3. INTERNATIONAL VIDEO-CONFERENCING, INC.
INTRODUCTION
IVCi's streaming solution by Conferserv is a new, powerful multimedia collaboration tool that enables
non-technical business professionals to easily record meetings and presentations and create interactive
presentations from in-house conference rooms with the same high quality results as professional media
studios. It combines high-end video with synchronized slides and interactivity to produce compelling
messages that inform, educate, and drive action.
IVCi provides a completely integrated collaboration environment that manages content, tracks who
receives it, who views it and drives real time communications and decision-making. The platform is
built on Microsoft .NET and other leading industry standards to ensure a robust and secure operating
environment.
The platform supports applications such as live and video on-demand (VOD) product announcements,
employee training, video mail marketing campaigns, sales news & success stories, company meetings,
and customer training - applications that provide competitive advantage!
IVCi can provide a choice of solutions ranging from a service on the public internet to hosting and
managing the streams in the secure IntelliNet environment to providing the solution in a customers
own infrastructure. The choice depends on how much security and performance is required along with
a preference to have unlimited access compared to pay by the minute.
The following information provides a summary of features and technology.
FEATURE SUMMARY
Easy to Use Presenter Interface
A simple to use and easy to navigate interface for content producers to create content. Using standard
videoconferencing remote controls, producers can preview slides, push slides, send web pages and
polls, gather detailed audience viewing parameters, and answer audience questions all without the
need of an auxiliary PC.
Customizable Web Viewer (Client)
The client runs on any standard Internet browser and does not require client-side software to be
installed. Features supported by the web viewer include:
• High-quality live and VOD audio and video
• PowerPoint Slides
• Q&A chat
• Author chapters
• Personalized bookmarks
• Custom links to web pages or other presentation supporting materials
• VCR control over content
3
4. INTERNATIONAL VIDEO-CONFERENCING, INC.
Question & Answer Sessions
The Q&A feature allows viewers of the videoconference to participate by communicating with the
moderator via back channel text communication. They no longer require an H.32x endpoint for
communication and are not limited to one-way communication.
Immediate Archival
Automatic archiving of live meetings, presentations, and Webcasts. Once the Webcast is concluded, the
content is immediately available as VOD. With competitive systems, the production time required to
convert live Webcast content to VOD is most often measured in days and weeks; the IVCi solution
ensures a VOD version of the Webcast is available for viewing within minutes of the event's conclusion.
Storage capacity will scale to meet the most demanding content archival requirements. The baseline
storage configuration can be determined based on anticipated usage. For example, assuming a
400Kbps payload (streaming content and data elements), one hour of streaming content will consume
approximately 180MB of available storage capacity. For enterprises that have a greater need for
increasingly sophisticated storage features and total capacity, the server is easily configured to support
fiber-based network and storage devices.
Ease of Administration
Administration is from a web-based user interface in any java enabled browser from anywhere on the
Internet, enabling the administrator to create content producer and end user accounts as well as
administer all live and archived videoconferences.
Each customer is provided with three powerful tools used for accessing and managing their account
and content:
1. Content Creation Port - A network connection to the server where video and other content is
captured and synchronized for encoding, streaming, and storage
2. Administration Portal - Web page where company administrators configure the account, manage
content, add/modify users, create groups, assign access rights, and privileges
3. Content Portal - Web page where all users access live or on-demand content such as meetings
being streamed, archived meetings or interactive presentations
Customers use their existing video conferencing systems to connect to a Network Content Creation Port
using either IP or ISDN. Once connected, they are required to enter a password for authentication and
then connected to their existing database where they are able to access all Conferserv services, such as
recording meetings or Webcasting presentations.
The administration portal allows each company to manage its own account and content through a
simple, easy to use web page available from any standard Internet browser. When an administrator
logs into the system, they are presented with only the information about their company's account,
users, and content, just as if they were accessing their own server on their own network.
4
5. INTERNATIONAL VIDEO-CONFERENCING, INC.
The Content Portal provides a convenient and powerful web interface that allows enterprise viewers to
log-in from a standard Internet browser and easily access the content for which they have been granted
privileges. The Content Portal also allows content to be organized in meaningful ways, such as by
department, division, or type of content.
Slide Show Tool
The presenter can present slides throughout the conference, enhancing their presentation.
High Resolution Video
Support is provided for 320X240 native video that can be shown full screen with the click of a button
(up to the max PC screen resolution).
Real-time Monitoring
This is enabled with a robust suite of content management and monitoring services. The reporting
applications are a move beyond basic SNMP data gathering to a more detailed and integrated set of
network and end user monitoring and analysis tools that provide a centralized view of all activity across
an enterprise.
Enhanced Security
Access is controlled to Networks, Channels, and Content by authenticating a content producer's or
participant's user ID and password. When creating a Webcast, the content producer has access to
detailed security control parameters which allow for a targeted content viewing and distribution profile
to be created and enforced. All administrative functions are supported with native SSL.
Video Mail Creation & Campaign Management
Presenters can leverage the system to record a video mail message and/or presentation. With the use
of simple templates, presenters can create, address, and send HTML email messages - your users
simply click on the embedded video link to view your video presentation. All viewer actions are
recoded for comprehensive campaign reporting. And since the actual video file is not sent with the
mail message, you never have to worry about your message be blocked by firewalls or subjected to
mailbox storage limits.
Integrated Multipoint Conferencing Unit (MCU)
Whether as part of the public service or the private IntelliNet hosted service there is a choice of MCU
options built in.
Intelligent Edge Caching
The next generation of intelligent content distribution technologies are enabled making major steps
forward in the area of media redirection and network load balancing. Like early generation load
balancing components, the system can parse URL's, HTTP Headers and perform content checks. In
addition to these supported rules, there are a suite of rich capabilities that enable SNMP checks,
scriptable content, geographic location, complex formula based redirection and more. In addition rules
are created by developing an XML based language where scripts can be located anywhere on the
Internet yet run within the distributed platform. Edge caching is not available as part of the public
internet service.
5
6. INTERNATIONAL VIDEO-CONFERENCING, INC.
H.32X Endpoint Agnostic
Significant interoperability testing has been done to ensure that the majority of H.32X-protocol
endpoints in use today for content creation are supported.
SOFTWARE AND IP-CENTRIC SOLUTION
The solution is designed to run on Microsoft Windows NT and 2000 servers. Network performance has
been optimized for each platform and structured as a software solution that can take advantage of
incremental hardware improvements.
Conferserv is designed as an n-tier, database-driven, web-based application comprised of several
tightly integrated, patent-pending software components. Each component was designed to tightly
integrate Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows SQL database, and Microsoft Windows Media.
Application modules can be divided into the following areas:
Figure 1 - Conferserv Software Architecture
Presentation Layer - Content and User Management System
The user interface (UI) is a browser-based, database driven front-end that has been developed using
Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET programming environment. The user interface leverages the MS.NET
Framework and the Microsoft Windows 2000 Web-server, IIS 5.0 to host web pages written in HTML,
Flash, asp, apsx, and XML.
Business Logic Layer - Validation and Application Rules
Business rules have been abstracted from both the presentation layer (so they can be easily re-used on
many different pages) and the data access layer (so that they can be modified without affecting the
structure of the database). The business logic layer consists of re-usable components, modules, and
.NET Web-services provide the application with input validation, database communications, user
authentication, Webcast notification, e-mail notification, PowerPoint upload, and JPG conversion and
other capabilities that result in sophisticated functionality and automation.
The business logic layer, in conjunction with the application UI and the SQL database, provides a
powerful and logical security model to define end-user access and capabilities in a familiar user/group
model. Moreover, the business layer provides several different levels of administrative privileges
providing fine-grain content, user, data, and application control.
6
7. INTERNATIONAL VIDEO-CONFERENCING, INC.
Data Access Layer - Security and Automation
While the Web-UI provides the user front-end, all of the component technologies are tightly integrated
via a sophisticated relational database running on Microsoft SQL 2000. There are hundreds of custom
developed, stored procedures used by the application to interact with the creation and management
schema, which is comprised of over 70 tables logically distributed among four (4) separate databases.
This fully normalized relational schema is the heart of the platform, and allows for great flexibility and
scalability in the way the solution is deployed, whether in an Enterprise or service provider or hosted
scenario.
IP-based Product for the Internet and Intranet
The system is an IP-centric solution that solves the problems associated with packet networks and
integration into the Web-based, distributed client/server paradigm. It is optimized for packet networks
and leverages advanced IP technologies to address network saturation.
SOPHISTICATED CONTENT CREATION
The solution features a powerful content creation application making it possible for authorized users to
create very high-quality video/audio/text from virtually any analog A/V source (camcorder, VCR, DVD,
production studio or videoconferencing end-point). These content creation components, or tools, allow
for synchronized delivery of live and/or on-demand streaming media with additional information
supplied and controlled by the creator in the form of slides (from PowerPoint), audience Q&A, audience
polling and webpage co-browsing. The encoding methodology accommodates both Internet and
intranet audiences.
The content creation sub-system is tightly coupled with industry standard H.323/H.320
videoconferencing codecs, enabling any authorized user to connect via ISDN or IP to create high-
quality video/audio from virtually anywhere in the world.
The encoding sub-system employs Windows Media Video 7 and AClep Audio CODECS. In rare cases,
when these CODECS are not pre-installed, the Microsoft Windows Media Player will automatically
request them from Microsoft.
The encoding sub-system automatically publishes three (3) streams for every live Webcast to
accommodate three (3) different connection speeds: low (target bit rate = 30K), medium (target bit rate
= 80K) and high (target bit rate 256K). These files are automatically archived (with synchronized data
elements such as PowerPoint slides, URL "pushes", and polling questions and answers) and used for on-
demand applications such as Video Mail and video on-demand.
Figure 2 - Conferserv Encoding Object
7
8. INTERNATIONAL VIDEO-CONFERENCING, INC.
INTELLIGENT, DISTRIBUTED CONFERENCING
The solution supports and promotes a distributed conferencing model with distributed server linking,
taking into consideration the major factors that affect bandwidth use and network performance in the
IP environment. When distributing content across a wide area network, multiple, distributed Conferserv
Distribution Nodes can be deployed to balance the conferencing load on the network - routing audio,
video, and data streams from distributed endpoints through appropriate local paths.
Through the use of static or dynamic server linking or cascading, coupled with intelligent content
routing and caching, administrators can create a Conferserv Enterprise topology that minimizes the
distribution of multiple copies of media across lower bandwidth-capable segments of a WAN or the
Internet.
Conferserv Distribution Node
The Conferserv Distribution Node helps organizations reduce bandwidth cost by accepting a single
ingress video and/or streaming source stream, and on egress, splitting that single source stream into
multiple individual content streams. For example, a Distribution Node deployed on a corporate LAN
will accept a single ingress stream and simultaneously split and distribute upon egress said content to
hundreds or event thousands of individuals. The Distribution Node's benefit in this situation is that it
eliminates the corporation's requirement to "pull" high bandwidth streams across the corporate border
gateway thus saving the enterprise substantial "upstream" bandwidth costs.
H.323 Simple Cascading
Simple cascading (H.243) is supported, which allows connection to other external MCUs to extend a
conference. In this mode, Conferserv is viewed as a single endpoint; and likewise the other MCUs
directly connected are viewed as a single endpoint. What this means is that the connected MCUs will
decide which audio and video stream to send to Conferserv and users connected will only see this
composite data.
Bandwidth Management
To ensure the best possible end user streaming experience, Conferserv features a compatibility
measurement utility called M.A.G.I.C., which stands for Multimedia Algorithm to Guaranteed Internet
Compatibility. MAGIC is a highly evolved measurement application that operates in conjunction with
the Enterprise Web server and database to automatically determine if the end viewer's PC has the
prerequisite streaming applications (OS, resolution, browser, player, security settings, and network
speed). Moreover, once the PC's compatibility is verified MAGIC then tests for the optimal bandwidth
between the user and the server. Using a mathematical algorithm, MAGIC then presents the viewer
with the optimal viewing rate for that viewer at that moment.
Additionally, the system negotiates bandwidth limits with clients when they connect. Dynamic
adjustments are made to allotted bandwidth based on network traffic congestion that is detected and
reported by clients. Audio is given first priority to assure minimum latency of audio delivery, even
during congested high-usage periods.
8
9. INTERNATIONAL VIDEO-CONFERENCING, INC.
In video applications, the bandwidth management engine intelligently prunes video streams -
eliminating intra-frames and key frames to individual endpoints as necessary. Each viewer receives a
coherent stream based on its bandwidth consumption capabilities. Performance for higher bandwidth
clients is not scaled down to the sending or receiving capabilities of lower bandwidth users. In
addition, data that cannot be used by lower-bandwidth recipients is not sent over the network.
Authentication
Access is controlled to Networks, Channels, and Content by authenticating a content producer's or
participant's user ID (email address) and password. When creating a Webcast, the content producer
has access to detailed security control parameters which allow for a targeted content viewing and
distribution profile to be created and enforced.
All administrative functions are supported with native SSL. The current product release does not
support SSL for the distribution of content, principally because of the CPU overhead associated with
media encryption.
Additionally, it can be configured to allow or disallow any routable IP address or subnet from an
individual conference.
System Security
Access to the content, data, and user information is governed by the security model - only authorized
Administrators can access the Administrative and Channel Portals. Each authorized Administrator's
user's login credentials (e-mail and password) will configure and present the Administrative Portal with
only the capabilities granted to that administrator, according to that user's highest administrative role
(the same administrator can have several different administrative roles for different Networks and
Channels). There are three (3) administrator roles:
• System Administrator
• Network Administrator
• Channel Administrator
System Administrator is the highest ranking administrator of the Conferserv system. Only one System
Administrator per Conferserv system can be configured.
The System Administrator is the only account that can create, inactivate, or permanently delete a
Conferserv Network. The System Administrator cannot login to any Channel Portals, and hence cannot
watch video, nor can the System Administrator upload synchronized slide presentations; this includes
the ability to upload a default channel presentation from the Administrative Portal.
Network Administrator privileges are granted by System Administrators; there can be any number of
Network Administrators per system. Network Administrators have unfettered access to view and modify
any content within all Channels in a given Network on the Conferserv system. Only Network
Administrators can create, modify, and delete Channels. Network Administrators can modify and
delete content belonging to any User, in any Channel, associated with the Network Administrator's
Network. A User could be designated as a Network Administrator in one Network, but have no rights
in another Network.
9
10. INTERNATIONAL VIDEO-CONFERENCING, INC.
Channel Administrator privileges are granted by the System or Network Administrators; there can be
any number of Channel Administrators per system. Channel Administrators have unfettered access to
any content within a given Channel within a given Network on the Conferserv system. Channel
Administrators can create and delete content belonging to any User in the designated Channel. A User
could be designated as a Network Administrator in one Network, a Channel Administrator in another
and a public user in a third.
Data Security
The security model used in the system is similar to a traditional Microsoft model. It is important for
administrators to periodically remind users not to share passwords. It is also important that the
physical server(s) are kept secure (physically and electronically) from unauthorized access.
System Monitoring
This is enabled with a robust suite of content management and monitoring services. The monitoring
sub-system is a move beyond basic SNMP data gathering to a more detailed and integrated set of
network, hardware, and application monitoring and analysis tools that provide a centralized view of all
activity across an enterprise or service provider network.
The monitoring system has the intelligence to notify a Network Operations Center, IT department,
customer care, or security personnel of content, server, network, core systems, and applications'
standard operating conditions, as well as problem or failure occurrences. Such notification is proactive
(notification of potential issues that can be reacted upon prior to an actual failure ex. fan failures) and
in real time. Monitoring enables organizations to:
• Gain insight into usage patterns with real-time tracking of system usage and
performance that enables enterprises to improve system effectiveness
• Reduce management overhead with centralized administration tools
• Proactively diagnose and prevent network problems from anywhere in the network
using a Web-based console
• Set and enforce QoS levels based on bandwidth availability, hardware performance,
audience location, or stream quality
• Improve response time, content quality, and save bandwidth by pre-loading popular
contentclose to the intended audience
Firewall Support
Monitoring enables organizations to:
The system uses standard Microsoft Windows Media streaming media and video conferencing ports for
system and end user communications. Assuming an Internet to intranet deployment scenario, the
following ports and associated protocols should be configured to allow communications properly
throughout the network and for viewers to be able to access content.
10