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

[David Ulevitch]

We've noticed that ***@vtext.com 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
datacenter

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

-Davi

[Randy Epstein]

David Ulevitch wrote

<snip

Post by David Ulevitch
What else are operators doing to get the pages out when things go wonky

Get a pager! :) SMS is just not as reliable

Post by David Ulevitch
Davi

Rand

[Derrick Bennett]

[Patrick Shoemaker]

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 Shoemake
President, Vector Data Systems LL
***@vectordatasystems.co
office: [phone] x3
mobile: [phone]
http://www.vectordatasystems.co

Post by David Ulevitch
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
datacenter
What else are operators doing to get the pages out when things go wonky
-Davi

[Dominic J. Eidson]

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

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:33:40 -040
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 Shoemake
President, Vector Data Systems LL
office: [phone] x3
mobile: [phone]
http://www.vectordatasystems.co

of delivery for alerts from Nagios, et al. It seems as our volume o
alerts has risen, our delivery rate has dropped precipitously
We don't expect much trying to actually reach a postmaster for vtext.co
so I thought the better question would be to ask what the current bes
practice is to get SMS alerts out
Back in the day, I remember a company I worked for had something called
TAP gateway. Is that still a good route? I've also been told to chec
out an SMS gateway/api service called clickatell.com -- anyone using the
to delivering timely notifications
Is the best thing to do to try and get a programmable cellphone in
datacenter
What else are operators doing to get the pages out when things go wonky
-Davi

--
Dominic J. Eidso
"Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" - Giml
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.the-infinite.org

[Peter Kranz]

If you stick with SMS messages, the weakest link will always be the carrier
SMS gateway. Since this is the last item in the chain, any upstream servic
will still be handicapped by the gateway. I've worked with a variety o
carriers, and they have all had problems at one point or another with thei
SMS gateways getting overwhelmed with SMS spam, etc.. causing long SM
delivery queues or dropped messages. If you can find the SMS gateway admi
at Verizon they can probably comment on what the issue is and any planne
resolutions, else you may need to switch providers to one with a mor
cluefull SMS gateway team

So far this year, I have only had a couple instances of delayed/dropped SM
delivery via the AT&T/Cingular SMS Gateway.

Peter Kran
Founder/CEO - Unwired Lt
www.UnwiredLtd.co
Desk: 510-868-1614 x10
Mobile: [phone]
***@unwiredltd.co

-----Original Message----
From: owner-***@merit.edu [mailto:owner-***@merit.edu] On Behalf O
David Ulevitc
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 10:00 A
To: ***@merit.ed
Subject: Postmaster @ vtext.com (or what are best practice to send SMS thes
days

We've noticed that ***@vtext.com 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
datacenter

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

-Davi

[Andrey Gordon]

[Darryl Dunkin]

Yes, this is still a good route for those of us with old pager
(cell/pager via e-mail have had horrendous drop rates for me, likely du
to the volume of messages). If the network issue is severe enough tha
your Internet access is not working, you can still dial via a modem
Even then things don't always get through the provider, so I have tw
Nagios systems running in tandem. This means receiving two notices fo
each outage, but often enough we still only receive one (even thoug
each Nagios/qpage server reports a success on both sides)

-----Original Message----
From: owner-***@merit.edu [mailto:owner-***@merit.edu] On Behalf O
David Ulevitc
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 10:0
To: ***@merit.ed
Subject: Postmaster @ vtext.com (or what are best practice to send SM
these days

We've noticed that ***@vtext.com is no longer a very reliable=2
form of delivery for alerts from Nagios, et al. It seems as our volume=2
of alerts has risen, our delivery rate has dropped precipitously

We don't expect much trying to actually reach a postmaster for vtext.co

so I thought the better question would be to ask what the current=2
best practice is to get SMS alerts out

Back in the day, I remember a company I worked for had something called=2
a TAP gateway. Is that still a good route? I've also been told to=2
check out an SMS gateway/api service called clickatell.com -- anyone=2
using them to delivering timely notifications

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

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

-Davi

[David Coulson]

In my experience, even with TAP, sending messages to a cell phone is
spotty at best. I have folks on both uni-directional pagers via TAP or
SNPP, as well as cell phones via e-mail and TAP. There isn't a
noticeable difference in delivery time between e-mail and TAP on the phones

Cell to Cell is probably the best option if you want to stick with SMS
to cell phones. I have no idea how reliable it is between carriers. I
still get some comfort knowing that people have pagers with a TAP
gateway - I've no idea how the technology differs between a pager and
SMS, but it seems much more reliable. All of the pager problems I've had
in the last few years have been, erm, 'payment related'

Post by David Ulevitch
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
datacenter
What else are operators doing to get the pages out when things go wonky
-Davi

[Deepak Jain]

Verizon at least, uses SS7 signaling to deliver on-network SMS. This
means they can provide delivery confirmation with their SMSes. I am not
aware of another US network that does this or interacts with Verizon
over SS7 for SMS exchange

So, if you are using a phone's SMS capability on the same network (e.g.
Verizon) and it has delivery confirmation you might be very happy

Deepa

Post by David Coulson
In my experience, even with TAP, sending messages to a cell phone is
spotty at best. I have folks on both uni-directional pagers via TAP or
SNPP, as well as cell phones via e-mail and TAP. There isn't a
noticeable difference in delivery time between e-mail and TAP on the phones
Cell to Cell is probably the best option if you want to stick with SMS
to cell phones. I have no idea how reliable it is between carriers. I
still get some comfort knowing that people have pagers with a TAP
gateway - I've no idea how the technology differs between a pager and
SMS, but it seems much more reliable. All of the pager problems I've had
in the last few years have been, erm, 'payment related'

Post by David Ulevitch
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
datacenter
What else are operators doing to get the pages out when things go wonky
-Davi

[Duane Wessels]

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008, David Ulevitch said

Post by David Ulevitch
What else are operators doing to get the pages out when things go wonky

I added asterisk and a cheap X100P card to my Nagios setup. Now
can get a voice call if things are really bad

I started to install some text-to-speech tools also, but got depresse
by all the additional ports that were coming along for the ride
So for now it just plays a prerecorded message: "go check nagios!

D