Hello All,

We have a need for 35 seats to be recorded contineously on two shifts (16 hours/day). Just downloaded a recorded call from PBX -> Monitoring which is 7 minutes and 59 seconds. Total size = 6.49MB (size on disk 6,811,648 bytes).

16 hours * 35 seats = 560
560 hours = 33600 minutes /day

According to the file size above if records for two years is to be kept, the disk sizes needed would be:

33600 * 365 = 12264000 minutes /year

8 minutes = 6811648 bytes
12264000 = ? bytes

? = 10442256384000 bytes = 10.44 TB

Assuming RAID1, we need to put in more than 20TB just to record 2 years of calls. THATS WAY TOO EXPENSIVE........AND JUST IMPOSSIBLE.

Here are the system specs:

Intel Board / Intel QuadCore Q6700 Processor (5 onboard SATA ports, 1 E-Sata port)
Sangoma A200 + 5 Remora + 12 FXO-2 modules (24 FXO line support. Using only 22 lines though)
35 sets of Aastra 53i phones.

What is your suggestion for keeping the system cost low, and in the meantime recording all calls, and have some sort of redundency. Maybe change settings to record in different format? Record to external Hard Drives? Record off-site to Amazon storage?, etc...

Now, I am not saying that the phone will be in use 16 hours a day contineously but that's just to make sure the system is built for high call volumes.

Thanks

we have the same problem at our call-center.
it's built on cisco ipcc.
we had to make some scripts to convert files to mp3 and take them to external storage. it happens nightly.
we use simple web-interface to navigate through records in external store.

Hello,

That's crazy I thought Elastix would have a work-around for it. Can't it be recorded in mp3 format from the begining.

Do you mind posting your script?

Thanks

Guys,

Currently working on this issue on several fronts....

Very short on time, but will post some thoughts/solution in the next couple of days which will probably help...

Bob

Oh great. I was actually hoping to get a hold of you on this Well, I have to make a decision on the HDD numbers and size as soon as tommorow. I am going to get 4TB and hope that all goes will. So far, the responces I get is that I should run a script to change to mp3 format. I don't mind doing that with a cron job over night but this customer needs access to the files through a web GUI (professionalism matters...). How would I be able to still provide the monitoring link with the mp3 files listed there with time stamps?

Thanks,
Bruce

If I can give you a couple of pointers. It is all stuff I did a while ago.

You can change the compression on the recorded files which will make difference. Look at the config files (Amportal.conf, anything to do with the recording side of things), there is a setting somewhere which allows a change in recorded codec (e.g. GSM, G729)....

I am currently working (hoping to do more over Xmas break) on professional archiving system, which archives both the CDR Records (removes them from database), the recordings and provides a web based front end to access recordings with date time etc....Also working on having it so that it can be a Cron job which does this nightly, weekly, monthly and writes to DVD Writer (or external drive). Everyone of our systems from year dot goes out with a DVD Writer for this exact purpose. I am looking at the module interface system that was announced a few days ago, to bring it in as a module if all the parts work.

One other point, in Freepbx 2.5, in the general page there is new settings for recording phone calls, which includes being able to select what codec to use. I have not tested this yet, but looks good....

So as I said, looking on a couple of fronts at the moment. My personal view is that you will not need the 20TB you refer to.

Hope this gives you heads up.....just extremely busy at the moment to give you some more concrete information.

regards

Bob

It's all good news. Thanks again for the info. I have been advised by others who have deployed such things to even use Ramdisk to record temporarily because voice quality was comprimised with high call volumes. I will test gsm, sln and g729 format in General page of FreePBX 2.5 and if everything goes well and size is small, can I upgrade FreePBX to 2.5 through the unembedded version? That won't break other stuff in Elastix. Would it?

Cheers,

TorontoBob,

My advice is not to upgrade via the Unembedded Freepbx. It will break things!! Not something you want to do on a production system.

The only true way is to upgrade to 1.4 when it becomes available which has the Freepbx 2.51 as standard. I mentioned it now, as it sounded like you were just making a decision on H/D units at this present time only.

If you have a test system available, install 1.4 beta 2 and test the recording. I will be doing a bit of work on it on the weekend, but not until then...

Bob

Amazing. I will try the beta version in vmware in the meanwhile and report back here. Weekend is not far away...

Hello,

Been suggest to use LAME to convert to MP3. Trying to install it but I guess it's not in the repository. Wondering if they would still display in monitoring if I convert to MP3.

???