Basic VT / Video Question

[mparella]

I am upgrading my CM to v4.2 this month and looking to do a limited implemenation of some video. I have read the basics on VT Advantage solution and had some questions I can't seem to find the answers to:

1. Besides the obvious desktop software and hardware (camera) installation, what additonal configuration changes do I need to make to CM/Unity/gateways to get video working in the environment?

2. What kind of additional load is now placed on the network with video and what will this do to my current bandwidth configurations?

[Brandon Buffin · Accepted solution]

1. Take a look at the following link regarding CCM configuration.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps556/products_tech_note09186a00802345f4.shtml

2. You will need a minimum of 128k per video call in addition to your audio requirements. This is determined by your Region configuration as described in the previous link. Obviously, the more bandwidth you allocate per video call, the better quality you will have. You can also limit the number of calls using Locations. Take a look at the following link.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps5662/products_administration_guide_chapter09186a008022e623.html

Hope this helps. If so, please rate the post.

Brandon

[fred.s.mollenkopf · Accepted solution]

Michael,

First off you should check out the IP Video Telephony SRND if you are thinking about deploying video. Here is the link. (It's a 4.1 reference but should be 99% the same for 4.2).

http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/netsol/ns268/c649/ccmigration_09186a00804ff6ba.pdf

Somewhat brief answers to your questions.

1. QoS for video on all network devices. The above guide discusses this but the Enterprise QoS SRND is the best reference. Switched only VT advantage isn't that hard. If you have WAN links then the LLQs should be configured independantly for video and voice(still only one llq though but this will ease admin and give the ability to police the video). Call Manager locations can be created to help enforce Call Admission Control of video calls. Provisioning the bandwidth is going to be one of the harder things to configure.

ACLs will need to be adjusted for PC/Cam to Phone communication. The phone proxies the connection for the Camera and determines the camera via CDP (local on the phone switch) and then sets up a TCP connection traversing L2 vlans to L3 router and back. So if you have Phone acls they need to be adjusted. Again this is referenced in the above document.

Regions for video types. You have a few options on video quality. This response will also answer 2. You can choose Cisco wideband, 7mps each direction for the highest quality and low amount of system overhead on the pc cpu. Of course this takes up a total 14mb for video. Should only be used on local lan. Then you have increments of h263. They range from 128 up to 1536. The higher the bandwidth the better the quality and more cpu on the local pc. You will need to use regions to set the desired video codecs and locations to enforce the bandwidth the codecs require.

Lastly multipoint conferencing and other video endpoint integration. If you want conference with video you need to add MCUs. Currently (not sure on 4.2) CCM has a limitation on determining Video conference resources in an intelligent fashion. Essentially you need to have any video MCUs at the top of your MRGLs in CCM. This leaves the potential for Audio only conferences happening on very expensive video conference bridges. This calls for Device Pool and MRGL design changes for people who really only need multi-point video conferences.

Read that SRND, great resource.

Please rate any helpful posts

Thanks

Fred