Earlier this month the the folks at i6Net Technologies showcased the release of a new version of its VXI* VoiceXML browser here. In a series of subsequent posts, the site offered pointers or suggestions regarding implementation of VXI* as a “plug in” for Asterisk-based IP-PBX’s including a set of virtual solutions where the browser is running in association with an instantiation of Asterisk 1.4 virtual PBX in Amazon’s EC2 (Elactic Compute Cloud) data centers. As explained in this blog post, the apps will be able to run in other virtual environments, but “activation keys” under the VXI* “Cloud Beta Program” can only be obtained from Amazon for EC2.

I hope this isn’t getting too deep in the telephony weeds, but it strikes me as an under-reported development in the Recombinant Communications marketscape. Amazon, arguably the defining giant in Web-based retailing, has made impressive inroads into cloud-based e-commerce, where resources like “checkout”, “simple pay,” and “fulfillment” are extended to a broad spectrum of businesses through the cloud, where they reside with enhanced storage, security, database management and other Web services that can rival the likes of IBM, Microsoft, SalesForce.com and Oracle.

Optimization of EC2 to boost the performance of Asterisk seems to have begun in earnest roughly a year ago. Adding speech-enabled IVR using i6net’s beta program for testing VXI based VoiceXML scripts in EC2 began the following August. Apparently several applications have already moved into production. Thus we see RC on EC2 accelerating with the likes of i6net and Twilio leading the way.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Amazon Web Services, Recombinant Communications, Asterisk, VXI