Short presentation to AIMS (African Institute for Mathematical Sciences) hosted conference. The presentation deals with planning for a South African NREN provided video-conferencing service

1. Rob
Bristow,
NREN
Exchange
Fellow,
TENET
6th
Nov
2014
Video-conferencing for higher education and research

2. 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
–
runs
national
video-­‐
conferencing
service
– 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!

3. The
problem
» Lots
of
people
want
video-­‐conferencing
› But
it’s
expensive
and
inflexible
–
multipoint
V-­‐C
needs
heavy
duty
back
end
processing
› Doesn’t
cope
well
when
the
network
bandwidth
and
stability
stumbles
› Difficult
to
join
people
from
the
desktop
and
mobile
devices
› Difficult
to
easily
share
content
› Doesn’t
scale
well
for
large
meetings
› Etc…

4. State
of
play
in
South
Africa
» Lots
of
Polycom,
LifeSize,
Avaya,
etc
› This
is
what
is
commonly
called
‘Standards
based’
conferencing
or
H.323/SIP
» Requirement
for
communal
bridging
solution
(for
multipoint
conferences)
» Some
glue
is
needed
to
tie
it
all
together
» Patchy
provision
› Big
rich
universities
are
well
set
up
–
but
smaller
institutions
are
struggling
to
meet
demand
› How
to
help
smaller
less
well
supported
bodies
–
AIMS,
for
example
or
Africa
Centre?
» How
to
enable
South
African
HE
and
Research
communities
to
collaborate
within
Africa
and
gloablly?
4th
Nov
2014
TENET
4

5. What
else
is
going
on
in
the
world?
» Three
interesting
examples
› CERN
– 20,000
users,
– over
800
people
using
their
V-­‐C
service
every
day
– Regular
meetings
of
up
to
30
or
40
participants
› SKA
– Distributed
organisation
–
across
Africa
and
also
Europe,
US,
etc
– Working
in
places
with
poor
and
unstable
bandwidth
› Janet
(UK
NREN)
– Recently
replaced
their
obsolete
VC
service
with
modern
flexible
platform
» What
is
the
common
thread
here?
› Vidyo
–
www.vidyo.com
4th
Nov
2014
TENET
5

6. Why
Vidyo?
» “Personal
Telepresence”
» All
the
reasons
above,
and:
› Scalable
big
time
–
c.f.
CERN
20,000
users
and
distributed
architecture
› Full
HD
on
the
desktop
› Integrates
with
H.323/SIP
conferencing
systems
› Good
desktop
client
(Windows,
MacOS
&
Linux),
iOS,
Android
and
web
access
(guests
can
use
either).
› All
participants
can
share
content
› Resilient
in
poor
or
unstable
conditions
› Record
and
stream
to
up
to
300
+
remote
users
› Capable
of
being
multi-­‐tenant,
so
individual
organisations
can
look
after
their
own
users
› Individual
organisations
(Tenants)
can
apply
own
branding
› Low
cost
and
easy
to
deploy
room
based
end-­‐points
» Cloud
pricing
model
» “User
Experience
to
drive
mass
adoption”
4th
Nov
2014
TENET
6

8. Vidyo
Infrastructure
4th
Nov
2014
TENET
8

9. TENET
will
provide
» Subject
to
Board
approval
» Vidyo
stack,
comprising:
› Vidyo
Portal
with
hot
spare
› x
2
Vidyo
Routers
(up
to
100
concurrent
users
each)
› x
2
Vidyo
Gateways
(for
H.323/SIP)
bridging
› Lync/Outlook/Google
Mail
integration
› Clients
for
Windows,
MacOS
and
Linux,
and
mobile
› Discounted
purchase
of
Vidyo
Room
systems
› A
base
level
of
connectivity
for
free
–
still
being
discussed,
with
additional
cost
beyond
that
› 1st
level
support
in
office
hours,
with
2nd
level
support
in
country,
3rd
level
with
Vidyo
in
US
» Possibility
of
collaboration
with
CERN
in
delivering
this
service
» Partnership
with
other
African
NRENs?
4th
Nov
2014
TENET
9

10. Video-­‐conferencing
for
post
graduate
teaching
» Two
networks
in
the
UK
–
MAGIC
and
the
Scottish
equivalent
› Teach
many
hours
a
week
in
a
distributed
way
› Leverage
expertise
in
a
more
efficient
way
» Early
plans
to
do
something
similar
in
South
Africa
› Working
with
Loyiso
Nongxa
from
Wits
and
others
› One
objective
is
t0
provide
better
opportunities
for
masters
and
doctoral
studies
in
places
where
the
necessary
expertise
may
not
be
available
» Challenges
› How
to
allow
mathematicians
to
scribble?
› Shared
whiteboards
› Good
experience
for
all
– Lighting
&
Audio
– Getting
people
at
remotes
sites
to
participate
fully
› Attention
needs
to
be
paid
to
both
the
technical
set
up
and
‘production’
and
to
helping
lecturers
to
adapt
the
way
they
teach
to
match
this
environment
› UK
Networks
can
help
here
4th
Nov
2014
TENET
10

11. Thank
you
Rob Bristow
r.bristow@tenet.ac.za
079 1818 708
@robbristow