Redundant schema for SMS sending

Redundant schema for SMS sending SearchSearch
Author Message
Alexey Ivanov
New member
Username: Alexey_ivanov

Post Number: 1
Registered: 03-2012
Posted on Thursday, March 01, 2012 - 01:56 pm:   

Hello!

Can NowSMS gate work with two different gsm-modems in schema when if one attempt to send SMS is unsuccessful NowSMS tries to send via second modem??
How NowSMS can determine status of sent SMS ?

Thanks!
Des - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Desosms

Post Number: 3827
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Friday, March 02, 2012 - 04:48 pm:   

Hi Alexey,

You raise a good question.

Let me explain how NowSMS works as a starting point.

Unless you define restrictions on how messages are routed, by default with multiple modems, it is random which messages go out which modem. If one modem is failing a message, chances are that one of the retries would eventually see a retry attempt on another modem. (By default there are 20 potential attempts.)

But it is random.

We'd like to come up with some ideas to improve this. The problem is that modem error codes tend to be inexact.

I'd be curious to hear more about your scenario.

Will the modem reject numbers that it cannot send to (off-network recipients)? Do you see a certain error code on these attempts? (You will see the error attempts in SMSOUT-yyyymmdd.LOG files.)

Regarding message status, are you referring to delivery receipts? You can ask for them when submitting a message by including &ReceiptRequested=Yes in the submissions URL (or there are also settings to turn on this flag by default).

When a message requests a delivery receipt, NowSMS includes that flag in the upstream message delivery.

If you're sending out via a modem, it is then up to that operator as to whether or not they send delivery reports back.

If they do, these come back to NowSMS and would usually be processed by a 2-way command:

http://support.nowsms.com/discus/messages/1/24078.html

Beware ... however ... that most GSM modems do not do well with high volumes of simultaneous sending and receiving of messages. (Receiving a delivery report is the same as receiving a message.) So requesting delivery reports tends to slow down outbound message sending.

We did recently add a configuration option to allow NowSMS to generate an "in-transit" delivery report to indicate when it had dispatched a message to a modem, so that delivery reports would not impact modem performance. If you need information on that, I'd have to look it up as I don't have it on hand at present.

--
Des
NowSMS Support
Alexey Ivanov
New member
Username: Alexey_ivanov

Post Number: 2
Registered: 03-2012
Posted on Tuesday, March 06, 2012 - 08:00 am:   

Des, thanks for answer.
Unfortunately GSM-modem is placed on customer side.
Now it's working using NowSMS lite software and one GSM-modem
Customer wants to improve redundancy (double count of GSM-modem and control SMS sending)
So the main question was Is full NowSMS software able to help?

Of course, any additional information about interesting features will be helpful.

Thanks.
Des - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Desosms

Post Number: 3834
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Thursday, March 08, 2012 - 03:27 pm:   

Hi Alexey,

Yes, the full NowSMS software supports multiple modem connections, as well as other types of SMSC connections.

It's hard to know where to start describing the differences, because NowSMS has so many odd and unusual uses. However, this link provides a pretty good overview of common uses/features:

http://www.nowsms.com/faq/why-nowsms

--
Des
NowSMS Support