Huntsville, Alabama-based Digium said the AsteriskNOW software appliance includes all the Linux components needed to run, debug and build Asterisk.
Since the company released its initial beta of Asterisk last month, it has been downloaded more than 2,000 times a day without any promotion, noted Digium president and Asterisk creator Mark Spencer.
Our goal of reducing the complexity of installing and using Asterisk will expand the market for Digium into more mainstream use, Spencer said. Unlike other Linux distributions used to deploy Asterisk, AsteriskNOW does not have unnecessary components that could compromise security or performance.
AsteriskNOW now includes a new web-based graphic user interface and setup wizard that enables installation by anyone, whether or not they have previous Linux experience, according to Digium. Indeed, the appliance, which is based on the recently released Asterisk 1.4, can be up and running within 30 minutes.
The new GUI enables users to add, modify and delete users. Download options include ISO/CD Image, VM Player image, Xen universal guest image and LiveCD (burn and boot).
