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Is Linux Used in Production Telephony?

Posted by Cliff on from the interactive-voice-reponse dept.

jamesva asks: "The telecommunications industry is rapidly converging on Windows NT/2000 for all telephony and voice-related needs. Most ACD systems, virtual operators, and voicemail are being ported to Windows if they're not already running on it. In the past, telephony apps have existed most notably on OS/2, SCO, and even DOS. However, free Unix (or unix-like) platforms have absolutely no penetration in this area, with seemingly no chance on the horizon. The Bayonne app server from the GNU folks seems to be the one exception, but even then there doesn't seem to much built around it or anyone using it. It reached a 1.0 release in September and was met with no fanfare. Even the LinuxTelephony doesn't seem to have much news. Can someone prove me wrong? Why is this the case? I'm interested in finding out if anyone is using Linux (or any free OS) in a production environment for something like voicemail or ACD. These types of systems require high availability and reliability and Linux just seems like a natural fit."

3 of 354 comments (clear)

  1. Device driver issue? by ALecs · · Score: 4, Insightful
    How many quality telephony cards are out there with equally quality drivers? I'll admit I've done no research on this but could this be the answer?

    Linux being the DIY operating system that it is, people tend to write drivers for the hardware that they have. How many linux hackers have dialogic boards in their machines? At >$500, I doubt the number is very high. No drivers, no applications.

  2. Are the applications there? by Rimbo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The first question I'd ask is: Are the applications there? If not, there it is.

    You mentioned one application that uses Linux. There are probably many more that work under Windows, because that's probably what companies are developing for. More to the point, that's probably what companies are asking for -- "Give us something that looks like what we're used to for web surfing already!"

    Now granted, within the past few years Linux's desktop has grown leaps and bounds beyond where it was -- but then, it wasn't there when these companies first started developing their apps, and wasn't an option then.

    That, ultimately, is the issue.

  3. Million Dollar Apps dont run on linux in our DC by BrookHarty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We only run unix os's with a few NT machines (mostly admin consoles) in our datacenter. The problem with putting a Linux box in production, we have platinum support from Sun. Every server is a sun box, and its standardized for backup, database and clustering. If we put a Linux box, it has to run it on sparc hardware, and we have to have special procedures just for this one box.

    Its much easier to run GPL'ed software ported to Solaris, than to switch the OS. We in fact run many GPL'ed software packages, the cost saving is amazing. The backend software is highly specialized, and will not be ported to linux.

    To make sure the software is locked in production, the developers put license strings for everything, and then they lock it down to IP/Domain/Hardware/os version/etc..

    Sometimes you want the software to be written in house, but with the features, support, updates to software, its easier to write a check and get everything at once. If you want to know who the main players are, Nokia, Nortel, Software.com and Ericsson are the largest players.