Transcript VidyoServiceNewOpportunitiesForCollaboration_RobBristow_TENET

Video Collaboration opportunities
The offer for South African Universities
Introductions
• On secondment from Jisc – the UK NREN
organisation
• Working at TENET as an NREN Exchange Fellow till
December 2016
• This presentation will describe the SA NREN
Videoconferencing and Web–conferencing services
and how they can support the work of higher
education and research in South Africa
What’s on offer?
• Two services for different needs
– Videoconferencing (Vidyo)
– Web conferencing (Mconf)
Why provide collaboration shared
services for South Africa?
• Video collaboration has come of age
– New software based architectures for video and audio routing and
encode/decode
– The Scalable Video Codec (SVC) and WebRTC
– Desktop and mobile computing power and ubiquitous webcams
– Flexible cloud like provisioning options
– Integration options for existing H.323/SIP estate
• Open source robust alternative to proprietary web-conferencing
platforms
• Robust network
• Cost
Problems with old school conferencing
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‘Standards based’ conferencing
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Expensive
It needs proprietary room CODECs and back end MCUs
Licensing and support costs
Inflexible
Generally lacks cost effective clients for desktop/laptop/mobile use
Generally stuck in expensively equipped boardrooms
It does not scale well for big meetings
– Big meetings mean many MCU ports = more expense
– Big tranches of web conferencing licences don’t come cheap
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It is hard to share capacity among different organisations
and users
The quality is not that good
– Tends to take quality down to lowest common denominator
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Latency
Instead of…
Jisc Study - http://www.goodcampus.org/files/files/80-HE_Finance_and_GG_Benefits_from_Virtual_Meetings_Final_15.doc
Connecting
to
Mombassa
Link up between
academic in Cape
Town, Heads of
Institutions in
Kenya and the
University of
Nairobi
TENET’s Chosen Service
• Standardised on Vidyo
• Capacity sufficient to support all of South African
Higher Education and Research institutions
• Support for integrating existing H.323/SIP
endpoints
• Freely available desktop, web and mobile client
endpoint software
– Native WebRTC using SVC support next year
• Free at the point of use
• Integration with institutional Directory Systems
• Skype for Business integration available
Vidyo characteristics
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Wholly software based
– Infrastructure and clients (rooms and personal devices) run on off-theshelf hardware
– Use off-the-shelf peripherals (cameras, audio devices)
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High quality – up to 4K and 60fps on suitable hardware
Uses SVC and intelligent routing to adapt well to fluctuating
network conditions
End points do the encode/decode/composition
Support via transcoding Gateway for H.323/SIP endpoints
Replay, Recording and Streaming
Cross platform client OS support
– Windows, MacOS and Linux
– iOS and Android
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High quality content sharing
Supports distributed infrastructure deployment
Jo’burg
Cape Town
VM1
Durban
UKZN
KENET
Nairobi
VM2
Durban
VidyoRouter
VidyoRouter
VidyoPortal (Cold spare)
VidyoPortal
VidyoGateway
Cape Town
VidyoRouter
Jo’burg
VidyoRouter
VidyoGateway
VidyoGateway
(Planned)
SKA
vidyo-dashboard
VidyoGateway
VidyoGateway
(on premises)
CERN VidyoRouter
Vidyo Recording
& Streaming
Server
VidyoGateway
End points - Rooms
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Use existing H.323/SIP endpoints via VidyoGateway
Use Vidyo badged rooms
– Range of form factors and capabilities to suit a range of scenarios
– Use off-the-shelf peripherals
– Mobile trolley set up available
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Use VidyoRoom SE – all the capabilities but you provide
the hardware (i5 or i7)
– Receive up to Ultra HD 4K video (3840x2160), transmit up to
1080p60
– Transmit high frame rate Audio / Video content up to 1080p30
– Content sharing up to 4K content encode and decode
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Connect to H.323/SIP endpoints via VidyoGateway
Connect voice (SIP) only via VidyoGateway
Vidyo Endpoints
• Desktop and Laptop
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Clients for MacOS, Windows (XP – 10) and Linux
Up to 1080p30 encode and UHD 4K (3840x2160) Decode on suitable hardware (i7)
Show up to 8 participants and content on separate screen
Automatic Echo Suppression
• Invite unlimited guests to meetings
• Calendar integration (Outlook and GoogleMail)
• Mobile
– Android and iOS
• Web (for guests)
– Small one-time plugin download currently
– Native SVC based WebRTC coming soon
End points – Mobile and web
• Mobile
– Android & iOS
– Encodes up to 540p30 decodes at
up to 720p.
– Display up to 4 participants
• Web
– Encode up to 720p30
– Decode up to 2880 x 1800 up to
60 fps
– Guests download a small plugin
and join through browser (Native
WebRCT support coming soon)
Use cases foruniversities
• Teaching and learning
• Collaboration with external partners
– In South Africa, more widely in Africa & rest of the world
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Internal collaboration for teams in dispersed locations
Admin meetings between different locations
Management and steering group meetings
Outreach and dissemination
Mentoring and professional development
Vivas
HR applications – interviews
Benefits for Universities
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Cloud like shared service
– One pool of licenses shared across multiple users and countries
– Resilience
– Extensibility
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Start small, grow the infrastructure as needed
Not “rip & replace” – existing H.323 estate can continue to participate
Reduced costs from elimination of expensive MCUs and associated support costs
Performance!
Robust enterprise quality platform (Vidyo)
– Good support from distributors in country and from Vidyo
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Open source
– community for Mconf – under active development by Brazilians
Mconf
• Web conferencing platform based on Big Blue
Button
• Open Source
• Collaborative development between SANREN with
RNP (Brazilian NREN)
• Will be managed by TENET going forward
Technical Implementation of Mconf
5 servers in South Africa:
• 3 x Mconf-Live (back-end : distributed in
Cape Town and Pretoria, adding to existing
Global Mconf infrastructure)
• 1x Mconf-Web (front-end web portal)
• 1x Recording Server
SA
Global network
SA
Brazil
27
Success stories
Usage this year (to 20-04-2016):
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839 users across 126 meetings
Average meetings size: 6 participants
Largest meeting: 33 participants
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Growing number of logins through
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Main clients:
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H3Africa and H3BioNet: 32 Bioinformatics research groups distributed throughout 15 African countries and 2 American
partner institutions - Monthly seminars and weekly meetings (UCT involvement)
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Rhodes University: Post graduate meetings between supervisors and students, Class for Creatives and Dramatic Writing
students
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CSIR: Coastal Systems Advance Mathematical Modelling (CSAMM) workgroup , Emerging Knowledge for Local
Adaptation Project (EKLA)
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SANBI: South African National Bioinformatics Institute – Combat TB project
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Adhoc project meetings
Next steps
• Both services free at the point of use for SA NREN beneficiary
organisations
• Mconf authenticates with SAFIRE, so is another good reason for joining
• Individual ‘Tenant’ areas for supported organisations on Vidyo
• Training
– Eastern Cape 26th April (Rhodes)
– Western Cape – May (TBC)
– Gauteng June
• Weekly test session for Vidyo – Thursdays at 11:00
• Consultancy and advice on rooms and integration options
Contacts
Rob Bristow
079 1818 708
[email protected]
http://tenetvc.wordpress.com
https://mconfsa.wordpress.com