Elastix is an appliance software that integrates the best tools available for Asterisk-based PBXs into a single, easy-to-use interface. It also adds its own set of utilities and allows for the creation of third party modules to make it the best software package available for open source telephony.
The goals of Elastix are reliability, modularity and ease-of-use. These characteristics added to the strong reporting capabilities make it the best choice for implementing an Asterisk-based PBX.
The INTERNET TELEPHONY CONFERENCE & EXPO 2010, better known as ITEXPO took place on January 20-22, 2010 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, USA.
ITEXPO is an event that brings together IP telephony exhibitors, integrators and providers of complementary services from around the world. It is one of the most important IP telephony Expos in the USA and takes place twice a year in Miami and Los Angeles respectively.
Elastix was represented in ITEXPO this year colocated with Sangoma Technologies, one of our leading technology partners.
At ITEXPO, Elastix had the opportunity to showcase the new features included in Elastix 2.0. This event was also use as a platform for the launch of the new ELX Series Appliance "ELX-5000", designed to reach 250 concurrent calls and to work in high availability environments.
At the same time, Elastix had the opportunity to share the open panel discussion “Has Open Source Telephony Crossed The Chasm” with executives from Sangoma, Xorcom, Digium, and Dialogic. This panel hosted a great discussion on the present and future of open source telephony.
Finally, this was a great time for meeting with many members of the Elastix community. Likewise, our partners had a chance to Exchange future ideas for Elastix.
Winners of the Award “Contributor of the Year 2009”
Friday, 15 January 2010
The Elastix project has the honour to announce the winners of the “Contributor of the Year 2009” awards. These awards are brought to you thanks to the following sponsors:
First Place $1000, “Contributor of the Year 2009” Award Goes to Bob Fryer
Bob, who is from Australia, is known by many of you because of the excellent support that he gives on our community forums, where he is also a moderator.
However, he does not only collaborate on the Elastix forums, but also is the founder of the Elastix Connection website, where one can find excellent documentation related to Elastix. Bob has also contributed in the development of Ben Shariff's book, “Elastix Without Tears .” Recently, Bob became one of the first Elastix bloggers, and he has already contributed with several posts. Bob is also one of our main beta testers, he actually has hardware specially dedicated for the testing of the beta versions of Elastix.
Among his most recent projects, Bob works together with Mark Brooker in porting an improved version of the Trixbox endpoints configuration module to Elastix.
Second Place $500, “Contributor of the Year” Award goes to Franck Danard
Franck Danard, from France, is the person that participates the most in the Elastix forum, and the one that has the highest karma rating. Thanks to Franck, the French forum was created where he is the moderator. He is also member of the beta testers and developers groups. Within these two groups, Franck has shared with the community some template improvements for the Elastix call center module.
Ten Honorable Mention Contributors
Besides the two “Contributors of the Year,” we have the pleasure to present to you the ten honorable mention contributors who will be awarded with an IP Phone. These are presented in alphabetical order:
Alfio Muñoz, from the Dominican Republic, participates in the Elastix forums, several mailing lists, and the Elastix chat channels. Thanks to Alfio, the Elastix Spanish chat channel was registered, and he is always there available to help when needed. Currently, his most important work is his book, “Elastix Con Sabor Merengue” that will be published next week.
Anderson Gouveia, from Portugal, has helped us to coordinate the Portuguese Elastix community. Thanks to him, we now have a Portuguese mailing list where problems are resolved in that language. Some of his other contributions include the translation of the Elastix installation manual into Portuguese.
Augusto Sepúlveda, from Mexico, is a very active member in the Spanish Elastix forums and in the Spanish mailing list. In both places, he always gives excellent support. Augusto is also one of the main bloggers in the Spanish Elastix blog.
Ben Shariff, from Australia, is the author of the book, “Elastix Without Tears.” This book is considered to be one of the main resources available to Elastix users.
Dicko Ollet, from the United States, is one of the forum members that participates the most. He also has one of the highest karma ratings. Most of you have probably received support from Dicko.
Fernando Villares, from Argentina, is one of our main Elastix Project beta testers. Thanks to Fernando, we created the mailing list for the beta testers, which is the main means of communication between the beta testers and the project developers. Fernando is also continually providing support in the Spanish mailing lists.
Josiah Spackman (chilling_silence), from New Zealand, is very active in the Elastix forums by giving support to users. He has also published several Elastix tips, and as a result, he has become one of our regular bloggers.
Haamed Kouhfallah, from Iran, helped translate Elastix to the Persian language. He has also worked on a RPM that allows to have right-to-left support in Elastix GUI. Thanks to Haamed, we also created the Asterisk Programming forum.
Patrick_elx, from France though now lives in Miami, USA, is very active in the Spanish and French Elastix forums. He also contributes to the Superfecta pluggin for FreePBX.
Ramón Lozano, from Spain, is better known as Ramoncio. Ramón is very active in both the Spanish and the English Elastix forums. Besides being one of our most active participants, he is also a forum moderator. His main contribution has been the creation of the Avant Fax RPM.
Congratulations to everyone, to those who are on the above list and to those that are not. This has been a great year!
Last year we had the opportunity to strengthen the Elastix certification program in America and Spain with more than 10 certification dates and several Elastix certified professionals.
This year we want to start with two ECE courses in Colombia, one in Bogota and another one in Medellin, at Business Support our new Testing Center in that Country. We are excited to retake our certification program in Colombia, where a large number of professionals are working with Elastix on implementations and developments across multiple companies.
The dates for these courses are:
- ECE - Bogota, 8 - 12, February 2010 - ECE - Medellin, 15 - 19, February 2010
This year we are also launching our online certification exam starting with a date in Argentina for an ECE Testing journey in Spanish. The date for this first ECE certification exam will be on the 26th of February in Buenos Aires at Intelix one of our Authorized Testing Centers in South America.
Upcoming dates
During these days we will publish new course dates for Mexico, Argentina, Dominican Republic and Brazil.
Authorized Testing Center
To assure the quality of the certification program we´ve established Authorized Testing Center in America and Spain. They will handle the official program and tests for the Elastix Certification. For more information about our Authorized Testing Centers take a look at our Partner List.
We hope that this year brings lot of satisfactions for all the Elastix Community and the certification program establishes in new locations around the world.
Elastix 2.0 Alpha 3 has been released and now you can downloaded it for testing in its' 32 bits and 64 bits versions. Early next year our first beta version will be released. This new version will have better improvements such as better usability, a new image, software packages updated, and much more. Here we share with you some screen shots of what Elastix 2.0 will be like in the future.
Renovated Dashboard
The new Dashboard in Elastix 2.0 will allow users to be aware of their system, its performance, lost calls, mails, news from Elastix, and much more. The user will be able to choose the applets he wants to see and how he would see them. Everything will work by dragging and dropping the applets without the need of a browser plugin.
Elastix Operator Panel
Elastix Operator Panel is similar to Flash Operator Panel, but there is no need to install any plugin in your web browser. Another advantage is that you can modify the structure of your panel with out the need of touching any text file. Everything is drag and drop!
Elastix Conference Room
The Elastix Conference Room is a great tool to have virtual meetings. The Elastix Conference module can be extended with the Conference Room. This will give you nice features, like viewing presentations in several file formats, a document repository to share, and chat support.
Mail Improvements
Now it is easier to integrate Elastix with an External mail server. All you need is to fill in a form and you are set, no need to edit config files. Other useful improvement is the integration with the mailing list engine, Mailman. This will allow administrators to create mailing lists from the Elastix web interface.
Send Faxes via Web
Now you will be able to send faxes directly from the web interface. There will be no need for a fax client to be installed in the users desktops. You may send faxes by writing directly in the text area or you can upload pdfs, tiff, or plain text files.
Improvements in the
DHCP Module
The new DHCP server module includes two important improvements. The first one is the screen that will allow administrators to see the IPs and MAC adresses of all their DHCP clients. The second one is that you can assign static ips to MAC addresses. This will allow for easier identification and configuration of the phones.
These are just some of the new functionalities that will came with Elastix 2.0.. Beta-testers and other enthusiastics can download this Alfa version (32 bits and 64 bits) to be tested. Bugs should be reported in the bug tracker.
This month we would like to make publicly recognize our appreciation to Augusto Sepulveda for his contributions to the Elastix Project. Augusto is an Elastix Certified Technician (ECT) , an active member of our community, and a contributor to the Elastix Spanish Blog.
Augusto works with Telephony and VoIP since the year 2003, using Cisco equipment primarily. In the year 2006, the company that he worked for needed less costly equipment and software so he learned about Asterisk. At the end of 2007, Augusto found Elastix and in mid 2008, he created the company Nextor Telecom that offers IPPBX services based on Elastix.
Since mid 2008, Augusto started being an active member of our community. He continually contributes in the Spanish and English forums, various mailing lists, and he is one of the first Elastix bloggers in Spanish.
Congratulations, Augusto, for your work and thank you for supporting the Elastix project.
