Information
on Hardware and Software Maintenance
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Who
are the Hardware Vendors?
You likely have a Voicetek Generations or
a Nortel OpenIVR system. These
systems are in fact very closely related.
Another not so distant relation of
these two is the Nortel Integrated IVR (aka:
Meridian IVR). All three of
these systems share a common graphical development
tool and therefore the
applications developed on each can be, for
the most part, run on any of the
above systems.
Although none of the above-mentioned IVR
systems is currently offered or
supported by their original vendor, The
Primas Group can help you to move
your applications and upgrade your hardware
to the current version of this
IVR system: Aspect CSS. In general, 75-90%
of the investment you have made
in your IVR Application development can
be re-used when migrating to Aspect
CSS. In fact, even the voice prompts you
have recorded can be re-used
(except from Integrate IVR).
The alternative of upgrading
your application to a currently supported
version of your IVR system is to jump ship
to another IVR platform. Of
course you will be required to perform the
tedious, time-consuming (not to
mention costly) process of re-designing
your IVR applications, their
external interfaces, the voice prompts and
debugging/testing a brand new
application. (Top)
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Who
maintains the OpenIVR system?
OpenIVR and Meridian IVR are currently un-supported
by their original
vendor, Nortel. Although systems may continue
to run without issue, there is
a strong likelihood that a component may
fail over time. Most components are standard
PC hardware and a suitable replacement part
could likely be located and installed by
an experienced, knowledgeable
technician familiar with UNIX and the OpenIVR
system. Some components,
including the hard drive, present a different
challenge. A failed hard drive
means the loss of the UNIX operating system,
the OpenIVR core software and
all of your custom applications, prompts
and other code & data required to
make your IVR system "yours".
This could be catastrophic, and possibly
impossible to recover from.
Unless you have a proper
backup and restore plan already executed,
you are
vulnerable! Imagine the impact the complete
failure of your IVR system could
present, stretched out over weeks, possibly
months.
Also, in order to properly
update certain hardware or software components,
the administrator password is required for
the UNIX Operating System. Are
you aware how to log in as the administrator
of your own UNIX system? (Top)
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What
are the different hardware revisions?
OpenIVR and Generations versions are closely
matched. Most versions sold
were of the 2.x or 4.x revision. In general,
applications from either
platform are executable on the other platform
of the same or greater
revision. We can also help you if you need
to move an application back a
revision or sub-revision. (Top)
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Who
are the authorized distributors?
Coming
soon!
-
End
of life?
Coming
soon!
-
Component
Diagram
Coming
soon!
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What
is most likely to fail?
OpenIVR and Generations, like most computer systems, are based on PC
hardware that can continue to function very well for many years as they have
very few moving parts. Other than electrical spikes or drops (your IVR is
UPS'd isn't it?), the IVR hardware is very resilient to most environmental
changes.
Like all computer systems, once of the most important yet easily damaged components is the hard drive. The hard drive contains all the Operating
System software, the IVR System software as well as the customized IVR
applications that currently handle your customer's calls. All of this
software needs to be carefully installed and configured to operate properly.
Damage to your hard disk can be devastating; recovery from it
extremely difficult. At minimum, a complete duplicate (backup) copy of the data on your hard
disk is necessary to be able to recover from a failed hard disk. You may
choose to keep copies of the original CDs for your UNIX operating system,
the IVR operating software and the custom IVR applications that were
developed for you. This may help, but could result in a very long (days to
weeks) process to get your system back in production.
Ideally, an exact copy of your hard disk will be available. This is best
accomplished by creating a "clone" or disk image of your hard disk onto 1
(or 2) other hard disks. Once your current production hard drive is cloned,
the clone should be tested, perhaps through its use in a production
IVR server, to ensure that it does in fact operate as an exact duplicate of your
original hard disk. You may in fact choose to run off of the clone drive and
store your original in a safe location as the backup. Of course, 2 clones
are better than 1.
Every other component of these IVR systems can be replaced with present day PC hardware. This includes the chassis, power supply, motherboard and CPU,
Dialogic (Telephony) cards, keyboard mouse and monitor. The failure of one
of these components may force the replacement of other components (i.e. a
power supply of the same form factor to fit into your chassis may not be
available, and hence a new chassis, motherboard and power supply may be
required), but the base hardware in an OpenIVR and Generations IVR system
can be completely replaced with current hardware or widely available used
components. (Top)
This site is sponsored by The
Primas Group, who specializes in
Contact Center
Consulting,
CTI Application Development and
IVR
Programming.
Additionally the following Call Center
products are offered,
Primas
IVR Post Call Survey
Primas LinkScope CTI Analyzer & IVR Port Monitor
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