1-2-3 conferencing booking system
AARNet in partnership with the MCU Review Group and Codian/Tandberg has created a production grade service to enable the Australian R&E sector to gain access to a secure, scalable, resilient and user-friendly videoconferencing bridging and booking service.
The service is based on a centralised management platform (for remote management of distributed Multi Conferencing Units (MCUs) resources and the online booking system) to share access to a community of Codian MCU systems who contributes 30% of their capacity into a shared pool to deliver this service. Those who participate their MCU enjoy the benefit of access to that pool of ports to cover peak use or when the local MCU is unavailable due to an unforeseen or scheduled outage.
Getting Started
To be eligible to use the booking service you must be a member of an Australian University or research organisation where conference use is to benefit education or research activities.
Register yourself
with the system by either
(a)
registering via the
online booking form
(Your registration request will be validated by a
CAVE person
(conferencing professional) or by AARNet where there is no CAVE person at an institution). Once registered you will receive details to enable access to the 1-2-3 booking form.
OR
(b)
contacting your
local CAVE person
(conferencing professional) who may register you (if not already done so) where you may then either use the 1-2-3 booking form or a local integrated email scheduling system.
Once registered you can start to use the
online system
to book video conferences!
Step-by-step guides:
What are the Benefits of the centralised management platform for conferencing services?
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Simpler user interface with security (self registering users validated by CAVEs or by AARNet) to book conferences.
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Access to in-dial and out-dial (subject to QA testing) H.323/IP based video conferencing (Standard Definition and High Definition (720p) video conferencing).
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Access to a scheduling system that can integrate with campus email systems and manage on-campus conference sessions.
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Accessto more conference ports via a management system that can overflowto another MCU if local capacity is exceeded or becomes unavailable.
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A more scalable, easy to administer online booking system for all.
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A more feature rich interface to allow CAVEs to schedule and manage conferences.
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An enhanced reporting and billing system to collate use and charge back if required respectively.
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Ability to extend this infrastructure to other vendors and to accommodate other features.
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Basedon a sector wide deal for the management platform resultinginsignificant cost savings (previously arrangement was based onportbased pricing).
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Less local support required for scheduling and managing video conferencing end users.