Hard drives for voice files are in an 8 drive enclosure. The large SATA drives are mirrored for total reliablity. Drives are in locking trays. The case has multiple fans, temperature controls and other features for redundancy. Should a hard drive fail, a new drive which is standing-by, is simply plugged into the rack. The mirroring controller automatically copies everything from the good drive to the new one.

The drive case itself includes a powerful computer which is used for VOIP connections and adapters. These voice lines then connect to the voice mail system. The temperature sensor system on the far left also holds a hard drive for the enclosed computer. Next to that is a DVD drive for the computer, which is also used for backing up the hard drives in the enclosure. This case has its own 375 watt power supply.

Florida Keys Voice mail uses two large rack mount industrial computers. One system is the production system which is live. The second system is the development system for working on software and programming. Should the production server fail, the development system has the exact same voice boards and configuration and can take over within minutes. FKVM also has additional computer systems for administrative and other operations.

FKVM has various types of Dialogic voice boards in its servers. We have Dialogic boards that handle 4 analog telephone lines and boards that handle T1 digital ISDN circuits. A T1 has 24 voice channels. Were a T1 used for internet access, it has a bandwidth of 1.54 mbs. Pictured is a Dialogic board that handles a T1 line and has 24 voice resources.

These servers have passive backplanes. The backplanes have 19 slots for expansion cards and the CPU card. Rather than a motherboard that is screwed into a case, these computers use PICMG computer boards which plug into a special slot on the backplane. If the computer board fails, it can be unplugged and replaced in a few minutes. These types of systems are used mostly in telecommunications allowing a large number of voice boards and other telecommunications cards to be plugged into the slots.

These computers use Pentium IV 3.4 gigahertz processors and have 1 gig of memory each. They have dual internal drives for the operating system and software. They also have DVD dual layer drives. The voice files for the voice mail system are stored on SATA2 hard drives in the external hard drive enclosure.

System failure though is very unlikely because each server has redundant power supplies. Should a power module fail, the second power module keeps the system running without interruption. The bad power module is then unplugged and a new one is plugged in. FKVM has eight spare power modules on hand. Each power module provides 400 watts of DC power.

Above the hard drive enclosure is a rack mounted keyboard. Underneath is a custom made storage drawer for small parts and software. Below the drawer is the development system.