VideoConferencing Infrastructure capacity depends on what types of calls it is hosting. For example, the Polycom RMX 4000 can support 120 HD (720p) connections, or 360 lower definition (CIF) connections, making its capacity and price-per-port calculations flexible. When comparing pricing, determine what types of connections you expect and the call volume you’ll need. You should also consider the following: • Overall call quality • Integration with other elements of the environment • Ease of use (for conference administrators and call participants) • Scalability
VidyoRouter One of the most interesting new approaches to the MCU comes from internet-friendly SVC pioneer Vidyo. Unlike traditional MCUs that receive a video stream, decompress, composit, and recompress which adds latency, the VidyoRouter acts more like a “traffic cop” directing the various video streams to their final destination where they are composited into the screen format of the end-user’s choosing. The company recently released a completely virtualized version of the VidyoRouter that runs on cloud computing platforms offered by Amazon, Rackspace, and others where clients can run multiple, geographically-diverse instances with no investment in hardware, co-location, etc ... Marty Hollander, a Senior VP at Vidyo pitches us on the advantages: “When one uses legacy infrastructure components (MCU) and a less resilient codec (H.264 AVC), a managed network helps to offset some of the weakness of the legacy solution. “But Vidyo users can deliver a higher quality solution using best efforts networks (Internet, wireless, etc.), and because they are using a routing architecture rather than a transcoding architecture and using H.264 SVC, they can deliver higher quality service without the costly overhead of a managed network service provider. And this does not need to be just desktop and mobile devices, but may include room systems and it can all be done with no upfront capital.”
Summer 2012
Management Solutions A conferencing manager is responsible for the devices in the environment, the conferences taking place between these devices, and the traffic on the network. Management solutions can be deployed as software or hardware for these functions are often bundled with other conferencing infrastructure elements.
Device Management
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oday’s business-class videoconferencing and telepresence endpoints are not simple, plug-and-play consumer appliances. They are technical pieces of equipment that require IT and networking knowledge to set up and maintain, and an even higher level of expertise to truly optimize. Device management includes a wide variety of tasks that all fall roughly into three categories:
Provisioning: Configuring the software options of videoconferencing devices to meet network requirements and conferencing manager preferences. Updating: Applying software updates to devices. Monitoring: Ensuring endpoints are on line and operational. Unfortunately, configuring the software settings for a videoconferencing endpoint is not a trivial matter. Even assigning dialing addresses to the devices can be beyond the layman videoconferencing user’s ability. The administrative settings menus can contain numerous sub menus, each with their own submenus. Any incorrect settings can create hard-todiagnose call experience issues (i.e. duplex mismatch between network speed settings can cause effects resembling packet loss), or even make calls fail entirely. An unfortunate stereotype about videoconferencing is that the 3:00 meeting doesn’t really start until 3:20 because someone has to spend 20 minutes bouncing through settings menus to figure out why the call isn’t working. Without good device management, that stereotype becomes reality.
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