We’ve finally moved our private cloud storage feature out of beta. All customers of our Enterprise phone plan can now have their call recordings automatically transferred to an Amazon S3 account to improve their security and privacy in handling sensitive information.
It is still the case that VirtualPBX offers Call Recording on its Advanced and Enterprise plans with and included gigabyte of storage and offers room for purchase of additional space.
We now simply offer more choices for our customers. Any business that wishes to have its recordings transferred to personal cloud storage can now link its account to Amazon AWS.
Benefits of External Storage
Customers can expect to realize a number of benefits when they begin transferring their call recordings to off-site, private cloud storage, including enhancing security, saving space, and increasing ease-of-use when handling data.
Enhance Security
VirtualPBX highly values its customer relationships and takes many measures to protect sensitive data. This mindset extends into the transfer of recordings to Amazon S3 servers which happens via HTTPS and SSL connections. Customer data is secure throughout all call recording data transfers.
Data also remains protected once recording data is on Amazon servers and outside the reach of VirtualPBX. Amazon S3 accounts are secure by default. Users and data owners are the only individuals who have access to the files they create unless permission is explicitly granted otherwise. Group policies and access control lists can be used to manage the collections of call recordings VirtualPBX customers store in their S3 accounts.
Save Space
Although the storage allotment for Call Recording in a VirtualPBX account is generous at 1 GB (and only $4.99 per additional gigabyte), this space can be filled quickly by businesses that complete a lot of recordings.
Calls recorded at approximately 57 MB per hour would fill the 1 GB limit in about 17 hours.
- 1000 MB / 57 MB = 17.5 Hours of recording
A company of 100 individuals who each recorded just 15 minutes of voice data every day would then fill that 17.5 hours in fewer than three days.
- 57 MB / 4 = 4.25 MB per person per day
- 100 Employees * 4.25 MB = 425 MB Total recording per day
- 1000 MB / 425 MB = 2.4 Days to use storage allotment
Each company’s recording load will be different. Depending on the circumstances, some businesses will meet their storage allotments quickly, while other will do so more slowly. Regardless of the case, though, transferring recordings directly to external storage will reduce the load on VirtualPBX servers.
Amazon S3 storage pricing can be found at this link, which includes a monthly calculator to estimate costs.
Increase Ease-of-Use
The same companies that record a lot of conversations will also require more intensive management of their data.
It’s easy for a medium size business to handle a few dozen recordings across the span of a month. For an enterprise with hundreds of recordings a day, its management of that enormous volume could best be served with automatic transfer to Amazon S3.
VirtualPBX gives users the ability to play back, download, and delete recordings from within the phone system dashboard. Recordings are stored in a single folder for each user.
Amazon S3 can be configured to sort files into multiple categories. It offers a more complex system for handling files, so it easily addresses the need for management of hundreds and thousands of files.
Private Cloud Storage: Getting Started
There isn’t much customers need to know before they decide to begin transferring recordings to external storage.
Once a company selects the option, VirtualPBX users will find their recordings automatically transferred to Amazon S3. Recordings will not be saved to their VirtualPBX account, and recordings won’t be available for management within the dashboard.
Of course, this requires that businesses have both an active VirtualPBX account and an Amazon S3 account.
The only additional effort necessary to make the switch is to Configure Amazon Storage and set the VirtualPBX account to reach Amazon. After that, all recordings will automatically be sent to private cloud storage.
We’re happy to help you get started with this exciting feature. If you’re interested in more detail, feel free to call or email us to discuss your options and configure your account.
