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SwitchVox AA60 VoIP Appliance, Part Two

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(Part one can be found here.)

Regarding the Digium/Switchvox AA60 appliance, it’s obviously Linux and Asterisk based, but all the delightful fun ordinarily associated with Asterisk administration has been boiled down to a cute web interface that really works, and really works better than the competition.

And it’s built to run.  I mean, the thing doesn’t even have a power switch.  Plug it in and it boots up.  Want to shut it down? Unplug it (or do a soft shutdown).  Point is, there’s nothing to bump to accidentally turn off your PBX, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. (Neither is the external power brick–much more serviceable than an internal PC power supply.)

Out of the box, the self-signed certificate on the web interface will make IE and Firefox both moan, but add it to your exception list and you’re off and running.

The version I’m looking at is SMB 3.5.  The web interface is the familiar Switchvox red-bar-across-the-top with pop out menus.

Above, you can see Switchvox’s clean, snappy UI, probably one of the main reasons for the appeal to Digium, whose Asterisk Appliance had a comparatively clunky, slow UI.

The User Tool is a web-based app that any user of the PBX can log into using a browser. It gives access to personal call histories and allows the user to export his/her own CDR directly to an Excel file.  Useful stuff. I can see this coming in handy for inside salespeople.

The Switchboard, launchable from the User Tool, is another web based app. It provides front-desk-like command and control of all lines, extensions, and calls within a user’s credentialed reach so they can drag and drop to perform telephony functions like call parking and so on.  I’ll go into more detail on this later after I’ve provisioned a few phones on this AA60.

This Switchboard app is not as sparkly as the Trixbox HUD (which is not web-based), but I would think this would be sufficient for a small call center operator or a group manager.  The only drawback is being forced to leave a browser window open.  We all know how tricky it can sometimes be to surf the web with a window we WANT to keep parked a certain URL open in the background. Sometimes the browser or a client side script will decide to jack that window and poof, there goes our Switchboard.  But that’s no fault of the AA60, of course.

Next I’m going to add some phones to the system. Stay tuned.

SwitchVox AA60 VoIP Appliance, Part One

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I’m just getting started with the new Digium SwitchVox AA60 unit.  This VoIP telephone system was introduced this past spring. I’ll be evaluating it with two Polycom SIP phones and a Junction Networks IAX trunk account for PSTN dialtone.

SwitchVox is a San Diego-based IP Telephony technology integrator that has been producing very eyeball-friendly Asterisk phone systems for the last several years. Brian and Tristan Degenhardt, both with SwitchVox since its early days, were instrumental in publishing my second book, VoIP Hacks, as Brian contributed some fantastic material for the book, and Tristan coordinated his contributions.

I met Tristan briefly at Fall VON Boston two years ago (in the Asterisk Pavilion), but didn’t have much time to go over things with her.  Well, as it turns out, SwitchVox was very soon later acquired by Digium, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The AA60 is aimed at small offices (there are more capable models aimed at larger offices, of course). Street price on these is around $3400 for a 10-user bundle.  Now I’ve never been a big fan of licensing users for PBX access (especially on an open-source system), but I realize there’s no better way of appropriately monetizing the offering.

Initial setup of the AA60 involves connecting a PC keyboard, mouse, and monitor to the rear panel of the AA60 (shown a few scrolls down).  Once you’ve done the network setup, the keyboard, mouse, and monitor are no longer needed, and the unit is configured through a fantastic web interface. Actually, SwitchVox’s web interface is arguably the main reason Digium acquired the company.

So the AA60 is really a PC. It does have sort of an odd form-factor. I was expecting it to be 19″ rack-mount standard, but its enclosure is about the size of a slimline/SFF desktop PC, maybe a bit bigger.  Digium does include a mounting bracket for placing the AA60 on a wall board.

Now the AA60 doesn’t come with any legacy telephony interfacing out of the box, though Digium’s cards can be configured and installed as a part of your order. This would allow you to equip the unit with T1/E1 PRI access or analog trunk/station ability.  I have a Digium Wildcard TDM with two stations and two trunks that I’m going to try out as a part of this demonstration, so I’ll let you know how that goes.

The AA60, unlike other VoIP appliances (such as the Jazinga we looked at a few weeks back), delivers only voice functionality. That is, it isn’t a switch, router, or firewall.  For installers looking at a more high-end PBX product with fewer strings attached, this is a blessing.  For some offices, and all-in-one unit makes sense. I would argue though, that for most, having a standalone PBX makes the most sense.  Keeping PBX separate from infrastructure spreads out the points of failure and doesn’t make your phone system reliant on a bundled switch or router. Digium has wisely decided not to include those extra components.

In the next post, we’ll get into configuring the AA60 and talk about the pros and cons, if we discover any. See you then.