Shutdown Octel 200/300

[dankubala]

I have an Octel 200/300 and I want to "softly" shut it down to change the UPS. In the past it has been a "turn off the switch" operation. I looked at other threads but do not see where (on my system) I can get to sub menu 13 if it isn't on the 200 system, that would explain it.

Any Ideas?

Dan

 

[jon24422531]

If it is a 200/300 Serenade then there is no 'menu 13', I think you may be referring to the 350 Aria system which does have a 'shut down with dump' function. On the Serenade the only option is to power it off. This will do no harm to the system.

Jon

 

[doktor]

dankubala!

There is a SHUTDOWN command for the newer versions of OCTEL 200/300.
If possible please post the s/w level for your system.
This can be seen from the @-prompt by L F.
In our company power off and on is used, normally with no problems.

doktor

 

[jon24422531]

Doktor
The shutdown command only 'closes' the ports etc. It does not power off the system.

Jon

 

[dankubala]

Thanx All!

The main reason why I had asked was that, earlier this year (May 2 if you look at the threads from then) we had a UPS problem, while it was under repair, we had a power "blip"....yes...OUCH!!! Needless to say, 30 hours and $15k later, we were up again. Although no hardware was damaged, it took that long for Avaya to figure out (and reprogram) the config. (What good is a config backup if you can't restore from it?) My boss wanted to prevent this from happening and I told him that all of my training had only showed the "hard" reboot. I did reboot on Wed nite, no prob. I am going to look at the L F menu options just for kicks.

 

[ChuckRCT]

The configuration of the system can be restored from the configuration backup diskette. It should take a lot less than 30 hours.

 

[dankubala]

ChuckRCT,

You must know something that the guy with AVAYA on his shirt didn't, or more than the guyS on the phone all night. The engineers out west said that the disk was only good if you were re-installing all software at the same time. The 30 hours is waiting for tech support, waiting for cards to be delivered, installing everything and it still didn't work......funny, I don't have Avaya on my shirt and after 2 hours I said "Hey, maybe the config is gone...." I was told "no, that it isn't it"....15 hours later....guess what.

 

[ChuckRCT]

Yes, you are right. You can only restore the configuration if you do a re-install. You can then use your backup configuration diskette to restore the configuration. The only problem with doing this is that you would loose the names, greetings, and messages so maybe that wasn't an option for you at the time. I guess I assumed that by "restore" you meant getting it back to a working system after a disk failure.

 

[doktor]

dankubala!

I am the technical responsible engineer for 120 OCTEL voice mail servers installed in my country.
Most of the systems are VMX-100 but quite a few are OCTEL 200/300.
For a harddisk restore we charge the customer 4 hours of technical assistance on-site.(exclusive transportation)
The first hour is used to swap defective hardware and analysis. The next hour is used to install the basic software. The third and fourth hour is used to install our local language and US-english voice prompts an the system back-up from the configuration diskette.

If the configuration diskette is broken and the config has to be manually re-programmed, we are speaking of many extra hours.
Normally 4 hours are used to rescue an OCTEL 200/300 system. Normally, but very seldom the harddisk is swapped.

If a system has to be upgraded e.g. from REL 7.1.5 to S.2
we use one day (7 hours) for that job.

These informations I give you here have been offered in almost all cases, when we offer maintenance on OCTEL products.

If your hardware was not swapped and no configuration has to be manually programmed, I think that 4 hours is sufficient for that job.

Yours doktor

 

[doktor]

I have some additional info:
Our customers have 3 configuration diskettes. One is active in the floppy drive, the next is in the customer safe and the third is in our comany safe.

We dial-in to all our OCTEL servers every night.
We have a daily routine with a computer calling through a modem to all our OCTEL customer to check for ALARMS (@l h).
This is a sort of "early warning -preventive maintenace".
Our customers are quite happy with this offer we can give them.
Once a week a ".list all" (=total configuration of customer data)is being logged to our computer.

So I think we are on the safe side...

For your own sake, you should use a couple of configuration diskettes.
The command to format a new configuration diskette to the OCTEL format and write the configuration to the diskette is:
@SUBMIT H:CRECFG.
If you do this every month on a new configuration diskette,
I think it would be safer for your voice mail system.

doktor.

 

[dankubala]

Gentlemen,

I was not trying to inflame any tempers here!!! My point was that the tech that came out in May did not know the system and admitted that to me. The engineer who was on the phone ALL nite was not very proficient either. We had NO hardware failure and the power outage, albeit brief, was enough to corrupt the configuration, and that was all it was.

In addition, we were not able to dial into the unit and the tech's Hyper-treminal software was not compatible for that system.....At a rate of nearly $300 per hour, I expected more of a professional and targeted response.

I am very new to these systems but not new to troubleshooting. I had been trained by the greatest Navy in the world for over 18 years and released into a society that puts no confidence into the "customers" ideas....

I must retract my timeline, the first 10 of the 30 hours was my scheduled work day. Had we not come to a temp fix by the next business day, the actual cost of the down system could have mounted into tens of thousands of dollars in lost business, so maybe that would explain my bitterness.

I believe that this equipment is world class and reliable, however, I can't say the same for the support.

I appreciate your feedback and experience, this is where I turn to first before calling tech support. I apologize if I have offended anyone and I hope that my "frank" attitude has not compromised that.

Respectfully,
D

 

[doktor]

dankubala!

I just gave you our pricing for the rescuing of an OCTEL 200/300 - in order for you to comapare prices and hours normally used in these cases.
Our engineers has been working with OCTEL for up to 12 years.
This make us able to perform a quick rescue of a system that is down.

Hope that you could use my info.

doktor