OnPrem WebRTC with DeskPro / RoomKit

[sfrank]

Hi,

has someone an idea if and when WebRTC will be usable with CUCM registered endpoints? 

[Nithin Eluvathingal]

CUCM registered endpoint will not use Webrtc. 

Cisco Meeting App is a client for Cisco Meeting Server that lets users meet (audio/video), chat and share what is on their screen via team spaces.

The Cisco Meeting App for WebRTC (WebRTC app) does not have a dedicated app but runs on browsers.

[sfrank]

Hi,

Yes I know. The issue I have, if I register an endpoint via Webex, I can attend MS Teams calls via WebRTC Client. If I register the endpoint on the CUCM, then WebRTC is disabled and I can not attend a MS Teams Meeting or any oder WebRTC session. I'm aware of the limitations and also CVI. It is not a technical issue, the firmware limits the functionality by design. 

I'm just curious if this changes. We use Cisco because its standard based and on prem available. I'm not sure how long this feature lacks will make it possible in the future.

[Roger Kallberg]

You can use WebRTC with CUCM registered endpoints. We do so to let our room devices to attend MS Teams meetings.

What version of CE do you use? Per the documentation for this you’d need to be on CE 9.14 for this to work and you have to have hybrid calendar service setup for the OBT join button to be visible on the endpoints.

[sfrank]

Hi,

that is interesting. I tried different versions mainly 9.14 and RoomOS 10. We cannot use Webex Cloud Services and therefore a hybrid calendar is not an option. Do you have a guide how this is has to be configured? I only have some guides that rely on cloud registered endpoints.

However, the calendar service extracts the Meeting url and push’s it to the device.
What I try to achieve is shown in this video:

https://youtu.be/BKXOIqWrX5E

When the endpoint ist registered on webex, I can use the UI customization and create a webapp with the MS Teams link. As soon as I click the button, the device connects and everything is working as expected. When the device is connected to the CUCM and I use the Button, the Teams App has no Access to the camera and microphone. Further investigation revealed that some of the Xapi features are not available. MS Teams is also just an example, I would like to use webrtc for another internal service. 
Any Idea how to solve this?

[Roger Kallberg]

I do have documentation for this, but not accessible right now. Tried to find the information on Google, but could not find it right now. I did find this presentation on the topic from Cisco Live, https://www.ciscolive.com/c/dam/r/ciscolive/emea/docs/2020/pdf/BRKCOL-2611.pdf

To get this to work you need a few things.

• Video devices need to be enabled for Webex Edge for devices so that they are cloud aware.
• Hybrid Calendar service in Control Hub needs to be setup.
• The VC device needs to have a web engine in it and it has to be enabled. This is only applicable for the Room series. Older type of VC devices do not have this.
• Once the VC device is enabled as cloud aware go into Control Hub and search for the Workspace that is created. Enable hybrid calendar on the workspace.
• Enable hybrid calendar on any users that should be able to invite any rooms. This is for the OBTP to show up on the invited room. The reason for why this is needed is that per default the invite for room bookings do not keep the information in the body intact and that’s what is normally used to trigger OBTP.
• From a user that has hybrid calendar enabled create an invite and invite the room.
• Go to the room and check the screen and touch panel, it should list the meeting as scheduled and 5 minutes before the meeting start give the option to join via OBTP.

As I wrote before the only option for join with WebRTC is OBTP. So that part is imperative to get to work. We had quite a bit of trouble with this as we don’t keep the body of the invite intact in the room calendar, the default I mentioned above. The key to get this to work is to have hybrid calendar enabled for both the users and the devices.

[Roger Kallberg]

That webapp sounds interesting, would you mind to share some information about this?

[sfrank]

Thank you Roger but cloud is not possible.

In the IU Customization of the endpoint it is possible to add different custom things. Integrate room controls, custom events with macros,... etc. I added a custom button that opens a MS Teams Meeting URL from an invite. That’s all. You need to change this url for every meeting but that is not an issue. 
The other project where I want to use webrtc is our digital signage network and vbrick. We often have request for ingesting content from different content cameras. We use the CMS with streaming for that, but we need the separate streams from each video device, which results in different conferences. It is much work and many devices involved until all end devices have their formats and streams. With webrtc we can avoid the CMS and stream directly to the multiplexer that transcodes and mixes the individual streams.

However, there are more providers than google and ms teams that support webrtc and it would be good to connect to them also. 
So probably we have to use the cameras and a pc to build a collaboration room. 

Thank you

[Roger Kallberg]

So also cloud aware is off the table? I read your initial text as you could not do cloud registration of your VC endpoints.

[sfrank]

There is no real difference. For hybrid calendar to work it needs access to several mailboxes. This adds some legal issues. Furthermore I’m sure some additional licenses are necessary which results in additional costs. 
So it is probably cheaper to use CVI for a while and change the hardware in our 50 meeting rooms to something else. We also have around 300 DX80 that don’t support WebRTC. 

[Roger Kallberg]

CVI requires additional license, but to the best of my knowledge there are no additional license needed for neither hybrid calendar or Webex Edge for devices.

I don’t understand what you mean by access to several mailboxes or the legal issues?

Never the less you have an answer on how this can be made to work with on-prem registered devices. If you have reasons for why this doesn’t work out for you there aren’t much that we can do for you.

[sfrank]

WebEx extracts the invitation links from the calendar entries of the room mailboxes. That this could happen WebEx needs to be approved in the O365 tenant, Google or a connector has to be installed. These are usually only a few clicks but we have to obey several privacy and data protection acts around the world. This usually results in much work for lawyers. 

Ok, I have to investigate this further and keep this updated.  

[Roger Kallberg]

This is handled by the Calendar Connector, either in Expressway for on-prem Exchange or cloud connector in Control Hub for O365 or Google. Any legality on the matter is outside of my area.

[Nithin Eluvathingal]

Have Look on below docuemnt which explains the Cisco Webex Video Integration for Microsoft Teams

https://help.webex.com/en-us/nffx8kj/Deploy-the-Cisco-Webex-Video-Integration-for-Microsoft-Teams

[Roger Kallberg]

@Nithin Eluvathingal That document is for the CVI type of integration. I also found that when I searched on Google, but it is not relevant to the question.

Did some more search and found this that list what you get with Webex Edge for devices, it lists WebRTC join for MS Teams. https://help.webex.com/en-us/cy2l2z/Webex-Edge-for-Devices#id_127411