-of-breed solution for their businesses. In fact, the methodology of selection should remain the same: ROI and TCO (Return on Investment and Total Cost of Ownership). Business investments and personal investments have similar metrics with the differences being budgets we all have in our respective areas. Each business has its own model for business analysis and making decisions based on their results. In this article, we’ll explore a couple of different perspectives that we know buyers have used in evaluation to adopt open source as their entire or portion of their solution.

In part 1, you would have already completed a project plan. This would include decisions for the following elements of the plan:

• Corporate strategy for telephony software acquisition and how Open Source Software (OSS) fits
• Open source alternatives for each component and layer of software have been considered as well as licenses and intellectual property as it applies to your company
• You have nailed down your  process for building your plan, analyzing the alternatives, and trialing the software
• You have decided your support requirements – internal team or outsourced
• You have decided to take the next step beyond selection and building the OSS policy (even if you call it something like a “purchasing or technology acquisition process”)
• You have a plan to determine if your existing or planned IP network is “Voice-ready”

Your highest level of consideration for an Open Source phone system has been made and now it’s time to explore the Business Analysis of Open Source vs. Traditional Telephony. Let’s call it “The Metrics of Open Source Policy for IP Telephony” as we take a more in depth look at how to implement and measure success factors in building and executing an Open Source Policy for your enterprise.

First we will look at differences from traditional phone system solutions. The types of open source solutions available are as follows:

–        Free and open source code in component form (such as Asterisk from source code)

–        Free and open source distributions which bundles component bits such as Linux, a graphical user interface and the telephone software such as Asterisk

–        Open Source-based turnkey Business Phone System and IP PBX that is based on Asterisk

Your company’s technical skills meter drives this decision. If you hire a consultant, say a “dCAP Certified” consultant (Digium Certified Asterisk Professional) your tolerance meter needs to be well understood for your phone system ongoing management. What does this mean?  If you rely 100% on your consultant to design, install, and maintain your phone system, you will need to be comfortable with that decision. You could use an Asterisk integrator or reseller as your trusted advisor which is as traditional as it gets but has withstood the test of time and proven success. Depending on the technical skills and certification level of the trusted adviser they might understand your requirements and propose any one of the three choices. These are available to everyone – from free software to 100% turn-key commercial open source solutions such as Switchvox. The spectrum is complete. The choice depends on you and your trusted adviser. If your trusted advisor is you, you know your technical skills, your core competency, and your business. This decision process is relatively simple.

Let’s look at three scenarios where each choice makes might make more sense.

Scenario 1: When would you select totally free source code component elements such as Asterisk code?

1. You have a strong technical skill set available to you internally
2. You have the ability to locate the open source projects on the web, analyze requirements, download the raw code. Strong skills in this area could find, download Asterisk, configure it and make phone calls in a half hour. The past couple of years we have speed contests at Astricon to award the fastest Asterisk geeks on the planet doing this. (Our record is under 5 minutes, but your “mileage may vary”.)
3. You have a spare PC/server laying around of decently modern vintage and features
4. You know how to compile code, use command line (no GUI) and know basic networking and telephony.
5. Are adept enough to find and purchase a SIP trunk for your VoIP service and configure on your Asterisk system.
6. Your patience and tolerance for trial and error is high when determining how to associate your requirements with the flexibility and power of the customizable system
7. You love the technical challenge of having an incredibly powerful toolkit to build your phone system

Total cost for this scenario?

–        Software  $0

–        Old PC/Server $0

–        Sip trunk $10-50 per month average based on services

–        Support $0 if you do it yourself; as low $595 annually to purchase an open source subscription from Digium

–        Time

Is this solution scalable?

Without question, the more technical knowledge you have acquired, the larger and more powerful this system can grow with relative ease.  There are Asterisk installations around the world that handle hundreds of thousands of users. For example, see this Integrics case study here as an example of a very large open source system. According to an Eastern Management Group’s recent study, 75% of the systems downloaded and installed are under 50 end points but 12% are over 100 end points. Larger networks of Asterisk-based systems are clustered, coupled with other open source projects such as SIP proxy OpenSIPS and Linux. In the “old” days, support for Asterisk was available only through the online open source community.   Although the Asterisk community is vibrant and large, the required commercial support for enterprise-class organizations on an official basis was not easily available without a sizable contract.  The mission critical system support from Digium has only become recently available in earlier 2009 for any size enterprise or small business.

This solution is ideal for companies that have in-house expertise in Linux, networking, and software integration skills.  There is a staggering amount of code and documentation that is available for no cost to make Asterisk a successful platform under almost any circumstances and operational requirements.  However, there are time costs for your staff, and if you do not have the in-house expertise you will have to budget for consulting time to create these custom, highly specific solutions for your enterprise.

Scenario 2:  When would you select a free and open source distribution which bundles component elements such as Linux, a graphical user interface (GUI) and the telephony software such as Digium’s Asterisk? These “distributions” as they are called are downloaded onto an ISO CD-ROM image which is then inserted into a blank server/PC.  After booting, an all-in-one installer typically formats the hard drive in the machine and installs the image into the system which becomes your IP PBX or telephony system.

What skills do you need for this?

1. Can find the project and distribution on the web
2. Can download an ISO image to your PC/server
3. Can boot server with the new ISO image
4. Can use a GUI to configure the system. If you can purchase a wireless router, configure it and get it up and running, you can use this approach. We have seen AsteriskNOW downloaded, installed and making calls in about 15 minutes but it’s not for everyone!
5. You can support this yourself, using the open source community or purchase an open source subscription as above for any size system virtually anywhere in the world

Total cost for this scenario?

–        Software  $0

–        Old PC/Server $0

–        Sip trunk $10-50 per month average based on services

–        Support $0 if you do it yourself; as low $595 annually to purchase an open source subscription from Digium?

–        Time

(Can you see this trend? Very low cost.)

This option of a pre-compiled and pre-integrated Asterisk system is a good one if your business has few custom needs, and wants to reap the rewards of IP telephony and extensive features without spending significant learning curve time on deploying a custom solution.  This is an extremely rapid solution path choice, and has a virtually all the features that most small businesses require.   For both above scenarios, there are integrators and resellers who build your system from white box servers, standard HP, Dell or IBM servers. They add gateways as necessary, IP phones, select an interoperable SIP trunking or VoIP service provider and can install or send the total solution to you pre-configured and you just plug it in. It is relatively easy to handle moves/add/changes at little to no cost.

Scenario 3: Commercial turnkey IP PBX that is based on open source Asterisk

This approach is similar to traditional solutions, but the basis of open source software means reduced costs and overall lowers TCO.  Let’s look at how you can leverage scenario three using Digium’s own turnkey solution (others similar).

What skills do you need for this scenario?

1. Go directly to the product of interest
2. You download a free version to try it or just either locate a reseller or buy it now
3. It’s turnkey, so no Linux or command line skills necessary
4. Like any phone system, you need to know your dial plan such as how to set up IVR, how to handle messages at times of day, etc. this really applies across all choices, but it’s simpler with GUI (scenario 2) or if the reseller handles it here.

Total cost for this scenario?

–        Download free trial software  $0

–        Can use old PC/Server or purchase pre-configured appliance as your IP PBX and Business Telephony System. Price varies by number of users and the system selected.

–        Sip trunks $10 and up per month per trunk and up based on services; or of course the PSTN connection instead of SIP

–        Support $50 per user per year subscription for commercially supported turnkey Switchvox with years 2 and beyond at as low as $10/year/user

Let’s now assume you have completed part 1 and part 2 of setting your corporate open source policy. This translates to the following decisions:

–        Open Source will be considered for our new Business Phone System

–        We have done an inventory on how we will build, manage and support it

–        We have budgeted resources to complete the procurement process to compare our open source solution with our incumbent proprietary phone system

–        We have completed our “VoIP Ready “ network assessment

–        We have determined whichever way we go we will purchase new servers, either separately or as a turn-key solution

–        We will purchase commercial support from our supplier or reseller

–        We will trial the system solution

The completion of these steps means we have decided to consider open source, we have set a policy for evaluating it and we have set a policy for how we will compare the traditional vs. open source solution beyond cost but to include ROI, TCO over a 3-5 year period, and we have taken an inventory on what we need to complete the task.

In Part 3 of 3, we will cover best practices as applied to your selection of an open source solution and run some calculations for you based on real solutions.

• AsteriskNOW , AstriCon , Community , Digium , Open Source , Open Source Policy , Switchvox , dCAP
• Comments(3)