Cisco® Unified MeetingPlace® conferencing-part of the Cisco Unified Communications family of products-is a complete rich-media conferencing solution that integrates voice, video, and Web conferencing capabilities to make remote meetings as natural and effective as face-to-face meetings for increased productivity. The Cisco Unified MeetingPlace solution is deployed on-network, behind the firewall and integrated directly into an organization's private voice and data networks and enterprise applications, to provide significant cost savings, security, and a superior user experience.
The solution integrates enterprise-class voice, video, and Web conferencing with industry-leading video setup and control capabilities to meet the needs of organizations looking for a single enterprise-class solution and user environment for voice, video, and Web conferencing.
The Cisco Unified Communications system of voice, video, and IP communications products and applications helps organizations communicate more effectively-helping streamline business processes, reach the right resource the first time, and increase profitability (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Rich-Media Conferencing Session
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
Improve Productivity and Accelerate Business Speed and Reach
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace supports today's global, real-time organizations by promoting effective communication and collaboration-allowing people to meet at any time from anywhere. By integrating voice, video, and Web conferencing into everyday communications organizations can expand their market reach, improve operation effectiveness, and speed decision making. The ability for all meeting participants to hear and contribute to the discussion, view other participants and read their body language, and share documents all contribute to effective remote meetings, whether the meeting is a sales demonstration, training application, project team meeting, or customer support interaction.
Superior Cost-Effectiveness and Enterprise Security
The Cisco Unified MeetingPlace solution is deployed on network and integrated with an organization's private voice and data networks to help companies realize the cost savings potential of converged IP networks. On-network deployment facilitates cost savings because organizations can use their IP network infrastructures to reduce transport costs. Because conferencing can account for up to 50 percent or more of a company's overall voice traffic, keeping traffic on internal networks results in significant cost savings. On-network deployment also results in a secure meeting environment. Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing allows enterprises to isolate their confidential meetings and content behind the firewall for secure data network transport while providing the flexibility to meet with external parties. To prevent unauthorized access and toll fraud, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing integrates with the corporate directory to provide synchronized updates as an employee's status changes.
Simple Rich-Media Conference Setup, Attendance, and Management
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace improves the overall conferencing experience by tightly integrating voice, video, and Web conferencing with convenient desktop applications. Intuitive interfaces make setting up, attending, and managing meetings easy. Immediate or future voice, video, and Web conferences can be set up and attended in a single step-from Cisco Unified IP Phones, instant messaging (IM) clients, Web browsers, and Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes calendars. Meeting participants have total control over their voice, video, and Web conference from a single browser interface. This simple-to-use model eliminates the traditional barrier to rich-media conferencing, leading to quick adoption and realization of productivity benefits.
Flexible Deployment Options
The Cisco Unified MeetingPlace solution can be deployed in a variety of ways-on-premises or hosted in offsite facilities and customer managed or outsourced. Outsourcing can provide system administration and end-user help desk functions for on-premises or hosted systems-combining all the benefits of dedicated on-network conferencing with the convenience of outsourced services.
KEY FEATURES AND BENEFITS
Tightly Integrated Rich-Media Conference Setup
In a single step, meeting organizers can schedule voice, video, and Web resources through the Web interface, touch-tone and Cisco Unified IP phones, and Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notes calendars. Meeting invitees automatically receive notification by e-mail or calendar invitation and can attend rich-media conferences with a single click. Rescheduling meetings automatically reschedules all the resources at the same time. This simple approach saves time and improves productivity (Figure 2).
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace integrates industry-leading video setup and control capabilities to meet the needs of organizations looking for a single enterprise-class solution and user environment for voice, video, and Web conferencing. Video setup includes the ability to reserve capacity on multiple Cisco Unified Videoconferencing Multipoint Control Units (MCUs) to search for, check availability of, and schedule specific video terminals that automatically connect to the MCU when the meeting starts; and to select from multiple, preconfigured service codes that define bandwidth, video layout, and access restrictions on a per-meeting basis.
IM applications are becoming widely adopted in the workplace, and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace allows users to easily initiate rich-media conferences from IM clients such as Jabber Messenger. This capability promotes collaboration by making impromptu rich-media conferences easy to initiate and join.
Figure 2. Scheduling a Rich-Media Meeting in Microsoft Outlook
Easy Attendance of Rich-Media Conferences
Attending a rich-media conference is as simple as a single mouse-click. Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing simultaneously launches the Web conference and dials out to the user's voice or video endpoint (either a room-based video system or desktop endpoint). Participants can also connect to the voice and video portions of the conference by directly dialing in from any video endpoint or telephone. After a Web conference is in session, participants can share presentations or desktop applications and conduct effective collaborative meetings. Simplifying and automating conference attendance means that meetings start on time, and that frequent conferencing frustrations such as having to experiment with the video remote control are eliminated.
Advanced Rich-Media Conference Capabilities and Control
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing is an enterprise-class conferencing solution with proven global deployments in large Fortune 500 companies. The feature-rich voice and Web conferencing capabilities facilitate a range of meeting applications, from highly collaborative meetings to training sessions. Together with Cisco Unified Videoconferencing and Cisco video telephony solutions, the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace solution brings the rich-media experience to the desktop and beyond (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Advanced Rich-Media Conference Control
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing provides industry-leading in-meeting controls within the Web conference. Without disrupting a meeting, users know who is attending, how users are attending (voice, video, or Web), who is speaking, and who is sharing. To help ensure that meetings run smoothly, users with the appropriate permissions can control a broad range of meeting characteristics, including Web conferencing permissions, speaking permissions (such as mute and listen only), recording, and meeting security. Users can control their meeting environment, including muting and unmuting their phones, modifying their video layouts, and moving into private discussions. When a user chooses to leave or is ejected from a meeting, all media types-voice, video, and Web-are disconnected simultaneously. Having access to these integrated meeting control allows meeting moderators to minimize disruptions, monitor meeting progress, and make rich-media meetings as natural and effective as face-to-face meetings.
Rich-Media Conference Recordings
From either the Web or the phone interface, users can record their meetings to capture the discussion and content so that people who have missed the meeting can play back the synchronized Web and audio session through their Web browsers. Audio recordings are available in multiple formats, including Waveform Audio (WAV), MPEG Layer 3 (MP3), and Windows Media. Unlike other current Web conference services, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing does not require separate hardware or software to record or play back.
Enterprise-Class Conferencing Platforms
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing offers companies a robust voice, video, and Web conferencing solution that integrates with their private networks. With carrier-grade hardware and advanced system software, the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace solution delivers the scalability, reliability, simplified administration, security, and cost effectiveness that IT organizations require. Video conferencing is provided by the Cisco Unified Videoconferencing platform, which is widely deployed in large enterprises.
PRODUCT ARCHITECTURE
Customers can scale their deployments depending on their use patterns. The core platforms required include the following:
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8100 Series Audio Server platforms for audio conferencing applications-The Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8100 Series solution bundles include the Cisco MeetingPlace IP Gateway for IP deployments and the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Conference User Interface for integrated voice, video, and Web scheduling. Both the Cisco MeetingPlace IP Gateway and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Conference User Interface software must be installed on a Cisco media convergence server (MCS). Figure 4 shows the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8100 Series Audio Server platforms.
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing software-Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing is an application that is installed on Cisco MCSs. See the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing data sheet for details.
• Cisco Unified Videoconferencing 3500 Series MCU for video conferencing applications-See the Cisco Unified Videoconferencing 3500 Series MCU data sheet for details.
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Video Integration is integration software that requires a separate Cisco MCS and integrates Cisco Unified Videoconferencing systems into Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 5.4.
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace integrations are software applications that run on Cisco MCS platforms-Cisco Unified MeetingPlace integration applications include Cisco Unified MeetingPlace for Microsoft Outlook, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace for IBM Lotus Notes, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Integration, and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace for Jabber Messaging. These integration options are available for enterprise desktop and infrastructure integration. See the corresponding data sheets for detailed information.
Figure 4. Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Audio Server 8112 and 8106 Series Platforms
PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS
Table 1 lists product specifications for the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8112 Audio Server platform, and Table 2 lists product specifications for the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8106 Audio Server platform.
Table 1. Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8112 Audio Server Specifications
• H.323 and SIP with Cisco Unified MeetingPlace IP Gateway
• G.711 and G.729a audio compression
Physical dimensions
• Height: 7 in. (18 cm)
• Width: 18.9 in. (48 cm)
• Depth: 14.5 in. (37 cm)
• Weight: Approximately 40 lb (18.2 kg) fully loaded
Power
• System power: 100 to 240 VAC, 50 to 60 Hz
• 510W maximum consumption
Mounting
Electronics Industry Alliance (EIA) Standard RS-310-C in 19-in. (48.26-cm) rack
Redundancy
• Two hot-swappable, redundant power supplies
• Dual 36-GB disk drives
• Network backup to remote servers
• Shadow server option for complete database synchronization at remote site
SYSTEM CAPACITY
The Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8100 Series platforms consist of the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8106 and 8112 Audio Servers. The Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8112 Audio Server can scale to 960 IP, 1152 T1-CAS, 960 E1-PRI, or 768 T1-PRI concurrent users, whereas the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8106 Audio Server can scale to half the size of the 8112 platform. A single meeting can support up to 550 participants.
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 5.4 Web Conferencing can support up to 1152 concurrent Web conferencing users with a cluster of Cisco MCSs. Each server in a cluster can support up to 200 concurrent Web conferencing users, and the maximum meeting size is 150 for presentation-sharing meetings and 100 for application-sharing meetings (see the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing data sheet for details).
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Video Integration supports up to 72 videoconferencing participants per chassis from 128 kbps to 2 Mbps per participant on the Cisco Unified Videoconferencing 3500 Series MCUs. Multiple chassis can be deployed in a single cluster, with up to 500 video participants per cluster.
FEATURES
Voice Conferencing
• In-session meeting features:
– Announced entry and departure
– Roll call
– Breakout sessions
– Mute individual users
– Mute all participants
– Outdial capability to an individual or a team
– Lock meeting
– Screened entry
• Reservationless option-Allows users to conduct voice and Web meetings with a personal meeting ID without the need for scheduling; reservationless meetings can be configured as internal or external meetings
• Recording-Allows automatic recording and playback of meeting sessions
• Lecture-style meetings with Q&A-Provides listen-only meetings with facilitated question and answer sessions
• Continuous meetings-Allows meetings that do not end, which are especially useful for crisis management applications
• Conference user interface:
– Speaker ID: Identifies who is speaking at any given moment
– Participant lists: Lists all participants attending the meeting
– Meeting controls: Allows meeting organizer to mute and unmute, change speaking ability, record, lock, eject, and end meeting
• Find participant-Allows searches for users by calling a sequence of main phone, alternate phone, and pager numbers
• Meeting message-Allows users to prerecord messages for other participants to hear before entering the meeting
• Multilanguage support-Provides voice prompt options for American English, British English, Japanese, French, French-Canadian, German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Latin America)
• Scheduling using phone interface-Allows users to attend meetings or initiate reservationless meetings using the phone user interface
Web Conferencing
See the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing data sheet for details.
• Presentations-Users can share or view PowerPoint presentations using only a Web browser under Windows, Mac OS, and UNIX.
• Annotations and whiteboards-Users can annotate shared applications, presentations, and whiteboards.
• Recording and playback-Users can automatically record and play back synchronized Web and voice meeting content without the need for additional hardware or software at the desktop. Voice recordings can be exposed as WAV, MP3, or Windows Media files.
• Remote-control sharing-Organizers can allow a user to take control of any desktop, application, document, or Website.
• Chat-Meeting participants can use text messaging within meetings.
• Polling-Participants can vote on questions and give feedback during the meeting.
• Multilanguage support-Users can choose Web interfaces in English, Japanese, French, German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Latin America).
Video Conferencing
See the Cisco Unified Videoconferencing 3500 Series data sheet for details.
• Cisco IP video telephony-Impromptu videoconferencing for Cisco Unified CallManager video telephony endpoints is available.
• Video encoding-H.261, H.263, H.263++, and H.264 are used. Cisco Unified CallManager Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) ports currently support H.261 and H.263.
• Enhanced display options-Voice-activated continuous presence with up to 16 participants and enhanced continuous presence with a choice of 26 different layouts are offered.
• Rate matching-Each endpoint in a videoconference can participate according to individual video bandwidth capabilities without affecting the connection of other participants.
• Audio transcoding-The MCU matches the audio capabilities of each calling endpoint before mixing the audio from all participants. H.323 conference participants can use G.711, G.722, G.722.1, G.723.1, G.728, or G.729 audio encoding. SCCP conference participants can use G.711, G.722, G.728, or G.729 audio encoding.
• Video scalability-Video automatically cascades across multiple MCUs.
• Automatic outdial of video terminals-At the start of a meeting, all invited video terminals can be automatically outdialed.
• Easy scheduling of video terminals-Search for and check availability of video terminals at the schedule time.
Security
• Dedicated on-network system-Each customer is provided with a dedicated Cisco Unified MeetingPlace solution integrated with the private network.
• Internet lockout controls-Meetings can be set up as internal-only meetings and held entirely behind the corporate firewall, or as external meetings accessible to Internet and internal participants. Administrators and meeting organizers have complete control.
• Access authentication-Meeting organizers can require that participants authenticate themselves using individual logins to attend a meeting or to access the documents and recordings for a meeting. In addition, the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace system can automatically block out users after multiple failed login attempts.
• Automated account management-Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing integrates with corporate directories, automatically removing accounts of employees who leave the company. For details, see the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Integration Data Sheet.
• Encryption-Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing supports encrypted Web pages and Web conferencing traffic using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
• In-session meeting controls-Meeting organizers can change voice and Web conferencing permissions, specify announced entry and departure, require passwords, lock the meeting, and eject unwanted attendees.
• Public key infrastructure (PKI) certificates can be set up between desktop clients and the Web server.
System Administration
• Configuration-The system has options for setting use, scheduling, access, and meeting preference parameters.
• Prompts and fields-Voice prompts and database fields can be customized.
• Reports-The standard configuration provides use (voice, video, and Web) and billing reports. Detailed raw data reports to track meeting and participant details are also available.
• Capacity management-System parameters optimize port use and meeting traffic charts.
• System status-Remote management and monitoring is performed using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps; alarms outdials to a phone or pager.
• Disaster recovery-The automated database backs up to network drives, and a shadow server configuration synchronizes profile and meeting databases to protect against a site disaster.
ORDERING INFORMATION
To place an order, visit the Cisco Ordering Home Page. Table 3 provides the part numbers for the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8100 solution bundles, which include the following:
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8106 or 8112 Audio Server chassis
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace SmartBlades and Multi Access Blades required for the number of user licenses in the bundle
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace audio conferencing software and user licenses
• Cisco MeetingPlace IP Gateway for IP bundles
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Conference User Interface
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing with five user licenses
• Cisco MeetingTime with five user licenses
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) E-Mail Gateway
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Voice Recording System License
Customers are required to purchase Cisco MCSs to run the software applications in these bundles.
Table 4 provides ordering information for hardware and software options for the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8100 solution bundles.
Table 5 provides ordering information for Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing options.
Table 6 provides ordering information for Cisco Unified MeetingPlace integration options.
Table 3. Ordering Information for Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8100 Solution Bundles
Part Number
Product Name
MP-8106-30IP
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8106 30UL IP Solution Bundle
MP-8106-30PRI
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8106 30UL PRI Solution Bundle
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Audio Conference user license bundle, 24 user licenses
MP-AUDIO-UL-30
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Audio Conference user license bundle, 30 user licenses
MP-MTGTM-SITE-5.4
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace MeetingTime Site License
MP-FLEX-MENU
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Flex Menu Option
MP-LANG-5.4
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Multilingual System License
Table 5. Web Conferencing Options
Part Number
Product Name
MP-WEBCONFSW-5.4
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing 5.4 (includes 20 concurrent Web conferencing user licenses)
MP-RM-RECORDING
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web-Voice Recording System License
MP-CONF-UI-5.4
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Conferencing User Interface (included in Cisco MeetingPlace Solution Bundles; includes five concurrent Web conferencing user licenses)
MP-WEB-UL-20
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing User License Bundle, 20 user licenses
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace for Jabber Messaging Integration
SERVICE AND SUPPORT
Cisco Systems® offers a wide range of services programs to accelerate customer success. These innovative services programs are delivered through a unique combination of people, processes, tools, and partners, resulting in high levels of customer satisfaction. Cisco services help you protect your network investment, optimize network operations, and prepare your network for new applications to extend network intelligence and the power of your business. For more information about Cisco services, refer to Cisco Technical Support Services or Cisco Advanced Services.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information about Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferencing, contact your local Cisco account representative, or visit http://www.cisco.com/go/meetingplace.
