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Re: Postmaster @ vtext.com (or what are best practice to send SMS these days)

  • From: Dominic J. Eidson
  • Date: Wed Apr 16 14:35:50 2008


My recommendation as of late has been to use WCTP with a TAP backup. (using qpage at $WORK)

This way you get the faster delivery/rate of WCTP, with an OOB fall-back should it be needed.

Most pager companies (and presumably many cell providers) provide interfaces for one/both of the above.


- d.

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008, Patrick Shoemaker wrote:

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:33:40 -0400
From: Patrick Shoemaker <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Postmaster @ vtext.com (or what are best practice to send SMS
    these days)


My solution is to use a modem / POTS line hanging off the nagios box along with the qpage daemon to send alerts out through a TAP gateway. If you need the specs and 800 number for Verizon's TAP gateway I can send it offlist.

http://www.dynowski.com/blog/2006/05/19/using-nagios-with-quickpage-a-sms-tap-gateway/

This is important not only to avoid the inconsistency of the vtext email-sms gateway but to get an alert out in case of a major network disruption that breaks email functionality.

Patrick Shoemaker
President, Vector Data Systems LLC
[email protected]
office: (301) 358-1690 x36
mobile: (410) 991-5791
http://www.vectordatasystems.com


David Ulevitch wrote: 

 We've noticed that [email protected] is no longer a very reliable form
 of delivery for alerts from Nagios, et al.  It seems as our volume of
 alerts has risen, our delivery rate has dropped precipitously.

 We don't expect much trying to actually reach a postmaster for vtext.com
 so I thought the better question would be to ask what the current best
 practice is to get SMS alerts out?

 Back in the day, I remember a company I worked for had something called a
 TAP gateway.  Is that still a good route?  I've also been told to check
 out an SMS gateway/api service called clickatell.com  -- anyone using them
 to delivering timely notifications?

 Is the best thing to do to try and get a programmable cellphone in a
 datacenter?

What else are operators doing to get the pages out when things go wonky?

-David




--
Dominic J. Eidson
                                     "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" - Gimli
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