Vail Voice Platform
State-of-the-Art in every way
All Vail hosted solutions run on Vail's Multi-Fault-Tolerant, distributed voice platform that extends across three redundant sites in Chicago, Illinois, Southfield, Michigan and Deerfield, Illinois. All three sites are protected by diesel power backup, environmental control systems including chemical fire suppression, and restricted personnel access.
All sites have high speed data links, telecom access to all major carriers, dual ported internet access and are located in private, physically secure locations.
A site consists of dozens of processing cells - groups of 5 to 15 Intel servers that perform specific type of voice processing (VXML, call recording, etc..). When additional service capacity is necessary, adding a new server to a cell is a plug and play operation due to the platform's modular architecture. All servers process calls using 'state-of-the-art' Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based Voice-over-IP (VoIP) voice technology. Individual servers in each cell are running various services — including automated speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), call conferencing, messaging (voicemail, email, FAX, paging), call analysis (DNIS, ANI, etc.), and web services — without employing any traditional proprietary telephone or switching equipment. Each site also includes at least two fully replicated RAID 5-based database servers.
Today, Vail's network of 3 sites includes nearly 2000 processors. Each of Vail's 500 hosted applications are running at two or more sites and at two cells at those sites.
Multi-Fault-Tolerant design allows Vail to take a cell or even an entire site off line for maintenance while maintaining full redundancy.
At Vail failure is not an option. An application failure interrupts a customer’s business process.
To approach a zero failure goal, Vail has deployed a Multi-Fault-Tolerant strategy. This means that no single server failure will cause a cell failure, no cell failure can cause a site failure and no site failure can cause an application failure. This means that even during maintenance your application is always running in a fully redundant mode.
The platform has processed billions of mission-critical phone calls across 500 unique applications and 13,000 toll-free numbers. On average, the Vail Voice Platform operates at less than 20% of total capacity. This allows Vail Voice Platform to handle spikes in call volume and component failures seamlessly.
Vail's Automated Load Testing answers the question, "Can my application handle the anticipated load?" When a new application is brought online or an existing one is modified, Vail provides an automated testing service that quickly and easily drives an application at levels above expected production load.
Vail recommends testing all mission critical application at 150% of anticipated load.
Vail understands the many factors that threaten the reliability of voice applications. From system hardware and sub-system interoperability, to telecom service provisioning, to the complexities of today’s speech recognition software, applications need round-the-clock care to guarantee maximum uptime and uninterrupted service.
Vail’s 24/7 Network Operations Center (VNOC) provides monitoring and testing services ranging from fully automated user-side application testing to in-depth port-level monitoring, tracking and reporting. Monitoring screens at the VNOC provide a graphical and textual description of every critical element of the Vail Voice Platform and all live applications. Trained VNOC technical personnel monitor every element in the Vail Voice Platform, respond to resource- and port-specific alarms, and regularly check telecom and data service availability. The VNOC manages an automated application testing service that makes regularly scheduled test calls to client applications to ensure application-level functionality.
The VNOC also tracks application and platform behavior patterns over time to ensure future application reliability and security. Analyzing historical data often reveals performance inconsistencies (e.g. call duration, call volume), unusual call activity that may be linked to unauthorized use, and spikes in system resource consumption. The VNOC can suggest application optimization and tuning methods and recommends steps to prevent critical failures before they occur.
The practices mentioned above are conducted according to documented guidelines and comply with customer security requirements. These practices allow Vail to resolve platform and application issues without undue delay or finger pointing, and ensures that callers can continue to access the system without any degration in caller experience.
When a problem does occur, the VNOC immediately calls the client. The client should never have to call the VNOC first.
The Vail Platform supports applications written in VoiceXML (Version 2.1)/CCXML (Version 1.0), SALT (Version 1.0) and Microsoft Managed Code.