Need Your Input: Nortel Customers

[rixride]

Hey Guys,
As you know we have been working on MerAssistant a Nortel Meridian PBX Programming Tool.

Well we got a crazy idea and I wanted to run this by you guys to see if my head was still screwed on straight.

We ask that you don't repeat or share this information with anyone at this time.

Here are the topics:
Disaster Recovery
Moves, Adds, Changes
PBX Reports

Right now how do you back up your PBX Data? What happens if you lose all the programming in your pbx? i.e. Hurricane, Flood, Corruption etc...? How do you back up? How do you restore? Where are you back ups? A floppy? On the PBX ?

Well what if we told you we could host your back up for you on a secure remote server that you would have access too? Not only could we host it but we could dial in and get it automatically, Daily, Weekly, Monthly etc..?

What if we told you, all you would need to do is go to a Highly Secure Website, register securely, and put in your pbx modem number and info and set up your own schedule, then our server would automatically dial in, download and store your data for you....

Then in the event of a disaster, we would actually send you 2 things.
1. A full report of how your pbx was programmed before i.e. Trunks, Customer Data Block, Route Data Block etc....down to the last speedcall
2. A tool that would automatically build ALL your phones back the way they were. You just hit enter. So not only a full back up but a way to restore it as well....all online.

Now That is part one....

Part Two is Reporting Engine:
How do you currently run reports on your pbx?
What if I told you, you could now run reports on your PBX online,like finding all phones with CFXA allowed? or create a Phone Directory, or list phones by: Class of Service, TN, DES, Etc... i.e. all the reports that MA offers:
http://www.merassistant.com/gallery/MA12a.html
and have access to them online anytime. Also be able to download or export them as needed?

Again, No local client to download, no server to host...just a place online to get the info.


Part 3....Now we are cooking...
What if you could do Moves, Adds and Changes Online as well?
After you have all your info online and you wanted to Changes Names, Update keys, Create Phones, Delete Phones, Moves Phones etc...what if it was as easy as coming to PBXInfo forums and creating a post?
You could make a change and it gets sent to your switch via dialup or IP and updates itself online? Changes would be made real time and updated accordingly?
What if all this could be done securely, online, and you have total access to it at anytime?

To let you know we have a prototype working of some of these now and may look to some beta testers.


I would love to hear you thoughts, ideas, concerns etc...

Is this something you would use/buy/subscribe too?

Why or Why not? What would be your pro's and con's

Thanks Guys

[Mercury_Storm]

rix it sounds like an AWESOME idea... but would this work for international clients aswell? We have a few sites that could be used as Beta (we have two of our own sites) and as a vendor im sure we could convince our clients, this sounds AMAZING! Please keep me posted on this dev work!

[rixride]

As long as they have dial up, we may have a surcharge on long distance fees, we are also looking at IP connections.

One thing I am worried about is people not wanting to put their info out on the "Web" per say. Although it would be the same security as online banking as we know security is top priority.

I would think it would be difficult to convince people to use a service rather then a local interface right?

[Mercury_Storm]

Most of our clients already have modem's, as we dial into them to do remote maintaince and moves and changes remotly..

[slagburn]

Sounds like a cool idea that will appeal to the smaller customers and small enterprises; medium to large enterprises will / should already have such a system in place in their own data centers and will more than likely be very resistant to the idea of putting their data out on the web regardless of how secure it might be.

Another thing to keep in mind when you're dealing with dial up is the slow speeds of most of the secure modems out there - nothing worse than trying to dump a 1500+ station database on a 2400bps modem, it will take hours to do. We've also found that some secure modems suffer from buffer 'overrun' problems where they are good for maint only, if you try to dump a large database you'll end up with holes in the data - usually in the middle somewhere difficult to find.

If this takes off you may want to consider an arrangement where you provide the modem (for a fee) and the customer provides the line, this will ensure that you're dealing with a reliable piece of hardware. Most customers that I've dealt with won't allow their PBXs anywhere near a public internet connection - a few will allow VPN (through RSA tokens) stuff but that can get pretty complicated will all of the various VPN clients out there.

I'm sure you have also considered the liabilities should something go wrong - what happens if your system causes corruption in a database and a vendor has to get in involved on T&M?

[MSYoung]

Interesting idea but I would have to decline if you offered the service. What we do here is controlled by the US DoD and the thought that PBX records were stored off site out of government control would cause apoplexy. What we do now is the PBX has two backups internal, a hard drive and a removable optical disk. These backups are run automatically every night and are handled per DoD requirements. The same for voice mail and other adjuncts.

[Archibald J. Cox]

Dang, Rix. You trying to put me out of business?

[papa-bear]

I highly doubt this would get past any number of in house security regulations. Having an external site keep a database of all our users (even if "secure") would bring up doubts of how secure the information really is. Having an external site dial in is not so bad as our vendor has that access already but our security folks keep pushing for us to have them turned off until they are required where we would have to turn them on to allow the vendor access.

I also echo Slag's responce in wondering what insurance you have against corupt data or failing to be able ot provide the data back to the end user in a timely manor when required. That could kill you right there should one fail when needed.

[rixride]

What business is that?

Originally Posted by Archibald J. Cox

Dang, Rix. You trying to put me out of business?

[Archibald J. Cox]

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