TMS 14.5 with Conductor XC2.4 - Incorrect resource allocation

[Paulo Souza]

Hi folks,

I am facing a very strange issue with TMS and Conductor concerning resource allocation on Telepresence Server. In summary, this is what I have:

• TMS 14.5.0
• Conductor XC 2.4.1
• Telepresence Server 4.0(2.8) - Full Licensed

The issue is, I have a conference template in Conductor for MultiScreen and SingleScreen endpoints, the quality of Video is set to 720p30 and Audio to Multi-channel:

As I am using the above basic HD quality, Telepresence Server is supposed to support up to 24 SingleScreen HD participants. However, I am not able to place more than 12 SingleScreen endpoints on the conferences, when I have 12 endpoints, Conductor says that TP Server has reached 100% of its capacity.

Even TMS is not allowing me to schedule more than 12 SingleScreen participants when using that Conference Template. Here it is a resource calculation result for the Service Preference associated to that Conference Template in TMS:


 

When I calculate resources for MultiScreen endpoints, the result is correct. I can have for example a conference with 8 Three-screens endpoints.

And the most interesting thing is, the Conference Template has Audio quality set to Multichannel (Cause it is required for correct resource allocation for TX9000), if I change the quality from Multichannel to Stereo, then Conductor starts to allocate resources for SingleScreen endpoints correctly, I am able to place up to 24 endpoints on Telepresence Server and even TMS allows me to schedule up to 24 SingleScreen endpoints.

My conclusion is, there is something wrong with the calculation made my Conductor or I am missing something here. I am sure that, according to the Datasheet of Telepresence Server, a full licensed 8710 blade is supposed to support up to 24 720p30 participants when using stereo audio and 720p5 content quality. Therefore, considering that I am using SX20 endpoint (which has no support for multi-channel audio), Conductor should not allocated that amount of resources for SingleScreen endpoints just because the Conference Template is set to Multi-channel audio.

Has anyone got a problem like that?

[jvodny]

Hi Paulo,

Have you solved it please?

Thanks,

Josef

[Paulo Souza]

Hi Josef,

The issue has been resolved by upgrading TMS and Conductor to newer software versions. I am no sure, but I think we upgraded TMS to 14.6.2 and Conductor to 3.0

Regards

Paulo Souza

[jvodny]

Hi Paulo,

Thanks for update.

I am facing the issue with TMS 15.0 and TP Conductor 4.0.

I had to open Cisco TAC. Will post the result after fixing it.

I am thinking about workaround to "over adjust" Service Preference on TMS.

To set Capacity Adjustment of Service Preference in TMS for 170%.

Regards,

Josef

[Paulo Souza]

Hi Josef,

I retrieved information about this case and I found how we managed to resolve the issue. In fact, we didn't resolve the issue by upgrading TMS or by allowing over-capacity-scheduling. We have configured the conference template on Conductor with stereo audio and configured the multi-screen endpoints as pre-configured endpoints on Conductor (that overwrites the settings of the template so they can still use multiple screens and multi-channel audio).

Regards,

Paulo Souza

[jvodny]

Hi Paulo,

Thanks for update. Does it mean you have opened a TAC Case (what number please) or did you sloved it by yourself?

I have opened a TAC Case and also as workaround used over-capacity-scheduling.

Will test your solution if not fixed from Cisco TAC but prefer to push Cisco to fix it. Based on TP Server documentation it should work.

Will update the tread after final solution.

Regards,

Josef

[Paulo Souza]

Hi Josef,

We managed to resolve the issue by ourselves, we haven't opened a TAC for this case. But I can assure you that this workaround is already known by Cisco.

I think that Cisco has already opened a feature request to improve this behavior, so I believe you can work with your local Cisco representative towards pressuring Cisco to attend to this feature request faster.

As for the over-capacity-scheduling, my personal opinion is that it is not a good solution in case you have multiple three-screen endpoints. TMS miscalculates the resources only for single-screen endpoints, not for multi-screen endpoints, which means that allowing over-capacity-scheduling may lead TMS to scenarios where the number of ports scheduled on TMS will be greater than the number of ports currently available, thus causing conflicts.

Paulo Souza

[jvodny]

Hi Paulo,

Just to finish our conversation about the issue. maybe it can help someone.

It was a bug on TP Conductor.

Upgrade to Conductor 4.1. fixed the issue. The calculation is OK now.

Running TP Conductor 4.1. and TMS 15.0.1.

Regards,

Josef