Internet Phone Communication

We started the Internet phone communication business in providing voice system and VPN system service about 2 years ago. Our backend operation servers that provide these services for our clients originaly run on Windows platform.

However as our client base increase, the operation servers has become more and more unstable. It requires us to restart the servers at least once every three weeks to resume the servers operations. That creates a big hurdle to our business growth. It also affects our daily operation service for the customers.

In addition, as we expand our future business and scopes, we have calculated the software license fee of the vendor voice solution system would have been outrageous.

In order to maintain business profits and operations, we determined it is worthwhile to invest on a new design of the hardware box and search for another technology which can run on Linux platform.

Therefore, the reasons we looked into Linux were based on cost savings, reliability and flexibility.

Currently, we have two dedicated Linux servers to provide our clients with voice system and VPN system services, serving approximately a total of 1800 ports. We named these two servers as Voice Tunnel Technology Server (VTT).

So what is our solution all about?

The voice system solution enables communication over the Internet. Unlike other internet telephony solutions, the users can use their existing telephone and not through a PC or any proprietary telephone hardware.

The VPN system services enable companies to build an intranet using dynamic IP address. There is no investment needed on fix IP address.

Traditionally, in building a VPN network or setting up a voice over internet (VOIP), fix IP is the basic requirement. Howerver fix IP is usually expensive to afford for SME companies and individual users. For instance, to register a fix IP in China or in Hong Kong is about HK$3000 to HK$6000 a month.

However with our solution on a broadband connection, only a hardware box of HK$1800 needed to be purchased and a monthly payment of HK$60 then users can enjoy the luxury of traditional VPN and VOIP systems.

For the setup, users only have to connect their telephone and the ADSL / cable modem that supplied by their broadband provider to our hardware box.

The hardware box will automatically update the VTT servers with end users changed of IP address to match the appropriate domain name on their servers.

Therefore even with the dynamic IP address provided by the broadband internet services, users will be able to communicate among each other in a similar VPN environment because the hardware box will seamlessly update the change of IP information to match the machine.

The transfer speed of data and the voice quality are excellent.

During the whole transition, one of our major milestones is to work together with ThizLinux consultants to research, test on Linux based automatic update Dynamic IP program and redesign the hardware box to suit the new requirements of the Linux server.

In planning to move our existing users from Windows to Linux, we deployed a parallel piloting strategy. After a month of observation with the stability of the new Linux VTT server, we then gradually transfer their existing users from Windows to Linux. It was seamless to our clients since we could do everything remotely.

Comparing to the situtation with Windows, they are very pleased with the performance with the new Linux server. They have not experienced any reboot and restart problems like Windows ever since the switch over.

The ThizLinux consultant and technical team was a great help in our project. The actual setting up for the Linux VTT server was not a hassle.

With the consultants' experience, any hiccups and problems were resolved immediately on the spot. The total deployment and setup time was about half a day only.

We have designed the infrastructure to ensure high availability of their services to customers.

Data are automatically being backup every night from the main hard disks onto other two hard disks. With this system architecture, we don't have to worry about users information and data being lost.

Lastly, we have designed our disaster recovery plan to ensure our service is 24 hours available for our clients.

1. Main VTT server and Backup VTT server are in different locations.
   We have hosted our main VTT with PCCW Data Center and placed the backup VTT in our office.
   
   
2. Each VTT server is subscribed to different leased line provider.
   The main VTT is with PCCW and the backup VTT is with Hutchison Telecom.
   
   
3. Clients and configurations information are registered to both servers at the same time.
   Therefore as one server is down, the backup server will automatically pick up the job with all necessary information.

In terms of security, our hardware boxes are equipped with data encryption capability to ensure the safe of our clients data traveling through the internet.

In addition, on each side of the server, we have implemented a firewall to safeguard the incoming and outgoing traffic from the outsiders. Only our authentic devices will have access to our servers.

During the transition, we simply remote configure the hardware boxes for our existing users. There were no interruptions and hardware upgrade required for the existing users.

It is because of Linux, we can maintain the business investment and operation cost slow. In return, they can provide a inexpensive rate of phone and VPN services for customers who cannot afford the luxury of the traditional VPN service and VOIP service.

We had hesitated a bit in the beginning with the switch over because they need to redesign the firmware of our hardware box from ground up to suit the new Linux based solution.

Nevertheless, after the calculation on the cost savings in business investment, it was the right decision. With Windows based 3rd party application, we would have to invest approximately about 1.6M just on the license fee alone.

Whereas with Linux based solution, they may only need to invest in a couple of powerful servers and the saving on the business investment is 98%!