It has been a busy two weeks. New software deployments at clients. 15 hours troubleshooting a problem on a Verizon FiOS circuit. Now there was a fiasco, my client moved from out in Seffner to a new location in Plant City, this should have been a simple morning.
Go to the clients old location, back up, shut down the phone server. Take the phone server and the Ingate to the new location. Reprogram the Ingate, set the new public IP on the Altigen MAX1000 and every one should be happy.
Nope.
After reprogramming everything we found that the Ingate would not talk to the Verizon gateway. It could not be pinged from outside the building as well.
I immediately suspected a problem with provisioning on Verizons Gateway.
Many hours on the phone with Verizon tech support to no avail, even had one of their customer service people on site, he was unable to get more than one public IP at a time to work. At 5 PM as the Verizon tech was going out the door he made the comment that he suspected an issue on Verizon's end, but he was done for the day.
Verizon of course insisted it was the clients VPN router, but after a couple of minutes, reprogramming a laptop to test with I proved that in fact there was an issue with the Verizon ciruit. Verizon insisted on having their Westell router put back in place before they would trouble shoot any further, ok, reprogrammed and reinstalled, still the same problem.
You could only get one public IP at a time on the circuit. It did not matter if it was a Verizon router, laptop, VPN router or my spare test router. Once a single public IP was on the circuit you could not get any other device to talk to the gateway. Turn off the existing working device, and suddenly one of the other two non working would start to work.
Hello Verizon, this is a gateway issue on your part.
Finally, after 12 man hours of troubleshooting time both with and without Verizon tech support I got ahold of a Verizon employee who listened to what I was saying, Joel Zxxx278 you are a lifesaver, along with Bill Vxxx305 they determined that in fact it was a provisioning problem on Verizon's gateway 96.xxx.xx.1, the sad part of this is the bill that I had to present to the client because Verizon's tech support could not / would not solve the issue. 12 man hours were wasted due to the incompetence or lack of concern of most of Verizon's FiOS tech support. (In reality I guess it would be 11.5 hours wasted, it did take me 30 minutes to determine that it was a Verizon Gateway issue to start with)
Once again, if it had not been for Joel and Bill I would still probably be fighting a problem on Verizon's circuits.
Tomorrow should be an easier day, another 50+ seat Vipre deployment, then a little more work on the VoIP domain for our failover system, and time to do a little more research on Altigen's new 6.5 release with its built in failover capabilities.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
A day of housekeeping
It was not one of those planned events but through the course of the day as things just seemed to happen:
Finally deployed the new Vipre Enterpise in house, I had been sitting on it waiting for some spare time, oh well. Spare time does not seem important when the server that Mailsite, our mail server resides on decided it was time to bring a little excitement into my life.
Not a major issue, but it will take a couple of restarts, ok no problem, set all services that I don't need to manual. Since we're down lets roll out the new Vipre Enterprise, installation was straightforward and quick. One call to Tech support to understand how to exclude a directory and we were on our way.
Went into services and put the Mailsite services as well as the others I had put on manual back on automatic, did a restart. What do you mean the mail services failed to start? Ooops, license expired last week, the restart triggered the shutdown of all services.
Ok, no email, need to get new license. Having delivered customer service in various technology fields over the past several years I really appreciate what a pleasure it is to work with a company that understands customer service, in less than 15 minutes I had a new license and was back up and running.
As the old saying goes " When you are up to your ass in Alligators, it's hard to remember the object was to drain the swamp"
Kudos to the tech support folks at Rockliffe www.mailsite.com and Vipre www.SunbeltSoftware.com for exceptionally friendly and fast support.
Finally deployed the new Vipre Enterpise in house, I had been sitting on it waiting for some spare time, oh well. Spare time does not seem important when the server that Mailsite, our mail server resides on decided it was time to bring a little excitement into my life.
Not a major issue, but it will take a couple of restarts, ok no problem, set all services that I don't need to manual. Since we're down lets roll out the new Vipre Enterprise, installation was straightforward and quick. One call to Tech support to understand how to exclude a directory and we were on our way.
Went into services and put the Mailsite services as well as the others I had put on manual back on automatic, did a restart. What do you mean the mail services failed to start? Ooops, license expired last week, the restart triggered the shutdown of all services.
Ok, no email, need to get new license. Having delivered customer service in various technology fields over the past several years I really appreciate what a pleasure it is to work with a company that understands customer service, in less than 15 minutes I had a new license and was back up and running.
As the old saying goes " When you are up to your ass in Alligators, it's hard to remember the object was to drain the swamp"
Kudos to the tech support folks at Rockliffe www.mailsite.com and Vipre www.SunbeltSoftware.com for exceptionally friendly and fast support.
is taking a break after an easy Vipre Enterprise deployment. With at least one more 50 seat deployment by EOM. http://ping.fm/aPxzY
this is what I'm talking about Microsoft, Altigen and Synnex http://ping.fm/Fcb3i Tampa Bay phone systems
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Made in the USA Microsoft Altigen phone systems
You don't have to be a Fortune XXX company to have the best in IPBX / Unified Communications platforms. Florida Unified Communications Solutions offers the best of Microsoft OCS and Altigen Communications integrated systems in Florida.
Based out of the Tampa Bay area we have Microsoft certifed systems engineers (MCSE) on staff that are also Altigen Certified Systems Engineers.
Altigen and its Max Communications Server software platform can be deployed on an HP server running Microsoft Server OS and offers a "made in the USA" solution that no other current telephony provider can match.
If you want to have the best phone system / PBX solution that works natively with your Microsoft investment contact us at 813-527-0180 or visit us at http://www.myaltigentech.com/ we look forward to helping you with all of your business phone systems needs in the greater Tampa Bay area.
Based out of the Tampa Bay area we have Microsoft certifed systems engineers (MCSE) on staff that are also Altigen Certified Systems Engineers.
Altigen and its Max Communications Server software platform can be deployed on an HP server running Microsoft Server OS and offers a "made in the USA" solution that no other current telephony provider can match.
If you want to have the best phone system / PBX solution that works natively with your Microsoft investment contact us at 813-527-0180 or visit us at http://www.myaltigentech.com/ we look forward to helping you with all of your business phone systems needs in the greater Tampa Bay area.
Monday, July 13, 2009
SystemTamers / Florida Unified Communicatons Solutions - is the oldest exclusive Altigen Communications dealer based in the Tampa Bay market.
Located in Land O Lakes, FL we have been an Altigen dealer since 2005 and have been maintaining Altigen IPBX systems in call centers since late 2003. From 2003 until mid 2008 we accrued on site working experience of over 15,000 man hours.
We have designed and successfully deployed Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity solutions revolving around the Altigen / Microsoft platforms to numerous clients throughout the South East.
From simple phone systems to complete and fully integrated Unified Messaging / Communications implementations we have the hands on experience on Altigen Communications IPBX / Unified Communications implementations.
Our complete service department is Altigen and Microsoft certified.
Located in Land O Lakes, FL we have been an Altigen dealer since 2005 and have been maintaining Altigen IPBX systems in call centers since late 2003. From 2003 until mid 2008 we accrued on site working experience of over 15,000 man hours.
We have designed and successfully deployed Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity solutions revolving around the Altigen / Microsoft platforms to numerous clients throughout the South East.
From simple phone systems to complete and fully integrated Unified Messaging / Communications implementations we have the hands on experience on Altigen Communications IPBX / Unified Communications implementations.
Our complete service department is Altigen and Microsoft certified.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Altigen hits the road with Microsoft, Synnex and HP. http://ping.fm/lEhvJ Microsoft Partner Conference
Monday, July 6, 2009
Does your business phone make phone calls?
When you are looking for a business phone system, otherwise known as a PBX or IPBX in Tampa Bay or along the West coast of Florida give me a call. There are many different routes to look at to satisfy your business communications needs.
On premise PBX, hosted IPBX, Microsoft Unified Communications solutions. What it comes down to is what do you need to satisfy your current business requirements, what paths are available as your business grows. Will you have to replace the hardware you start with to grow, or is the system / software expandable.
We are familiar with a number of systems that are sold to businesses that contact us too late to find out that they purchased a system that does not easily integrate with their Microsoft server or desktop platforms, has limited or no expansion capabilities, requires expensive onsite service calls to perform basic tasks etc...
We can offer you systems that allow you to use your cell phone as a true mobile extension off of your phone system, this means that you make calls off of your cell phone that have the same funtionality as your desk phone, shows your main business or DID number, transfer to another extension or outside number, send the call to voice mail, conference up to 5 other callers, record on demand, track all company phone traffic with the built in Call Detail Reports including your company cell phone usage and more
Before you make that purchasing decision, let me show you a number of alternatives, answer any questions that you may have, regardless of the product make.
We offer Altigen Communicatons products the leading provider of Microsoft Based VoIP and Unified Communications solutions.
On premise PBX, hosted IPBX, Microsoft Unified Communications solutions. What it comes down to is what do you need to satisfy your current business requirements, what paths are available as your business grows. Will you have to replace the hardware you start with to grow, or is the system / software expandable.
We are familiar with a number of systems that are sold to businesses that contact us too late to find out that they purchased a system that does not easily integrate with their Microsoft server or desktop platforms, has limited or no expansion capabilities, requires expensive onsite service calls to perform basic tasks etc...
We can offer you systems that allow you to use your cell phone as a true mobile extension off of your phone system, this means that you make calls off of your cell phone that have the same funtionality as your desk phone, shows your main business or DID number, transfer to another extension or outside number, send the call to voice mail, conference up to 5 other callers, record on demand, track all company phone traffic with the built in Call Detail Reports including your company cell phone usage and more
Before you make that purchasing decision, let me show you a number of alternatives, answer any questions that you may have, regardless of the product make.
We offer Altigen Communicatons products the leading provider of Microsoft Based VoIP and Unified Communications solutions.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
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