Rendezvous vrs Meet-me conferences

[Rolando Valenzuela]

I'm reading the official certification guide for CIPTV1 and this is driving me crazy!

Some documents considered them the same and therefor interchangeable words, while the official guide obviously does not so I would like to know exactly what's the difference between one and the other.

"Rendezvous conferences (also called meet-me, static, or permanent conferences)" [1][2]

"A meet-me audio conference is a rendezvous conference type. For meet-me audio conferencing, the conference initiator creates the conference ahead of time by invoking the MeetMe function of the Cisco Collaboration endpoint." [1]

But if you see the attached paragraph form the book, they treat them as a complete different thing, so far based on the book I'm reading the only difference I can spot is:

• Rendezvous conferences require a router pattern and a SIP trunk (direct integration with CUCM).
• Meet-me conferences are enabled only when a intermediary exists to manage the resources, like Cisco Conductor.

So both are "permanent" and "always active" conferences, but depends on the direct (or indirect) integration they should be called differently?

Any additional insight is highly appreciated.

Rolando A. Valenzuela.

[Jaime Valencia]

There are basically only two kinds of conferences, ad-hoc, which the bridge is created on the fly and you cannot really dial into it, you need to be conference'd in.

The other kind are rendezvous, meet-me, permanent, etc. Which are just different terms, depending on where you're talking about. You don't usually use rendezvous in CUCM, they're called meet-me. Rendezvous is mostly used with TP. You know what, or how, to dial into the bridge. And meet-me cannot really be called a permanent meeting, as it needs to be started before anyone else can join.

Not sure how old that book is, but in reality, you usually have conductor in between CUCM and vTP to handle all this, and then you can have both, ad-hoc and rendezvous meetings.

You might want to read the conductor documentation as well.

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/telepresence/infrastructure/conductor/config_guide/xc4-1_docs/TelePresence-Conductor-Unified-CM-Deployment-Guide-XC4-1.pdf

[Rolando Valenzuela]

Old book?!?! is the third version for the CIPTV1 test (http://www.ciscopress.com/store/implementing-cisco-ip-telephony-and-video-part-1-ciptv1-9781587144516)

Back to my question, so the No-Ad-Hoc type are called Meet-me if used with CUCM (since they are the most commonly used) and Rendezvous if used with Conductor, right?

Meet-Me conferences needs to be created beforehand while for rendezvous you can just dial a number (or range of numbers) and you will be placed in conference automatically, correct?


Thanks for all the help Jaime!

Rolando A. Valenzuela.

[Doychin]

Hi Rolando,

"So both are "permanent" and "always active" conferences, but depends on the direct (or indirect) integration they should be called differently?"

I was wondering about same thing when reading this guide, but decided not to go so deep. It was confusing,rather than helpful.

They're basically the same and often used as synonyms like "permanent" or "static"- must be configured, don't start as point-point, aren't scheduled and no resources are guaranteed.

Ad-Hoc = unscheduled = on demand  conference -> starts as "point-point", 3rd+ participant could be added via Multiway or MultiSite.

Meet me = Rendezvous - must be configured (don't begin as point-to-point), no resources are guaranteed. Could be one time or recurring!

Scheduled -  guarantee MCU & endpoint availability  + calendaring applications can be used for scheduling.

BR,

Doychin