Presented by Kasandra Isaac Mconf: An Open Source Multiconference System for Web and Mobile Devices Valter Roesler, Felipe Cecagno, Leonardo Crauss Daronco and Fred Dixon Summary of paper Presented by Kasandra Isaac SANReN

4 groups of Video conference Systems 1. Room: Hardware, eg. Polycom, Tandberg, Lifesize, Radvision 2. Telepresence: Cisco telepresence

3. Desktop: Installs and launches system on computer eg 3. Desktop: Installs and launches system on computer eg. Vidyo, Vsee, Zoom, Blue Jeans,EVO, Skype 4. Web: Run within a browser: Adobe Connect, big blue button, Mconf

What is Mconf? An open source Multiconference System for Web and Mobile Devices Education, Remote meetings, Broadcasting events Based on Big Blue Button Open source web conferencing system for distance education Client runs with Adobe Flash Player Roles of viewer or moderator

Mconf as an Alternative to commercial web conferencing Project undertaken by Brazilian NREN, RNP Open source Compares well with Adobe connect use and features

Mconf features (already tested by SANReN) Real-time communication with audio and video. Screen and presentation sharing, chat, and shared notes during the session. A web portal developed specifically to make it easy to start and participate in web conferences. Works in all modern web browsers (Chrome, FireFox, Internet Explorer) and operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux).

Mconf features (Still to be tested by SANReN) Recording Server Integrated with highly adopted web applications such as Moodle; and with an API that makes it possible to integrate it with any other web application. Scalable (grow on demand) and monitored Mobile client compatible with Android and iOS. All components are highly customizable (make them look exactly like you want them to) and can be integrated with existent solutions. Federated Identity integration

Difference between Mconf and BigBlueButton Mconf is composed of four main entities: 1. a web portal that provides access to web conferences, shared documents, spaces and more 2. a load balancer that allows the system to scale to thousands of users 3. a web conference system powered by BigBlueButton ™ 4. a mobile web conference client. It is developed in the research group PRAV at UFRGS (Brazil), and funded by RNP. Uses 3 Servers: Mconf Web – Mconf’s web portal Mconf Live - Mconf's web conference solution, powered by BigBlueButton Mconf Recording Since BigBlueButton is open source, the Mconf team has the option to improve the code and contribute those improvements back to the BBB team.

Example of BBB web conference

Mconf project

Mconf add-ons to BigBlueButton Improved web portal (Mconf-Web) allows for user room and community rooms Provides creation of virtual rooms, discussion forums, and event scheduling. Android client, which is compatible to both BBB and Mconf-Web. The Android client allows web conference managing and fully participation through mobile devices. Possibility of federated service and scalability: Mconf-Web has recently been integrated with a Shibboleth23 module, providing federated login in the website. Shibboleth is a middleware architecture that allows users of different security domains to employ their security information to access a federated service. Related to scalability, one BigBlueButton server is designed to support about 25 simultaneous users with video and audio, so, a scalability strategy must take place to increase the service capacity. Mconf Live Server, replaces BigBlueButton server for scalability to form part of the Global Mconf Network. The solution being developed by Mconf includes a monitor module on BigBlueButton that generates statistics like CPU, memory and network, that are collected by the web portal. When there is a new room to be created, the web portal decides which server is more suitable to the target users, based on statistics plus geographic location and delay. Scalability is especially important if the service is to be offered as a centralised service from the NREN.

Integration with Moodle (To be tested)

Mconf Web portal: http://mconf.c4.csir.co.za/

Allowed rooms and permissions The permissions inside a web conference will depend on several factors, but mostly onthese: Who is the user? Is it a user room or a community room? Is the room public or private?

Current Mconf installation is for trial purposes Assessment of product Assessment of user experience Experiment and provide feedback Walk through with screenshots…

To be tested

Lock speak/Push to talk functions Idea is to be able use your mobile phone as a remote to conduct conference

Main future developments promised by Mconf To create an HTML5 client, in order to have web conference in other mobile platforms such as iOS and Windows Phone; To simplify the web portal, allowing the user to know who is available in each community and create easily a web conference with them; To allow interaction with room systems like Polycom, using H.323 or SIP.

Further info For testing https://mconf.c4.csir.co.za https://mconf.org For documents https://mconf.c4.csir.co.za/spaces/mconf-web- conferencing-meeting/attachments http://dev.mconf.org/redmine For videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHTZvbL1NT4 &feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS2lttmPi6A&fe ature=youtu.be

Questions

Next steps

Thank you for attending