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A rather remarkable case of introducing video conferencing in one industrial enterprise.

An industrial enterprise unites several factories, between which quite a lot of traffic goes through its own network, but sometimes external people like government customers need to be connected to videoconferencing sessions.



Initially, the customer had a fairly reliable, but outdated, videoconferencing infrastructure on Thandberg, which was decided to be upgraded. Plus, the task was to ensure maximum disaster recovery in the event that several factory objects were suddenly destroyed.

The main integration solution for the project was the Cisco Meeting Server platform. This is a software that allows you to combine a large number of participants with different equipment or without it in the framework of virtual negotiations. And before the customer with this had great difficulty.
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It was like this:



Problems of the "old" HQS infrastructure


  1. Total 6 HD ports on the conferencing server. This is not enough, but expanding them was more expensive than buying a new CMS with great potential.
  2. Integration with Lync broke (in the previous integration scheme, Cisco VCS Control server was used as a gateway). It needed to be restored, but according to the old scheme the price of a single Lync connection to the conference was expensive. The introduction of Cisco Meeting Server allowed us to rebuild integration with Lync and connect the “unlimited” number of Lync users for free.
  3. Old customers of Jabber Video for TelePresence (formerly Tandberg Movi) are no longer evolving. Therefore, it was necessary to replace them with Cisco Jabber or Lync (optional), especially in view of reducing the cost of connecting a Lync subscriber due to integration via CMS.

This is how the infrastructure initially looked:


The upgrade went smoothly and without snot.

results


On the new infrastructure, the customer can hold 3 conferences at the same time (by the number of licenses purchased) for 64 HD subscribers of any type, including glands and links. Plus, if necessary, you can easily increase the number of such conferences.

Who did not want to change the client - remained on Link. There was an opportunity to connect people via a browser to one-time events - these are counterparties and guest participants. A virtually unlimited number of connections were added from the side of Link - and in these conferences you can exchange content in both directions without hindrance.

Translated all hardware servers to virtual. Built a fault-tolerant network. Gateways are now through different telecom operators. Different data centers with servers, that is, if the operator falls or if one of the data-communication centers falls, the system is operational.

By itself, the central node of Cisco Meeting Server is not failover because it is one. But if it is destroyed, the new routing system will allow holding a conference on old equipment (that is, there will be a limit on the number of participants, but in case of network degradation, it will not be bad). Plus there are p2p connections in the worst case.

Here is the main server node:





Used equipment Cisco UCS C220

Software like this:


All this is rolled out on virtual machines under VMWare ESXi on the physical servers of the site. For the organization of fault-tolerant server clusters, standard manufacturer solutions are used.

fault tolerance


Fault tolerance is provided primarily for call management systems in the form of CUCM / IMP, Expressway-C and Expressway-E servers. For multipoint conferencing, the fault tolerance is partial — if the Cisco Meeting Server fails, some of its functions are taken over by the Cisco TelePresence MCU 4501 server, and the other part of the functionality (web clients, MS Lync subscribers) disappears before the server is restored. The main hardware components of hardware (power supplies, hard drives) are backed up. All server components of the VCS (except for the existing MCU and VCR) are software, installed on virtual machines running VMWare ESXi v5.5 (CMS) or v6.0 (other components).



Server



Functions SVKS



Apply duplication and redundancy



Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM)



Call management.


Device management.


Maintaining an address book



One CUCM server backup with the subscriber role. Redundancy provides automatic transfer of users to the backup server in case of a primary server failure in accordance with the standard Cisco technical solution.



Cisco IM & Presence



Instant messaging and availability status



Backup with IM & Presence subscriber role. Automatic transfer of users to the backup server in the event of a primary server failure in accordance with Cisco standard technical solution



Cisco Expressway-C



Integration with external networks and subscribers connected via VPN



Duplication by an additional Expressway-C server. Automatic load balancing when using both servers. In case of failure of one of the servers, the functions of the other are used in accordance with the Cisco standard technical solution.


In case of failure of one of the servers, its licenses remain available to another for 2 weeks.



Cisco Expressway-E



Integration with external networks



Duplication by an additional Expressway-E server. Automatic load balancing when using both servers. In case of failure of one of the servers, the functions of the other are used in accordance with the Cisco standard technical solution.


In case of failure of one of the servers, its licenses remain available to another for 2 weeks.


External interfaces of servers are connected to networks of different telecom operators that provide Internet access services



Tms



Conference Planning



Not duplicated



CMS



Multipoint conferencing, Lync integration



Partial duplication of functions with existing hardware MCU. In the event of a CMS server failure, the following functions become unavailable:


- integration with MS Lync;


- Connect to the conference using a browser;


- Cisco Meeting App software clients




I hope you find this useful in the event of upgrading your own infrastructure.

Links


Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/344082/

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