Kerio Operator Box 1210

For many small businesses, getting set up with voice-over-IP telephony generally meant one of two things: consumer-focused platforms that were affordable but didn't really offer business-specific features, or complex enterprise-class PBX systems that were expensive and too difficult to deploy. Luckily for the SMB, Kerio Technologies offers the Kerio Operator Box 1210, a PBX chock-full of enterprise-class features that is fairly easy to deploy, straightforward to use, and at just the right price-point for small budgets.

Why would a small business want to shift to a VoIP?system instead of just sticking with the normal business phone service from the local phone carrier? For starters, it could help make the business look bigger, with auto-attendant recordings, specialized messages for after hours, and the ability to handle calls, such as providing hours of operation or product information via pre-recorded messages, even when the line is busy.

Kerio actually offers the SMB-class PBX in various forms. There is the Kerio Operator Box 1210 ($900 for a five-user license), a small appliance small enough to sit comfortably on a desk, and the Kerio Operator Box 3210 (starting at $1400 for a five-user license), a 1U server. Administrators can download the Kerio Operator software and install it onto their own hardware. Kerio also offers Operator as a VMware virtual appliance (vmx and ovf formats) for organizations who prefer virtual environments. The low cost of entry is a big plus for the small business.

For this review, I looked at the Kerio Operator Box 1210.

Looking at the Hardware
Measuring 10.7 by 7.7 by 1.7 inches?(HWD) and tipping the scale at just over 4.4 pounds, the desktop PBX is a distinctive orange and easy to see. The rear panel has four Ethernet ports, two of which are Gigabit, along with two USB ports, a power button, and the port for the power cord. The front panel has LEDs for power, status (usually means disk activity), and one for each network port. I had the desktop PBX running on my desk for several months, and the unit never got noisy or hot to touch.

The Operator Box 1210 has 2GB of memory and 8GB of industrial grade compact flash disk storage. Kerio Operator is based on Asterisk, the open-source SIP communication software, which is why it can work with a wide range of IP phones and softphones, including models from Cisco, Snom, Polycom, and Yealink/Well. Operator Box 1210 can support up to 50 concurrent calls and concurrently record up to 10 calls. The appliance comes with 4GB of on-board storage for voicemails. The 3210 supports a higher call volume.

At $900, the Kerio Operator Box 1210 comes with five users by default. Organizations can buy additional licenses per user for $30, in additional groups of five, to add more users to the system.

Getting Started
Setup is not that difficult, unlike many business-class PBX systems which generally require a technician or a reseller to come on site to help with the deployment. However, Kerio Operator Box 1210 has a lot of steps, and each one has to be done exactly as they are listed in the installation guide. The box ships by default with a static IP address already assigned. I connected the Kerio box with a testing machine so that I could open up the Web-based interface.

I created a password for the Administrator account and then stepped through the setup wizard to set the time zone and other basics. I changed the IP address assigned to the box to one that fit my network. While I had the option to use DHCP, network devices should have static IP addresses. After changing the IP address, I plugged the Kerio box directly into the switch so that it was on the network.

As mentioned earlier, it is extremely important to follow the installation instructions carefully. For example, when trying to get to the Web-based administrator interface for the first time, I was supposed to plug one end of the Ethernet cable into the Operator Box's port 1. And it has to be port 1. I wasted a lot of frustrating minutes trying to troubleshoot why I couldn't ping the box or open the Web interface before realizing that I'd plugged cable in to port 4. As soon as I switched ports, everything worked.

I decided to deploy the Kerio Operator behind a firewall. I specified on the interface, under System, that there was a firewall, and entered my public IP address. This meant I had to add port forwarding rules to handle incoming SIP?traffic (port 5060). I didn't need to open the other TCP ports specified in the manual since I didn't need features like being able to access the Web-interface directly from the Internet?Next: Kerio Operator Box Web Interface, PBX Features

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