Why replace MSE 8510 MCU 4.4 with Telepresence Server (3.1)

[Douglas Baggett]

We have an MSE 8510 with MCU 4.4. Looking at software avaialble it looks like I could replace the software with Telepresence server software instead.

Why would I do this? What do I gain (and lose) by doing it? I don't have any old CTS systems, just Jabber, C series and MXP systems. Is the Telepresence Server software what is being actively developed while the old MCU sofware is not?

thanks

[Paulo Souza]

Hi Douglas,

The main difference between TP Server and MCU is the support for multiscreen. TP server supports TIP protocol, whereas MCU does not. Therefore, with TP server, you can have imersive telepresence conferences, which is really nice when you have three screen telepresences, such as CTS 3000 series and TX 9000 series.

Putting away the TIP support, one another advantage of TP Server is the resource optimization feature that is available when you have Cisco Telepresence Conductor. This feature allows you take advantage of all your resources. For example, with a MCU 8510 running in HD mode, if you connect an endpoint using 480p resolution (which is not HD), the participant will take one whole HD  video port of your MCU, even not using HD resolution. But with TP Server + Conductor using resource optimization, one endpoint using 480p takes 1/3 of a HD port of the TP Server. In another words, you can take more advantage of your multipoint resources.

To learn more about resource optimization feature, take a look at the table 8 of the datasheet:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps7060/ps11305/ps11317/ps11339/data_sheet_C78-7287571.html

Considering the above explanation, I would say, if you don't have multiscreen telepresences and if you don't have Cisco Telepresence Conductor, I wouldn't suggest you to migrate from 8510 to TP Server, it is not worth. It is my personal hint.

With regards Cisco Telepresence MCU, I don't think that Cisco is goint to stop do improve MCU and keep improving only TP Server. That's not correct. In fact, Cisco is improving both multipoint platforms. I am sure about it. However, you cannot expect Cisco to add TIP support for Telepresence MCU, but of course Cisco is not stoping to develop MCU.

Regards

Paulo Souza

Was my response helpful? Please rate useful replies and remember to mark any solved questions as "answered".

[Douglas Baggett]

Very Interesting. We don't have conductor at the moment. Can you cluster 8510 and 8710 blades together? We might be getting some 8710 blades offsite and if I could cluster them together I might just want to pull that blade out and cluster it with the others instead.

[Paulo Souza]

Hi Douglas,

That is not possible, you cannot cluster different blades type. You can cluster 8710 + 8710, or 8510 + 8510, but not combine both.

Regards

Paulo Souza

Was my response helpful? Please rate useful replies and remember to mark any solved questions as "answered".

[dg842k]

Do note however that once you upgrade your current 8510 to the TelePresence Server software, it is now an 8710 blade.  The 8510 and 8710 hardware are the same blade, just different software So once you do that upgrade to the TPS software you can join that blade to an 8710 cluster.  We have done exactly this ourselves.

[Patrick Sparkman]

Dustin -

Having made a 8510 > 8710 migration, can you speak on your observations of the pros/cons and your opinion on the transition from one software to other, such as features etc that one has the other doesn't?

[dg842k]

For us the major difference was the following:

- Multi-Screen endpoint support

- Active Presence -  Filmstrip along the bottom of the screen showing other participants, usually preferred over traditional screen layouts, however it is the only screen layout option besides active speaker on the TPS, so you will lose your other layouts that you have on the 8510.

[brandon.echele]

If an 8510 is upgraded to an 8710 what happends to the recuring meetings scheduled through TMS?  Do those carry forward or will they need to be rebuilt?

[Patrick Sparkman]

They would have to be rebuilt.  Part of the migration process is to remove the MCU from all future bookings and purge it from TMS before performing the software migration it to become a TelePresence Server.  See the Running TS Software on MCU MSE8510 install guide for more details.

[Douglas Baggett]

I've also discovered something that I did not realize while trouble shooting some packet loss.

The MSE software does NOT support clearpath FEC or LRTF (as far as I can tell).

I've seen clearpath reduce packet loss by as much as 50%. That's a big deal.

[Tom Leinos]

By replacing the MCU with TPS software you will loose the auto-attendant features that has been proven to be very useful.

Too bad cisco has not made any replacement for this feature in TPS.

br. Tom

[Paul Woelfel]

What I am missing in TS is that you don't hear "you are joining the meeting now" or something like that. Also participants of a meeting don't get an audio notification if somebody joines the conference.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPad App

[t.svatek]

Thanks for the hint. I´m wondering, to which destination I should route calls to the external IP after migrating to TS.

[Douglas Baggett]

That actually is a pretty big deal. I use the autoattendant on the MCU as a fallback alias on our expressway for incoming systems that can only dial IP (either because they don't know how to dial a URI or they are too old).

We have an IPGW but frankly the performance of it is pretty awful at HD resolutions (the aspect ratio gets fouled up).

[Paulo Souza]

Hi Douglas,

The auto attendant feature is one great lack of Telepresence Server. I have some customers demanding the same thing. We have already escalated this request to our account manager and we are asking Cisco to deploy this feature, so I think you can do the same thing.

If many customers begin to demand the same thing, the probability of Cisco to add that feature in the future is greater.

That's all you can do for now. I agree with you, the Telepresence IP Gateway has a good concept but a poor quality and lack of features, that's why Cisco has discontinued it, I imagine.

Well, before migrating from 8510 to 8710, you must to consider all the inputs in this thread and measure the possible impact in your enviroment, and the need of the customer must to be consider as well.

Like I stated above, my personal opinion is, unless you have multiscreen endpoints and/or Cisco Telepresence Conductor, it is not worth to migrate from MCU to TP Server, mainly considering the cost.

Regards

Paulo Souza

Was my response helpful? Please rate useful replies and remember to mark any solved questions as "answered".