voice mail life

[skip555]

I havent really seen anything on this but what do you consider the working life of a pc based voice mail system to be ?

I was thinking the other day that common wisdom is that computer hardrive life is about 5 years so maybe we should be thinking of replacing PC based VM's at about the 5 year mark ?

I have several customers whose VM is meeting their needs just fine but are approaching or have passed the 5 year mark maybe I should be talking to them about replacment,

 

[executone]

PC life is less than phone equipment life, because of the tasks they are doing. If you have a voicemail that is on a UPS(battery Backup). The normal life cycle is ten years, but I would not replace until broke. Customers do not want to spend money unles it benifits them (new features). Just perform routine maintenence (backups and documentation).
Good Luck!!

 

[skip555]

executone

while its true that customers dont want to spend money , they have become so dependent on the auto attendent that they dont want to be without it

I dont think waiting for the vm to go down is the best policy

a large customer calling and telling me his vm is down and my arriving on site and finding I cant get it back up
Is not something I look forward to.

I really dont know that you can say that hardrive access on a active VM is really less than on a PC

does anyone have any 8 to 10 yeard old VMS that are still working well?
have you seen failure in the 5-6 year range

I really have seen nothing on this and am wondring

what brings this up is I had a customer call the other day and say he wants to get a spare voicmail , have it progamed and ready in the equipment room in case of failure.

he has enough spares on site to totaly replace the phone switch and he wants to be covered 100%

 

[executone]

I have systems that are just about 10 years old, but I have also have system only a few months old crash. I do routine maintenence on all voicemails (make tape backup of all data, diagnostics on harddrive and PC componets, claen inside of dust) and try to replace before failure. I agree customers love there voicemail and Auto Attendent untill they loose it. I would try to recomend anyone that has problems over and over to upgrade or replace system, but not if all is well. As for your customer wanting another system as spare. That is his choice, but most vendors stock spares. Therefore if he has a complete backup of all data on voicemail, it would not take long to get him operational again. Always recomend a backup of harddrive. They either pay for it now or latter.

I also agree with your coment on harddrive access on a voicemail being simular to a PC, but a PC is constantly turned on and off.

Each manufacturer will stat different specs for cycle life of a system.

Good Luck!!