BrightCom's Enterprise Class Video Conferencing Infrastructure Enables Easier IT Management

With telepresence and video conferencing becoming part of everyday business communication and vendor systems become more interoperable with SIP and Cisco's new proprietary standard Telepresence (News - Alert) Interoperability Protocol or "TIP," it becomes important for businesses to understand how these systems align with their overall IT infrastructure for optimal management and maintenance.

 

According to Bob McCandless, CEO of BrightCom, a provider of integrated telepresence and video conferencing solutions, there are three major areas of IT management control in a typical enterprise organization. These include user/endpoint management, physical hardware management and security.

 

"When managing a telepresence or video conferencing system within an enterprise organization, it is critical that the conferencing infrastructure is inherently integrated with these three areas allowing for a more efficient control for IT administrators," McCandless added.

 

Visual Collaboration System or "VCS," a conferencing server from BrightCom, is able to integrate easily into the three major areas of IT management in an enterprise organization. VCS incorporates system administration, security, endpoint management, firewall/NAT traversal, video and audio broadcasting and a full set of Web conferencing and data sharing functionalities all in one system.

 

BrightCom's enterprise class, server based infrastructure combines with process based conferencing endpoints. This creates a client/server model that provides the highest level of flexibility and scalability and ensures the most up to date upgrades for video conferencing standards and features.

 

Company officials say traditional telepresence and video conferencing model that uses Multipoint Control Unit or "MCU" infrastructure paired with firmware based conferencing endpoints are limited in directory integration and scalability. In order to achieve the same level as a client/server model, these systems require additional hardware to purchase and maintain outside of an existing enterprise server infrastructure.

 

"MCU based infrastructures grouped with firmware based conferencing systems are very similar to the firmware based cell phones of yesterday," said McCandless. "These need to be replaced once new features are released. Client/server infrastructures and processor based conferencing systems parallel smart phone technology, in that they can be easily upgraded with the most recent and up to date standards and features with little management."

 

When comparing client/server infrastructure and processor based conferencing endpoints with traditional MCU and firmware based endpoints the client/server architecture provides a lower total cost of ownership and significant savings over a period of time, according to McCandless.

 

BrightCom also announced a June Sales Promotion giving away free ClearView HD Mobile Video Conferencing Cart solutions to customers. Offer requires purchase of the BrightCom Visual Collaboration System.

 

Earlier in February, BrightCom announced the release of the new ClearView Desktop Video Conferencing solution, TMCnet reported. The latest release is designed to let desktop users easily connect to BrightCom's Lumina Telepresence and ClearView Room and Mobile Cart Video Conferencing solutions, in addition to SIP-enabled video conferencing systems, the company said.