Ask the Expert: Installing, Configuring, and Troubleshooting Cisco Unified MeetingPlace

[ciscomoderator]

https://supportforums.cisco.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/102-29498-2-126367/dejan_petrovic_bio.png " rel="nofollow" target="globalCDCpopup">With https://supportforums.cisco.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/102-29498-2-126367/dejan_petrovic_bio.png " rel="nofollow" target="globalCDCpopup">Dejan Petrovic

Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about different MeetingPlace deployment types, what they include and require, and what they are capable of with Cisco expert Dejan Petrovic.  Cisco Unified MeetingPlace is a conferencing solution providing audio and video conferencing, and data sharing experience. It can be fully on premise solution or a hybrid solution integrated with WebEx for data sharing capability. Dejan  will be answering any questions about installation, upgrade, migration and troubleshooting processes.

Dejan Petrovic is a Cisco customer support engineer and team lead in the Conferencing Technical Assistance Center team based in Boxborough. He has been providing support to customers and partners for Cisco Unified MeetingPlace solutions since 2009. He has more than eight years of experience working in the IT industry as system administrator, business manager, and networking consultant. Petrovic holds a bachelor’s degree in computer network and information systems as well as several Cisco certifications, including CCNA, Cisco IPCC Express Specialist,  and MeetingPlace Support Specialist.

Remember to use the rating system to let Dejan know if you have received an adequate response. 

Dejan might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Collaboration, Voice and Video sub-community discussion forum shortly after the event.  This event lasts through February 8, 2013. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

[dpetrovi]

Hi Jonathan,

Thank you for your question. The straight answer is that it is not possible to retrieve recordings if you don't have MP Web server.

When you do an audio recording of the meeting in MP8.0, recording in the form of av_rec.mp4 file is created and stored under conference directory on MP Application server (e.g.

/mpx-record/conf/000001.dir/016719/av_rec.mp4).

If you have MP Web server, this recording file is pulled from MP Application server after the meeting ended, and based on the configuration it gets converted to either .mp3, .wav, or .wmf and the link is created and posted on the web page (a special tool built in the code of MP Web server is converting this mp4 file to the desired format).

If you don't have MP Web server, the recording stays on the MP App server for a couple of days when it gets purged from the server. There is no interface to retreive these recordings (like via Telephone User Interface, or a link on the MP App server).

Even if you copied the recording file manually from MP App server using WinSCP or a similar tool (you would need to identify the Unique Conference ID of your meeting in decimal value in order to find the appropriate directory for the meeting under /mpx-record/conf section), it still wouldn't be in a playable form and you would need to figure out the way to convert it.

I personally tried to figure that one out, but without success, and since it is not officially supported, I couldn't get help from DE's.

I am sorry for not being able to help you more with this one.

Please, let me know of any additional questions.

-Dejan

[Evgeniy.Suvorov]

Hi Dejan.

I have MP8 Application server installed without MP Web server and Webex node.

When I try to invite external user to conference I see the error

If it try to invite profiled user with the same number the is not the error.

What can be the reason the error ?

[dpetrovi]

HI Evgeniy,

Thank you for your participation. Based on your problem description, I would advise you to check the following:

1. Go to MP Application Server > Administration Center > User Configuration > User Profiles > and open a Guest user profile.

2. Once you have Guest user profile, please check "Can dial out" section and ensure it is set to YES.

3. Then, log out from Conference Manager, log back in, schedule a new meeting, and try do dial out to Guest profile again.

Let me know how it goes.

Thank you.

-Dejan

[Evgeniy.Suvorov]

Hi Dejan.

In Guest user profile the "Can dial out" section is checked but I can't invite Guest profile.

[dpetrovi]

Hi Evgeniy,

What exact version of MP8.0 Application Server do you have? What is the exact version of Conference Manager you are using? Can you send me the screen shot of the profile details of the account you use to log in to Conference Manager, as well as the screen shot of the profile details of the Guest account.

There are two more things to check:

1. Ensure that in the Admin profile (profile you are using to log in to Conference Manager), under Meeting Preferences >

Who can attend = Anyone . If this is set to anything other than Anyone, guest users cannot be invited.

2. One more thing you can try before deeper analysis is needed, is to try give some different name, other than Guest to the external participant you are calling. So, try to start the meeting, go to Add Participant section, for User ID enter something other than Guest, enter the phone number, check the Profile radio button for "Guest", and click Call User.

If this doesn't work, further investigation will be required and I would have to advise you to reach out to Conferencing TAC team to go over your entire configuration and the logs.

Please, let me know if these new suggestions result in a sucessfull outdial.

Thank you.

-Dejan

[Evgeniy.Suvorov]

Thank you Dejan.

The Guest profile was blocked, so the system could not invite user.

.

[steeltoe159]

good day sir im using a cisco rv 042, in the bandwidth management area when it says rate control and i checked wan1 and wan2 placed min to 1500kilobitpersec and max to 3000kilobitpersec what does it mean exactly? for ip addressess 192.168.0.10 to 192.168.0.90?

new to cisco rv042 please help thank you

[dpetrovi]

Hello Ian,

Unfortunately, I am an SME for MeetingPlace product, and don't know anything about RV042. You might want to reach out to Bhavik Joshi who has an expert corner to discuss VPN on ASA. He might be able to point you in the right direction.

I hope you will be able to find the correct resource to help you.

Thank you.

-Dejan

[Nick Richards]

Dejan,

We're planning a MP8.5 deployment with WebEx Scheduling, but we haven't yet decided whether to use WebEx-Managed or MP-Managed user profiles. The customer is a government agency (one in which you have spent a good deal of time troubleshooting) and hasn't yet approved the Federated SSO via SAML that we'd like to use with WebEx-Managed profiles. So we're trying to formulate our recommendation for which method to pursue. But we're having difficulty finding clear answers in the documentation, or a comparison of the various methods.

So Question 1 is:

In an environment with MP 8.5 and WebEx-scheduling and M$ Active Directory, what are the deployment and support caveats for WebEx-managed vs MeetingPlace-managed profiles as specifically related to SSO?

Question 2 is:

How do SSO-enabled profiles really vary from Directory Service profiles, in terms of support and user experience?

Thanks in advance...

[dpetrovi]

Hello Nick,

I appreciate your questions, and will try to answer them below.

When you are installing a fresh new MeetingPlace 8.5 that you plan to integrate with WebEx, the only available option is WebEx Managed user profiles. With this option, you can either create profiles manually on WebEx side, and then sync them to MeetingPlace, or you can use Federated SSO for import of profiles from LDAP server in your network to WebEx, and then sync the profiles from WebEx to MeetingPlace (you choose one of these two options when provisioning WebEx site).

These are the only two available options for a NEW install of MP8.5 for WebEx integration, and as you can see both options are WebEx Managed profiles, the only difference is if you are going to use Federated SSO, or create profiles on WebEx manually.

During the install, you can select to install MeetingPlace managed users option, but you would choose this option only if you plan to do a migration from an earlier MP release (7.x/8.0) with WebEx integration and Directory Integration.

For example, MeetingPlace managed profiles option is available if you had MeetingPlace 8.0 integrated with WebEx Type II (WebEx scheduling) with Directory Integration, where you had your MP8.0 integrated with CUCM via AXL for user profile management (CUCM integrated with LDAP), and your WebEx Site provisioned for Directory Integration, and then migrate from that system to MeetingPlace 8.5 that you installed selecting MeetingPlace managed user profiles.

The same goes for MeetingPlace Scheduling (Type I) integration with WebEx. Possible only with migration, and not with a fresh new installation.

Now, to focus on your questions.

1. As you can see, you don't have many options. If you have MS Active Directory that you would like to use for SSO in MP8.5 WebEx Scheduling, you will have to go with Federated SSO. So far, I haven't heard of any issues with that as it seems to be pretty straight forward to configure, and also WebEx Support team provides direct support for that setup as it is a direct integration between WebEx Site and the LDAP server (nothing to do with MeetingPlace side of the equation).

2. In general, if you have Federated SSO enabled, you would go to WebEx site home page, click on Host Log In button which will then ask you to enter your network/windows credentials and place you to WebEx scheduling interface.

If you have Directory Integration (like on MP8.0 WebEx Type II with CUCM/AXL integration), when you go to WebEx site home page and click Host Log In button, you are being redirected to the MeetingPlace log-in page where you would enter your Windows credentials (assuming your CUCM is integrated with LDAP), and then if log in is successful, you get redirected back to WebEx scheduling interface. With this type of deployment, you can log in to WebEx scheduling interface ONLY if you are connecting from your company network or have a VPN connection to your company network. This is a major limitation that most customers complained about, but the reason for this was that we didn't want to make MP Application server hostname/IP publicly available and hence cause a security issue.

I am sure I answered your questions, but opened some new questions. So, please, let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Thank you.

-Dejan

[Nick Richards]

Awesome answers. Thanks, Dejan.

[dpetrovi]

Thank you, Nick. I am glad if I was of help.

Take care and let me know of any additional questions you might have.

-Dejan

[Evgeniy.Suvorov]

Hi Dejan.

I have another question. Can I get recordings from MP8 if there is not MP Web server and Webex node ?

[dpetrovi]

Hi Evgeniy,

I am glad the original issue got resolved. As for your second question, if you have MP8.0 Audio only with only MP Application server and no MP Web server, you cannot obtain recordings.

When you do an audio recording of the meeting in MP8.0, recording in  the form of av_rec.mp4 file is created and stored under conference  directory on MP Application server (e.g. /mpx-record/conf/000001.dir/016719/av_rec.mp4).

If  you have MP Web server, this recording file is pulled from MP  Application server after the meeting ended, and based on the  configuration it gets converted to either .mp3, .wav, or .wmf and the  link is created and posted on the web page (a special tool built in the  code of MP Web server is converting this mp4 file to the desired  format).

If  you don't have MP Web server, the recording stays on the MP App server  for a couple of days when it gets purged from the server. There is no  interface to retreive these recordings (like via Telephone User  Interface, or a link on the MP App server).

Even  if you copied the recording file manually from MP App server using  WinSCP or a similar tool (you would need to identify the Unique  Conference ID of your meeting in decimal value in order to find the  appropriate directory for the meeting under /mpx-record/conf section),  it still wouldn't be in a playable form and you would need to figure out  the way to convert it.

I  personally tried to figure that one out, but without success, and since  it is not officially supported, I couldn't get help from DE's.

I am sorry for not being able to help you more with this one.

Please, let me know of any additional questions.

-Dejan

[Evgeniy.Suvorov]

Thank you Dejan.