Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2024 17:37:38 +0000

Thanks for reaching out regarding the need for proactive log monitoring.  This email explains the context of how our solution works, what to expect.  It also has a few business and technical discovery questions, so we understand their business and expectations. It will be great if we can get on a call with the account team / customer to understand more.

This can be answered by a managed services partner or by the customer directly (in case they are self-managing their voice network).

Context:

  1.  The system supports all major versions of OEM supported products.
  2.  The system gets application logs from Linux and Windows, and platform logs from Linux.
  3.  The system collects logs using syslog in Linux and using a custom script in Windows.
  4.  The system operates in 3 logical parts
     *   Collect, aggregate, parse, filter, enrich and forward logs
     *   Detect issues proactively and alert via dashboard, email and Service Now.  Provide 1-click access to logs from the alarm.
     *   Detect call failures, VXML failures, loss of HA, loss of recording or loss of logging.
     *   Detect operational issues by finding custom patterns in logs like certificate expiry
     *   Detect complex issues like loss of recording, loss of archival of recorded files, leak of PII in logs and failure to comply with India OSP regulations.
  5.  They system can be deployed as a 1 VM solution or multi-VM solution depending on the number of servers and can be completely onPrem or deployed on cloud.

Discovery questions: (Read ‘you’ as ‘you or your customer’)

  1.  Do you face issues / outages frequently with voice / contact center like call failures, trunk down, VXML failures etc., or performance issues?  Do you escalate the issues with the OEM?
  2.  Do you support Avaya SAL method for remote access?
  3.  Do you use local users in the voice systems?  Do you use a privileged ID manager to store the access credentials?
  4.  Do you archive voice system / application logs with Splunk / Data dog or equivalent?
  5.  Do you analyze the logs you archive?
  6.  Do you archive logs for compliance reasons?  Any specific logs like IAM / audit logs or all logs? What compliance?
  7.  Have you ever had a problem of loss of recording or loss of archival of the recorded files?
  8.  Do you collect payment card number in the IVR or any other customer PII?
  9.  Are you afraid that some PII could be present in the logs?
  10. Do you have a contact center or Agents in India (which means you need to be compliant to OSP regulation)?
  11. Do you outsource managed services?  Have you signed an SLA with the vendor for up time / escalation resolution? Are you happy with the managed services?
  12. If not, what do you expect better from the vendor?

Thanks