Videoconferencing-as-a-Service for African NRENs

This paper describes recent developments in the capability of Videoconferencing and the associated opportunities for a shared videoconferencing offering for African NRENs. The improvements in inter-African network capacity, taken with the maturing of new approaches to videoconferencing open an opportunity for African NRENs to take advantage of an investment that TENET has made in its videoconferencing platform. TENET, the South African NREN operator, has established infrastructure to support multi-party high quality videoconferencing that brings together room-based conferencing (including H.323/SIP conferencing) with the capability to participate from desktop and laptop computers and from mobile devices. Due to the efficient software based characteristics of the chosen platform (Vidyo), participants are able to enjoy up to HD quality conferencing and content sharing in multi-party conferences. The backend of the Vidyo infrastructure is available as software appliances to run as virtual machines (VMWare). This allows for a geographic distribution of the Vidyo infrastructure that enables maximum efficiency in the use of the SANReN network within South Africa. Following an approach from KENET, the Kenyan NREN organisation, TENET has been able to further leverage the flexibility of the Vidyo platform to enable KENET to offer the capabilities of Vidyo to its Higher Education and Research communities in Kenya This paper and conference session will describe the details of this service and the key capabilities of the platform that allow for a distributed service. The paper and session will also outline the key economic, technological and organisational factors that make Videoconferencing-as-a-Service a compelling offering for African NRENs.

本论文阐述了视频会议系统能力的最新进展，以及面向非洲研究与教育网络（National Research and Education Networks，NREN）的共享视频会议服务所蕴含的相关机遇。非洲内部网络容量的提升，加之新型视频会议方案的日趋成熟，为非洲NREN提供了利用TENET在其视频会议平台上进行投资的契机。作为南非的NREN运营方，TENET已搭建基础设施以支持多方高质量视频会议，该设施将会议室型会议（包含H.323/SIP会议）与桌面电脑、笔记本电脑及移动设备的参会能力相结合。由于所选平台（Vidyo）具备高效的软件化特性，参会者可在多方会议中享受到最高高清级别的会议与内容共享体验。Vidyo基础设施的后端以软件设备的形式提供，可作为虚拟机（VMWare）运行。这使得Vidyo基础设施能够实现地理分布式部署，从而最大化提升南非境内SANReN网络的使用效率。参考肯尼亚NREN机构KENET的方案，TENET进一步利用了Vidyo平台的灵活性，使得KENET能够向肯尼亚本国的高等教育与科研社区提供Vidyo的相关能力。本论文及会议报告将详细介绍该服务的细节，以及支撑该分布式服务的平台核心能力。本论文与会议报告还将梳理若干关键经济、技术与组织因素，这些因素使得“视频会议即服务”成为非洲NREN极具吸引力的服务选项。