How to Optimize Your Network for Cisco Telepresence Meetings

Smaller businesses have found many persuasive advantages to utilize video solutions and Cisco telepresence systems in their day-to-day business processes: as a promotion tool, as a point of contact for client support, and as a method of training their staff members. Within the company, Cisco telepresence and its utilization of video technology is achieving traction amongst small companies that wish to have face-to-face meetings without incurring the costs associated with travel. As beneficial as video can be, before you can effectively stream video broadcasts, you have to make sure the basic corporate network can accommodate the extra traffic and increased bandwidth requirements.

Decades of watching TV and movies have acclimatized us to have firm expectations from our video streaming experiences. We expect video to be seamless, uninterrupted and fluid, and the audio must be in flawless synchronization with the video we’re seeing. Unlike the Saturday morning cartoons we used to watch as kids in the ‘80s, we would like mouths to move along with the words being spoken, and we favor smooth motions. We get irritated if the streaming video we are watching fails to look right, and in many scenarios, we give will end up just giving up: We leave the program or we end the meeting short.

The fundamental issue is that the majority of small business corporate networks weren’t designed to provision support for video and Cisco telepresence deployments. Video traffic is extremely bandwidth demanding and can eat up more than its share of data, overpowering a small business corporate network. Think about this example: A solitary video stream eats up between 500 Kbps to 1.2 Mbps, and if it is an HD video stream, it can eat up as much as 4 Mbps to 7 Mbps.

Due to the extreme bandwidth necessary for a Cisco telepresence system deployment, your first task is making sure your corporate network has enough data bandwidth to accomodate streaming video and collaboration applications, like instant messaging. Can your corporate Internet connection accomodate streaming video, or does it produce a network bottleneck? The Cisco TelePresence Callway Line Quality Test Tool can allow you some prior awareness into the video streaming capability of your corporate Internet connection.

Advice for Boosting Your Corporate Network

Even though throwing more data bandwidth at the issue is one method of accommodating video streaming traffic, it’s not the only method of optimizing your corporate network for Cisco telepresence. You can boost your corporate network with a router that has inbuilt support for video streaming services, like the Cisco Small Business RV Series Routers, the Cisco 500 Series Secure Routers, or the Cisco 1900 Series Integrated Services Router.

Viewing entertaining videos on websites like YouTube and Facebook can eat up your corporate network’s data bandwidth, so you need to think about setting limits on network traffic produced by your company employees. You can either specify in your company’s acceptable use policy that staff aren’t supposed to access these websites on your corporate network, or you can add their website URLs to a URL filtering list in your router.

Second, you can use the Quality of Service (QoS) configuration settings on your router to allow video traffic priority over other kinds of traffic, like email, which can absorb some network jitters. And thirdly, check your router for IPSLA (IP service level agreements) configuration settings. Some more cutting-edge smaller business routers, like the Cisco 2900 Series Integrated Services Routers, allow you to set service levels for definite business-important IP applications like video streaming.

Finally, if your Cisco telepresence system doesn’t provide you with a great user experience, it won’t be put in use, and therefore it won’t assist people to meet and cooperate. But using the right Cisco router, your small business can effectively stream video to even the most impatient of viewers.

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Cisco Telepresence is Becoming The New Voice in Business

Bringing Cisco Telepresence to the Whole World

Cisco is fixated on quickening the pace of adoption for Cisco’s telepresence across all assorted industries, and organizations of all shapes and sizes located all over the the globe.  Cisco’s method and emphasis is evidently successful, as we’ve been witness to an explosive trend of global acceptance of Cisco TelePresence and incessant market share growth. We can see this trend in the lately circulated market share reports which prove that Cisco Telepresence is the clear Number One player with a whopping 52% of the video collaboration market share. This jump in Cisco telepresence’s market share underlines Cisco’s capability to extend its technology and knowhow to a wide variety of new clients, including small to medium sized businesses (SMBs). Cisco possesses the requisite wide range of endpoints, deployment models and interoperability to allow the concept of Cisco Telepresence everywhere for everyone to become a reality.  Cisco is witness to a momentous explosion of growth from customers who are new to Cisco telepresence and now understand the value Cisco can bring and the flexibility to meet their distinctive managerial requirements.

Empowering Deeper and More Diversified Installations

Cisco Telepresence users have complete faith in the power of telepresence and are driving even more deeper installations into their organization, taking it from the conference meeting rooms to the desktop. They’re beginning to realize the power of Cisco Telepresence as a transformative force for their organization, and they believe that Cisco has the wherewithal to supply a complete video architecture which scales, enhances asset/resource and bandwidth productivity to help reduce the Total Cost of Operations (TCO).

Many specialists and veterans of the video industry have attested to the fact that there is no other experience as realistic, spontaneous, unified, and accessible as Cisco TelePresence.  I also visualize a certain value to our customers as Cisco offers not just video, but also Cisco telepresence as a component of the unified collaboration architecture which positions people at the core of how they communicate, work and carry out business.  Cisco is striving to make video “The New Voice” by enabling a video call experience as simple and natural as a regular phone call.  I personally think that the recent Tandberg/Cisco assimilation is maybe one of the best acquirements in the industry and now that Cisco has completely integrated, it can deliver on Cisco telepresence like nobody else can and Cisco are well on our way in enabling video to become the new voice for everyone.

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With the Right Installation, Telepresence Will Not Trigger Any Security Alarms

A recent article published in a leading newspaper magazine reminds us, nevertheless, that to securely gather all of the advantages of Cisco telepresence, the government—or any other organization/entity—is required to ensure correct execution of the video technology behind Cisco Telepresence. Clearly, security apprehensions increase when multiple mobile devices connect simultaneously to a Cisco telepresence network.

The aforementioned article recognized the susceptibilities exposed in Cisco telepresence-equipped board and conference rooms, and consequently, on mobile devices, when enterprises and organizations do not install their connections behind a firewall or fail to set up their technology to fulfill their security requirements. Happily, the Cisco Telepresence technology itself is intrinsically secure, with numerous protection measures built into the infrastructure. It turns out to be, then, a case of investing informed Cisco telepresence users to correctly set up their systems.

So what should enterprises and/or organizations like the federal government do? First of all, embracing a solutions-based methodology assists safeguard protection by allowing controlled video traffic to navigate the firewall only to endpoints that exist behind the firewall. Just like an agency would not connect an unsecured PC to the corporate network, it should similarly make sure to secure any video endpoints—including mobile ones. Such a secured set-up retains a singular access point into the corporate network and makes Cisco telepresence simple to deploy and administer.

Government bodies depending on Cisco telepresence can also secure confidential information by correctly organizing their Cisco telepresence networks to adapt to their requirements. For example, agencies handling top-secret issues should screen incoming calls as tightly as possible by deactivating any auto-answering abilities.

Like all technologies, video conferencing and Cisco telepresence are only as protected as the corporate networks on which they are deployed.  The government accepts no risks in installing Cisco telepresence, as long as it installs and configures the technology correctly. Cisco works closely with other manufacturers to stick to industry wide commonly accepted standards and develop protected, user-friendly Cisco telepresence which can guarantee successful installation and provide singularly beneficial Cisco telepresence end user experiences.

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Capitalize on Cisco Telepresence Value for Federal Agencies

One might wonder: Has he really in actuality extended his viewing choices since getting the new system? Hmm … not really. First of all, he is scared of his new remote—it is way too complicated. He also usually finds it to turn the system on.

Those of us who decide to invest in Cisco telepresence do not have to suffer from this technological perplexity. Nor would they wish to miss out on the technology’s advantages, particularly after making such a huge monetary investment. Nevertheless, as a Cisco representative pointed out at their Federal Cisco TelePresence Users Forum, a plethora of Cisco telepresence clients have found it difficult to exploit the potential of their newly deployed systems. They had difficulty reforming their workplace cultures to communities which are able to adopt video as the dominant method of communication.

The Cisco representative spoke about a few of the ways federal agencies can circumvent the hindrances some organizations have faced and inculcate flourishing Cisco telepresence networks inside their offices. His list touched upon the below mentioned stratagems:

1)      Training and Support: Supply all possible agency users with the right tools they will require for success, such as all-inclusive system knowledge and established understanding of the available technological utilities. Deploy support systems and broadcast their accessibility to eradicate any user threats.

2)      Incentivize initial adopters: Encourage Cisco telepresence use all over the agency by recognizing and broadcasting the constructive results experienced by the initial employees to efficaciously utilize the technology.

3)      Enabling a Cisco telepresence-dependent setting: Minimize travel costs and budgets. Deploy HR rules, regulations and policies necessitating some Cisco telepresence use.

4)      Screen, measure, and report: Assess the technology’s performance and communicate successes and prospects.

5)      Remain flexible: Make modifications when required, and seek assistance from technology providers. Don’t allow the system to stop functioning for you when there might be a simple solution to the issue.

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Disentangling Educational Budget Crunches via Cisco Telepresence

In a comparable dismal state as California, Minnesota’s state government has borrowed $2.2 billion from its public academic institutions to conclude a government shutdown. The state has still not been able to set a date by which to repay the academic institutions back.

California and Minnesota reveal the unsteady states of the education budgets of numerous states across the country. With each succeeding year academic institutions make larger and larger cuts, stuff more students into jam-packed classrooms, and lay off more members of the faculty.

As the economy finds it difficult to recover, academic institutions need an instant solution. With Cisco telepresence, school districts can make one-time investments which supply all of the paraphernalia required to take pupils anywhere in the universe— even other planets included. The cost of a Cisco telepresence installation pales in comparison to the money required to construct Riverside’s Hillcrest High School, and it necessitates no continuing monetary investments to rollout, modify, improve, and extend programming. Cisco Telepresence technology takes students places that tight field trip budgets may not allow, and it brings students to classrooms where they gain access to courses which their schools don’t have the means to offer.

It looks in like, in today’s modern economy, school districts are unable to afford not having deployed Cisco telepresence connections. The technology exists to keep the education sector afloat, to keep students learning by educating them with the material they require to learn to become resourceful, logical, proficient contributors to society. We know that funds are in tight supply, and it’s due to this tightness that educational financing requires a new course, with ground-breaking investment choices that further enhance educational excellence. Investing in Cisco telepresence leads to instant, considerable educational returns on investments (ROIs) which continue for many years to come.

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Cisco Extends WebEx to Include Social and Telepresence

But in today’s international workplace, simplifying in-person conferences and meetings is more and more problematic with a workforce that’s more and more rotated by time and place.  Even amongst video conferencing solutions the only solution that supplies a natural “in-person” meeting experience is Cisco telepresence . Telepresence produces the closeness of an in-room conference meeting, keeps staff engagement on a high level and proliferates efficiency by getting members together in a virtual manner.

Cisco TelePresence solutions accomodate businesses of all sizes with an extensive endpoint portfolio to meet the requirements of diversified budgets and use cases. This is of critical importance as Cisco telepresence becomes more dominant as clients expand the networks of people they are able to call.  That’s why Cisco had launched Cisco TelePresence Callway back in 2011, a cloud-based Cisco telepresence offer for mid-sized and smaller businesses.

Ongoing with these endeavors, Cisco is bringing into line its product strategy to construct a cohesive people-centric collaboration platform which includes Cisco telepresence. Cisco has launched an expanded set of collaboration capabilities from the cloud to assist with acceleration of this idea under a cohesive brand name, Cisco WebEx.  Comprised in this product launch are reorganized advantages and a branding modification for Cisco Callway to Cisco WebEx Telepresence, as well as a branding modification for Cisco Quad to Cisco WebEx Social.  An extended set of features from Cisco WebEx assists IT to rapidly supply more users with more services, all while ensuring protection, performance and dependability, and enabling users with simple access to their preferred collaboration tools from any device.

Cisco is exclusively placed to provide new services from the cloud founded on industry leading experience via Cisco WebEx, which currently provides the world’s second biggest public cloud for business collaboration solutions. Via the new release of Cisco WebEx Telepresence available by the end of June 2012, Cisco has included added advantages in the subscriptions like:

  • Allowing users the capability to have numerous members on the WebEx Telepresence network join their video calls
  • Unified management of installations via an online user interface
  • Support for new endpoints and devices

Furthermore, subscription tiers have been streamlined and users can take advantage of pre-paying for yearly contracts at a cheaper pricing structure.

In line with what users appreciated from the Cisco Callway service, Cisco WebEx Telepresence provides quick endpoint activation via an Internet connection and maintenance/management controlled by the service via automatic version upgrades.  Users can connect to members by using video conferencing systems on differentiated networks; allowing the users get the maximum out of their IT investments, and enabling Cisco’s current telepresence users to connect to partners and their clients who may be utilizing the Cisco WebEx Telepresence service.  Cisco WebEx Telepresence is obtainable in the U.S. and Canada and sold via Cisco’s channel partners.

Cisco is dedicated to conveying communications-improving video collaboration to enterprises everywhere, no matter the size or budget involved. You can explore Cisco WebEx Telepresence to learn more about the services and hear from Cisco’s satisfied clients.  And please do let us know in case you have any further queries—we would love to assist you in seeing what Cisco telepresence via the cloud can do for your business.

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Cisco Telepresence in The Modern Conference Room – Part 1

Staff members would spend hours, if not days, traveling to the conference room to meet with his or her peers face-to-face.  The conference room would be filled up with staff members sitting down to hammer out the organization’s top steps.

Today’s conference room is vacant. Or at least it’s not quite as full as it used to be a few years back.

Could it be due to the reason that executive teams are holding less face-to-face conferences and meetings? Or is the need for sequestered interactions declining? Do staff members value conferences and meetings less now than 5, 10 or 15 years back?

If anything the reverse scenario is true: staff members wish to meet more frequently but are more physically detached. Staff members want the conference room experience without actually being present in the conference room. Work / life balance (which in my opinion can be referred to simply as “harmony”) has made all of us – staff members included – demand more time at home which implies less time in the conference room.

Modern enterprises have figured out how to provide the conference room experience at any location, at any time.

Conference Room Restructuring leads to advances at Enterprise Level

A leading organization has a matchless conference room which is located at the center of its head office. The multi-purpose conference room is a meeting place for staff members, a place of festivity for staff members completing a 25-year (or more) anniversary (and there are SEVERAL of them which indicates what a great place this company is to work), and even to record a video endorsement regarding modernization in the conference room and beyond:

The enterprise team identifies how the addition of Cisco TelePresence to the conference room has helped:

–          Staff members and management are able to cooperate more efficiently and get face-to-face more quickly

–          Minimize travel times and enhance productivity to better serve its clients. For example, management members which previously used to spend a week or more traveling to different locations can now meet with each location from the conference room, minimizing the days of travel required.

–          Include more strategic people in urgent meetings as evidence, a leading manager at this enterprise states “At the conclusion of a protracted day, no staff member wants to drive an hour each way for an in-person conference meeting. But if they are able to walk into a Cisco TelePresence conference room in their own office right away …they would really value that. We are seeing more office staff members in virtual conferences than we ever saw in our in-house face to face conference meetings.”

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Cisco Telepresence in The Modern Conference Room – Part 2

Before this enterprise’s Cisco TelePresence installation, a conference meeting having 20 executive staff members would have been problematic, if not downright impossible. But via the use of Cisco Telepresence, not only is it conceivable, it is very efficient and also gives substantial cost savings to the enterprise.

The end results are articulately summed up in this statement from the CEO of this enterprise, “We recently held a single Cisco TelePresence conference meeting for 20 executive members to deliberate on an urgent matter. I’m convinced that we were rewarded for our whole Cisco TelePresence investment with the returns from that one conference meeting.”

And while there are fewer members using the enterprise boardroom, efficiency has improved, executive and employee staff member satisfaction is higher, and everybody is spending more time dedicated to their priorities.

 An Enterprise is able to eradicate 20,000 Executive Business Jaunts

When this enterprise was looking for a vigorous solution to take advantage of the accumulated know how of 214,000 staff members globally to enhance their business operations and increase outputs and efficiencies, they agreed that the solution would have to be simple and scalable, hence they selected Cisco TelePresence for this purpose.

At the initiation of the project, the enterprise department selected a few critical conference meetings on which to examine the new Cisco TelePresence solution, including the annual executive board conference meeting. Board members of the staff travel from all around the world to Paris for a 2-hour conference meeting costing the organization a lot of wasted time and unnecessary expense.

The pilot board conference meeting was a great success (to the relief of this enterprise!) A manager at this enterprise enlightened us that, “A few of the early reactions to our Cisco TelePresence systems were initially ‘wow, how can we have this adapted this into our organization? The unadulterated immersive and collaborative response, along with the capability to reach out and interconnect with teams all over the world or on the other side of town is extremely powerful’ It has been seen as a huge advantage by the executives, something instantly accessible and not too costly”

The successes with Cisco TelePresence spreads out beyond the conference room:

–          Reduce travelling incurred costs by €100 million over an extended three-year period by hosting 43,000 conferences and meetings

–          Minimized CO2 emissions by 240,000 metric tons over this same three year timeframe

–          Concurrently enabled staff executives to make improved use of their time by minimizing the quantity of trips for management executives by 20,000

–          Eradicated 15,000 employee business jaunts

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Cisco TelePresence MX Series in a Nutshell – Part 2

In other words, meeting members on screen no longer need to go into PIP mode every time content is shared if you don’t need them too. We sometimes find it infuriating when a slide is pulled up and we need to see the reactions on members faces, but they have suddenly become too small to view! Part of the collaborative advantages of using Cisco Telepresence is to feel like you are sitting in the same room. Happily, the Cisco Telepresence MX series was developed with this important factor in mind. They also have the ‘intelligent proximity’ feature allowing members to see content on their personal devices, including tablets and smartphones, instead of just on the video display screen. Not only does this free up limited screen space so you can view each other, it also lets members go through content at their own pace without disturbing the presentation.

For medium-to-large conference rooms, the Cisco Telepresence MX700 and MX800 are custom-made to specifications like camera height, screen display size and screen resolution, and the audio speaker system. Another great feature of these solutions has to be the studio-like camera work: that is, the dual camera speaker tracking solution. This allows a large and complicated discussion to seem like it’s being done in a professional studio, with multiple cameras tracking each speaker and showing you precisely what you need to view. We think the greatest feature is the speaker tracking capability. It’s going to enhance the user experience, particularly in huge rooms. It is going to revolutionize the ways in which we interact with people.

Cisco’s patented solution enables members to concentrate on their meeting, while the cameras automatically track the speakers wherever they are sitting in the room. The cameras can shadow the speaker, focus on the speaker’s face, and then present the new speaker centered on screen. They also have presets which are fully customizable, so one will capture the room while the other can capture a presenter standing at a whiteboard. With up to eight tabletop microphones connected, everybody can be heard loud and clear, and that is of critical importance during conference calls. The Cisco Telepresence MX Series also comes with the capability to bridge diverse locations without the need for any back end equipment. So you don’t require an elaborate video service in the network to host a four-way conference on the Cisco Telepresence MX200/MX300 and a five-way conference on the Cisco Telepresence MX700/MX800.

The Cisco Telepresence MX Series are also more lighter in weight, have brighter displays, and can fit into modern spaces with their elegant and sophisticated cutting edge design. When paired with the Touch 10 user interface, simplicity of use and an awesome design, the Cisco Telepresence MX Series feels intuitive in use and makes Cisco Telepresence that much better.

For more detailed specs on the MX300 G2 and MX200 G2, take a look here.

For more on the MX700 and MX800, check out this link.

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TelePresence and WebEx Unite to Give You the Best of Both Worlds

What is the significance of this unification?With the existence of tens of thousands of Cisco TelePresence endpoints and in excess of 30 million active WebEx solution users, Cisco endeavoured to make B2B video collaboration easier than ever before in the past. By unifying Cisco’s market leading online Web conference solution, WebEx, with the market leading enterprise high-quality video features present in Cisco’s TelePresence solutions Cisco is facilitating an all-in-one meeting with anybody, anywhere, on any hardware device.

Augmented to function with any standards-based video endpoints, Cisco TelePresence and WebEx assists enterprises to widen the reach of video collaboration and streamline the experience for all members.

What can Cisco’s clients expect by this amalgamation of these two powerful collaboration solutions?

I’ve delineated a few advantages below:

  • Simplicity of Use
    • With One Button to Push (OBTP) you can schedule, simply begin and join in a meeting, WebEx users are able to join by clicking on the WebEx link given to them in the meeting invite
    • You can expect a unified and familiar experience irrespective of whether they select to join a meeting using telepresence or WebEx
  • Flexibility
    • You can invite anybody, selecting to utilize TelePresence and or WebEx, based on who is being invited inside their enterprise or outside via a personalized email invitation
    • These conferences can be planned and performed using tools you are used to like Outlook
    • Via Cisco Jabber, users can interconnect using mobile phones or tablet devices
  • Improved Conferencing Experience
    • Via Cisco TelePresence endpoints users are empowered to experience the finest, realistic video to improve the collaboration experience
    • High definition (HD) video with up to 720p resolution amongst Cisco TelePresence endpoints and WebEx providing a premium experience
    • Share content in the most secure manner inside a conference– like applications and desktop content
  • Scalability
    • Enlarge meeting options for enterprises to simply make video collaboration accessible for anybody to be utilized more widely inside and outside of the enterprise
    • Scale face to face communications through the whole business to nurture and facilitate increased collaboration

This announcement further supports Cisco’s vision of pervasive conferencing  and making video technologies as simplified as voice. It’s a result of Cisco’s exertions to amalgamate the greatest and brightest in Cisco’s solution offerings to improve simplicity of use and flexibility.

Click here to find out more about how TelePresence and WebEx are working in tandem to make an environment where people can work together with ease, from any place and from any device.

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