Reliability of hard- and software
The new European enduser has more rights !
Since 2002 we have the new European law what to take care about selling services, charging money for that service and storing personal data. If you sell a contract for using telecom services to endusers, you are fully responsible to deliver proofen data in your invoice.
That means, the chain from starting a foreign call to the timestamp of starting the charged call-time to the timestamp of the end of the call in combination with the PIN, that means the right customer, that must be absolutely secure, means foolproof.
Hardware must be reliable !
In case of the used hardware, it must be an absolutely reliable SIP- and gatekeeper server hardware (Compaq 1850R or DL380 or ML370) with a reliable operating system, a reliable SIP- and/or gatekeeper software working reliable with a professional gateway hardware (MAX TNT) with a reliable software (TAOS).
The server should have a dual (or better) power supply with one or two ups, may be a second ethernet interface and a reliable RAID disk system with a battery buffered RAID controller (Compaq 3200).
The gateway must be a shown long term reliable hardware (MAX TNT) with dual power too. The 100 Mbit/s switch between these both units must be from similar quality.
Trusted software is required !
The relational database (MYSQL) must be mirrored online in well balanced increments of some 6 hours or continously replicated to another gatekeeper server.
The daily log should be compressed every day in the morning and mailed to a special mailbox onto a backup-server in case of a crash of the complete system.
Even your accounting system must be equiped with a program to do manually spot checks at any time.
The law is comming closer !
If there is one serious request from the governmnet or an involved sub-department, you need to open all your documents and books and you have the obligation of evidence.
And, by law, in the near future you must be able, to offer an emergency call number for local help. However, nobody knows, how to handle that, but it may be reqired shortly to start your operations.