video-conferencing as an nren service
DESCRIPTION
Briefing for senior IT leaders in South African Higher Education at the Spring 2014 ASAUDIT Institutional ConferenceTRANSCRIPT
Rob Bristow, NREN Exchange Fellow, TENET
23/10/2014 Video-conferencing as an NREN Service
Introductions
» Who am I? › On secondment from Jisc in the UK for two years – Part of Jisc Futures division – Worked at Jisc on video-‐conferencing projects
› What is Jisc? – UK NREN parent company – Janet is the TENET equivalent – Jisc runs services and development programmes in all areas of technology
and tertiary education
› What do I/Jisc know about video-‐conferencing and education? – Quite a lot!
Teliris Express Telepresence conference
What is Video enabled collaboration?
» Anything that involves collaboration and video (but may also include other things)
» From Telepresence to the desktop
» Room-‐based conferencing
» Desktop conferencing » Web conferencing
» These things are now converging – mobile is here
» The goal is a system that spans from web-‐conferencing to Tele-‐Presence
» How to join things up?
» Interoperability! Desktop Conferencing using Vidyo
What’s wrong with conferencing?
» The room is booked out or locked
» The support people have gone home
» The equipment is out of commission
» There is echo on the audio feed
» The screen only shows tiny thumbnails of participants
» The network is up and down and the video quality makes this system unusable
» I can conference from a room but why can’t I join from my laptop or cell phone or iPad at my desk, or at home or from anywhere in the world?
» I want to easily share content from whichever device I am using
» Etc…
26/11/2013 Jisc Co-‐design 4
Video-‐conferencing
» Parts to this presentation: › The changing landscape of video-‐conferencing › Meeting the needs of South African Higher Education › TENET’s plans
5
Jisc Project conclusions
» There are considerable benefits accruing from, and opportunities for more, virtual meetings
» Virtual meetings don’t always replace travel
› new uses
› stimulating contact
» Considerable CO2 benefits for all
› largest element in research intensive universities is (long haul) air
» Air travel generally dominates CO2 equivalent travel
» But overall business benefits are mainly related to short-‐medium distance travel air travel
» Best maybe to target UNPRODUCTIVE travel?
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State of play of conferencing
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“Legacy” conferencing
» Otherwise known as H.323 or SIP or standards based
» The old way – expensive room based systems and heavy duty back end processing
» Betrays its telecommunications roots
» Only now waking up to the growth of demand for mobile and desktop conferencing
» Easy to use (relatively) » Limited functionality beyond video and audio (e.g.
content sharing)
» Vendors include Polycom, Lifesize, Ayaya, Cisco, etc.
» Business – not education focused
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Polycom TPX 204M
Web conferencing
» The other end of the spectrum
» Content is king – so presentation is centre stage » Video and audio not usually as well done. Lack of
echo-‐cancellation can cause really bad problems
» Good for push – webinar or where interaction is not so important
» Examples include Adobe Connect, Cisco Webex, Blackboard Collaborate and Big Blue Button (open source)
» Doesn’t really move off the desktop to enable bigger groups to interact
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Consumer and desktop clients
» Skype › Great for one to ones and presence
› Network parasite
› Can’t interoperate with anything else
» FaceTime
› Apple only
» Lync › Part of the MS Office stack – so on a lot of desktops
› Replacing traditional telephony – soft phones
› Can interoperate with many other systems
› One to watch
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“Modern” approaches
» These use variants of the SVC extension to theH.264 video compression standard (Annex G)
» Sends a base layer which is enough – and then enhancement layers as the circumstances dictate
» Traffic goes through a media router – but the decoding/encoding is done intelligently on the end points
» Endpoints get the resolution and detail they can handle
» Advantages:
› Efficient low cost infrastructure – backend is much cheaper than traditional MCUs
› Excellent network resilience -‐ copes well with variable bandwidth situations
› Real time adaption – constant tailoring of what gets sent to each end point
› Flexibility
» Gateways to H.323/SIP world are available
» Lync and Outlook integration
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Cloud services & Integrators
» But we may still have islands on video-‐conferencing
» Enter the integrators and cloud services » But most of these mean traffic going to Europe or the US – so not really an option at present in South Africa
» Promise of any system connecting to any system
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Some emerging themes
» Software endpoints and infrastructure › Much cheaper › More flexible › User provisioned and launched
» Cloud based offerings – pay for what you use
» Desktop and mobile – connect from anywhere
» Unified communications – presence, IM, telephony and video
» The right tool for the job » Video in browser – WebRCT
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So what to use?
» What do you want to do › Teaching and learning › Research collaboration and coordination › Outreach
› Administration
» What does you have in your university? › Rooms › Desktop
» What can you get access to via the cloud? › Some of the new approaches can be run in a browser – Web RCT
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UK Developments
» Old offering was a farm of MCUs and a rather clunky booking service, along with a dreadful desktop client
» Some advice and guidance on purchasing and use
» Quality assurance of endpoints
» But use was patchy and seemed mostly directed at schools
» Some heavy use in colleges with multiple sites
» New Platform incorporating Vidyo for desktop/personal and Cisco MCUs for H.323/SIP
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VIDYO
» Best of breed (IOHO)
» Scalable, modular, flexible, configurable
» Mostly virtualised
» Good traction in research communities (CERN, SKA)
» Desktop and web client
› All participants can share content
» All registered user get a virtual meeting room
» Room systems
» Gateway to H.323/SIP
» Pay as you use pricing model
» API and SDK allows for custom intgration options
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Vidyo at CERN
» CERN needed to scale V-‐C capabilities
» Traditional V-‐C was way too expensive
» Settled on Vidyo » 20,000 user accounts » Routers in many locations (one coming on line
in Cape Town)
» Over 800 concurrent connections at peak
» Cool graphic here: http://avc-‐dashboard.web.cern.ch/Vidyo
» CERN asked TENET to provide hosting for Vidyo Router for SA use
09/10/14 TENET 17
Vidyo at SKA
» Needed to expand video-‐conferencing hugely
» Existing and emerging H.323/SIP technologies were difficult to use, and very expensive and were not good for the desktop/mobile
» Trialled other systems (Zoom, Blue Jeans), as well as consumer level applications (Skype, Google Hangouts) but came down for Vidyo
» It is planned that South African end of SKA will use Tenet service
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Vidyo Infrastructure
» Portal (VM) › Authentication and licensing › Tenant set up and Admin – Capable of handling multiple tenants (i.e., one per university or even more finely grained)
» Router (VM) › Intelligent packet switching, so no decode/compose/re-‐encode overhead –
tailors video feeds to match each end point abilities › Up to 100 concurrent users per router
» Gateway (Vidyo hardware) › Link to H.323/SIP systems
» Replay (Vidyo hardware) › Recording and streaming server
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Vidyo Infrastructure Part 2
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Enhancement Layer
Base Layer
Significant Impact Single Layer (AVC)
Multi-layer (SVC)
Minor or No Impact
AVC -‐ Single Layer vs. SVC -‐ Multi-‐Layer
Source -‐ Vidyo
Possible model of provision » Pay as you use model › X Rand per named user who uses the system in a given
month – Don’t for forget that users can invite guests who do not count
towards that number of users – Cost per user decreases as number of users grows
» TENET will provide virtual machines to run most of the infrastructure and buy some Vidyo kit (Gateways) › Institutions can manage their Tenant areas – connect to
LDAP and AD
» Support within office hours
» Training, familarisation, evangelism publicity materials, etc
» This is not “Rip & Replace” – your H.323 investments can co-‐exist and will reach a whole lot more people › Also – you can easily bring your Lync users to the party
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Who will use it?
» Admin › Split sites › Cross institutional organisations
» Research collaboration › Project management
» Teaching and learning › Video-‐conferencing everywhere › Record sessions or stream to wider internet › Role here for Web-‐conferencing – But probably not Adobe Connect as cost implications are worrying if usage took
off Looking with SANReN at Mconf (Supported by Brazilian NREN)
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And finally – some words of advice
» Local Network Configuration needs to be stable, and in particular firewalls need to be correctly configured.
» Room systems need to be properly configured including network and routing settings.
» Meeting rooms need to have good acoustics and good light
» Provide good quality audio play back in rooms
» Laptop / PC / mobile users need to have reasonable spec hardware & preferably headset and microphone (although Vidyo has built in echo cancellation)
» Laptop / PC / mobile users can connect using only a web browser, but get more functionality if they install the Vidyo client before connecting.
» Test the setup before a meeting starts, not when the meeting is supposed to start
» However good the hardware is, bandwidth across the internet will always be a limiting factor, however latency is even more critical.
» User familarisation and expectations are key – make sure people understand how to use the system and kit
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Video-‐conferencing workshop
» Johannesburg 4th & 5th November
» Looking for up to two people from each institution › IT Manager with responsibility for video-‐conferencing › And/or person with day to day engagment
» Opportunity for debate and discussion and sharing problems and good practice
» Email g
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