Radvision Education Case Studies by Face to Face Live

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In addition to offering nationally recognized programs in the Arts and Sciences, Dental, Engineering, Law, Management, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Sciences, Case is deeply committed to applying innovative media and communications technologies to both university education and the civic, cultural and economic life of the greater Cleveland community. The university has deployed a gigabit network which is available to every classroom, meeting room and dorm room on campus and has been recognized by Intel by being listed in its top-tier of “Most Unwired College Campuses.”

Case uses video conferencing and data collaboration to provide students with advanced academic technology courseware, virtual study groups and seminars, archived lectures, and even virtual office hours with Case professors,

The Mission

Case Western Reserve University Accelerates Learning and Enhances the Quality of Life in Cleveland with Radvision

Customer: Case Western Reserve UniversityCountry: USAIndustry: EducationProduct: Radvision video conferencing infrastructure

including Multipoint Conferencing capabilities (MCU) and the iVIEW management application.

About

About Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University (widely referred to as “Case”) is one of the United States’ leading educational and research institutions. Case is distinguished for advancing technology-enhanced learning including video conferencing, distance-collaboration, video-streaming and video broadcasting. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, Case Western also provides leadership in the OneCleveland broadband initiative - one of the boldest community broadband initiatives in North America.

librarians, and other academic resources. Several courses and seminars benefit from guest lecturers and participants who join by video conferencing and who are much more able and willing to accommodate Case’s invitations because they do not need to travel. Case also uses video conferencing and data collaboration to provide faculty, staff and trustees with virtual meetings, and distance-collaboration. One example is the weekly Board of Trustees meeting that takes place by multipoint video conference and by which the business of the university is governed. Since the trustees reside in such diverse locations as Pittsburgh, New York City and Washington, D.C, in addition to the Cleveland metropolitan area, meeting by video conferencing enables them a much greater frequency and depth of involvement than would be possible if they always had to travel in order to meet.

The challenges faced by Case Western Reserve’s team was to rapidly deploy and drive the adoption of video conferencing and data collaboration across the university, extend its use to the other leading institutions of the University Circle, and prepare to make the platform available to serve the

The Challenge

needs of the greater Cleveland metropolitan community. University Circle is a section of Cleveland that is home to the University Hospitals of Cleveland, Ohio College of Pediatric Medicine, the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute, the Louis Stokes Veterans Administration Medical Center,

CASE STUDY

• In less than six months, Case Western Reserve University built the first phase of a multipoint video conferencing, data conferencing and distance collaboration platform serving the needs of students, faculty, researchers, staff, administrators, officers, and board members. In parallel, Case began to leverage the platform to provide services for the OneCleveland community broadband initiative.

• Rapid deployment has been achieved thanks in large part to Radvision’s iVIEW, providing a central management interface for control, configuration and maintenance.

• High quality of experience is provided by the Radvision MCU equipped with rate-matching and advanced Continuous Presence.

Case’s roadmap focuses on three priorities: scale, reach and higher levels of integration. In terms of scale, they are growing the number of classroom, meeting room, and student, faculty and staff endpoints from hundreds to thousands, and will eventually support tens of thousands of endpoints. This, in turn requires expanding the infrastructure for multipoint. The priority on expanding reach involves extending video conferencing services to DSL and digital cable connected

The Benefits

Looking Forward

• Providing advanced services to end users too busy to learn, or are not interested in learning, about the behind-the-scenes technology has been achieved by the exceptionally end-user friendly features and graphic interfaces of Radvision products. By using advanced video processing capabilities and enhanced Gatekeeper functionality for simplified dialing procedures, video conferencing couldn’t be easier. Integration with familiar workflow applications such as Microsoft Outlook also enables video conferencing without the need to learn something new.

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residences and community facilities not directly served by Case’s gigabit network. The priority on higher levels of integration focuses on combining video conferencing and stored / streamed video to enable virtual seminars and virtual faculty / student conferences that incorporate archived instructional materials and video libraries.

Case deployed approximately 100 classrooms, meeting rooms and faculty, staff, student and trustee endpoints for video conferencing and data collaboration. Case uses the Radvision-based platform to provide video conferencing and collaboration for coursework, teamwork, consultations and meetings.

Case identified several reasons why they selected Radvision as their partner and vendor. (1) Radvision is clearly an industry leader. (2) Radvision being standards-based, is fully

The Solution

committed to interoperability and ‘endpoint agnostic’. (3) The Radvision system is end-user friendly, and the advanced capabilities of the system operate behind-the-scenes as far as the end-user is concerned. This is critical for aggressively deploying and driving adoption of video conferencing throughout the university. (4) The confidence that the Case team had in their selection of Radvision was reinforced by Radvision’s deep association with Cisco - Case’s technology partner for their network.

the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, The Cleveland Music School Settlement, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Martin Luther King Branch of the Cleveland Public Library, among other institutions. Additional challenges are to provide services to large numbers of end-users who

will demand high quality but who will generally be too busy to learn, or are not interested in learning about the behind-the-scenes technology that enables the high quality multimedia collaboration experience.

Information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. This document is not part of a contract or license as may be expressly agreed. Radvision is a registered trademark of Radvision, Ltd. All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. All rights reserved © 2012 Radvision, Ltd

About RadvisionRadvision, an Avaya company, is a leading provider of video conferencing and telepresence technologies over IP and wireless networks. We offer end-to-end visual communications that help businesses collaborate more efficiently. Together, Radvision and Avaya are propelling the unified communications evolution forward with unique technologies that harness the power of video, voice, and data over any network. www.radvision.com

USA/AmericasT +1 201 689 6300F +1 201 689 [email protected]

EMEAT +44 20 3178 8685F +44 20 3178 [email protected]

APACT +852 3472 4388F +852 2801 [email protected]

CQU operates 12 video conference teaching facilities for over 120 hours of teaching and 10 hours of administrative purposes per week. Video conferencing is a critical part of CQU’s operation. Conferences commence automatically on the hour, lecturers control the video and audio sources during their presentations and students can interact via desk microphones that activate the camera to auto-zoom on the student speaking.

The Mission

Central Queensland University, Australia, Implements IP Video Conferencing for Teaching with Radvision Technology

Customer: Central Queensland UniversityCountry: AustraliaIndustry: EducationProduct: Radvision’s video conferencing infrastructure

including Multipoint Conferencing Unit (MCU), IP / ISDN Gateway and ECS H.323 Gatekeeper application

About Central Queensland University

About

Central Queensland University (CQU) has almost 20,000 students located at more than a dozen learning facilities across Australia and Asia Pacific. The university has traditionally provided well designed printed notes for its distance learning students (67% of its domestic students participate in distance education). Some of these materials are supplemented by audio and video recordings and audio conferencing. Since 1992, video conferencing has been progressively installed and used for teaching across all campuses of the university.

Video conferencing has been 384k ISDN-based using a 12-port ISDN MCU and endpoints operating at H.261 CIF (352 x 288) video resolution. This has presented several reliability and support issues and with a 12-port MCU limit there has been no room to grow. The CIF resolution has meant that the document camera and PC video were acceptable but not high quality images. Video conference calls were also competing with inter-campus PBX-to-PBX calls and there were significant call dropout problems.

The challenge was to converge operations onto a single network infrastructure with an IP-based system that could provide greater bandwidth and better video and audio quality more cost effectively. The system also needed to provide higher call reliability with shorter call connection times. Lecturers at CQU have used video conferencing for several years and are familiar

The Challenge

and comfortable with the operation and interface. Any new system had to support the current user paradigm. The technical support team also needed a web based interface for system administration and operational support, and the ability to monitor conference status in real time without affecting the conference.

CASE STUDY

The new Radvision video conferencing infrastructure has resulted in improved video transmission quality at considerable savings. Reliability has improved with a call completion ratio now over 99% (the previous ISDN system was approximately 90%) and reduced connection times. The system also provides enhanced user support with Web-based interfaces, a real-time conference monitoring interface, along with remote conference observation and conference recording from support staff offices. These capabilities allow the small technical support team to be more efficient and cover more conferences across a larger area without having to travel.Within weeks of the release of the new system, students and lecturers were expressing their delight with the improved quality provided by 768k 4CIF video conferences. The improvement in quality was particularly evident in subjects that rely on high-quality video transmission; for example, multimedia studies. The ‘ready-to-roam’ nature of the new

“The next phase of the project will take advantage of the low costs associated with IP Internet connections to make video conference lecturing to CQU’s International campuses more cost effective,” said Shaune Sinclair, Manager, Flexible

The Benefits

Looking Forward

system allows staff to plug in to the CQU network from wherever they are and automatically be up and running. The support team assigns a permanent ‘video extension number’ to each staff member or video conferencing system. No matter where the video conference endpoint is plugged in, it is automatically assigned an IP address (DHCP), and registers to CQU’s H.323 Gatekeeper. The endpoint is then ready to make and receive video calls.Personnel who are away from their usual campus are able to deliver lectures or attend meetings from any CQU campus with a sufficient wide-area-network connection back to the main campus at Rockhampton. A recent example of this was a music lecturer who traveled several thousand miles from Rockhampton to CQU’s Brisbane and Melbourne campuses over a 2-week period, and was able to continue to deliver the usual weekly lecture and tutorial to his students in Mackay and Rockhampton via his laptop equipped with a webcam.

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Delivery Support. “We’re also planning to provide users with self-serve video conference services such as scheduling their own multipoint conferences.”

CQU researched extensively with a specific set of criteria to meet their technical, administrative and educational requirements. The final solution included a 100 port Radvision MCU with H.323 and SIP support, plus a 60 port MCU for user self-serve video conferences. The Gatekeeper is a Radvision ECS H.323 Gatekeeper (installed on mirrored servers in failover mode) and the IP/ISDN Gateway is a Radvision PRI Gateway.

The endpoints are from Tandberg and the conference scheduling/reservation and monitoring system is VisionNex VCS. The Radvision and VisionNex equipment, along with installation and network testing, was provided by Broadreach Services.

The Solution






Despite the relatively short distance between the medical centers, traffic congestion makes traveling between them a time-consuming endeavor of close to an hour in each direction. A real-time collaboration solution was needed that would enable all the physicians and technicians to consult quickly with one another.

The Challenge

The Mission

The system had to deliver powerful high quality multimedia capabilities to allow collaboration on imaging studies, laboratory tests, and patient records. In addition, because of the sensitivity of private medical data, any collaboration solution had to work seamlessly with Erasmus’ powerful firewall.

Radvision Desktop Video Conferencing Helps Physicians Streamline Medical Care at Erasmus University Medical Center

Customer: Erasmus University Medical Center

Country: The Netherlands

Industry: Medical

Product: Radvision Desktop Video Conferencing

About

About Erasmus University Medical Center

The Radiation Oncology Department of the Erasmus University Medical Center cares for patients at both the main Rotterdam campus and the Daniel Den Hoed Clinic located approximately seven kilometers (4.5 miles) away. The Department needed to make the entire team of consulting physicians and technicians available to one another in real-time at both Rotterdam facilities, to ensure fast, efficient and accurate delivery of radiation treatment.

Hans Zandbergen Prof. Peter Levendag, Chairman, Radiation Oncology Department

The Radiation Oncology Department of the Erasmus University Medical Center cares for patients at both the main Rotterdam campus and the Daniel Den Hoed Clinic located approximately seven kilometers (4.5 miles) away. The Department needed to make the entire team of consulting physicians and technicians available to one another in real-time at both Rotterdam facilities, to ensure fast, efficient and accurate delivery of radiation treatment.

CASE STUDYCASE STUDY

The Radiation Oncology Department remains a trend setter – both within the Erasmus Medical Center and in the Dutch medical community. The project has been moved from the Radiation Oncology Department to Erasmus’ IT Division, where it is undergoing further evaluation regarding expanded deployment.

The Erasmus desktop conferencing project was the subject of a nationwide study conducted in the Hague, where the feasibility of visual communications and data collaboration

Looking Forward

The physicians and technicians of the Radiation Oncology Department can now treat more patients in the same amount of time. Mr. Hans Zandbergen stated: “Within a few months of our deployment of desktop video conferencing, there was a dramatic increase in productivity. The physicians and technicians were eager to adopt the easy-to-use tool. Once the system was

The Benefits

online, the benefits to our patients were clear – waiting time was reduced dramatically.”

Moreover, patients could rest easy in the knowledge that they were benefiting from the renowned expertise of the Erasmus staff – whether they were in the Netherlands Antilles, in another city, or just across town in Rotterdam.

in the medical community was proven. Once issues of bandwidth and data security are widely addressed, the groundwork for a national program is solid.

According to Mr. Zandbergen, the integrated workplace is central to deploying new modes of visual communications. Radvision’s desktop solution leverages the power of the integrated workplace to provide excellent medical care more efficiently, while extending training and enabling wide-scale teaching opportunities.

Radvision’s desktop collaborative solution was selected for its ease-of-use and ability to integrate with Erasmus’ existing workflow, as well as its seamless integration with the familiar desktop environment in all the Center’s satellite clinics. High video quality was a key factor, as was the robust data sharing and manipulation capabilities that enable physicians and technicians to share data in real-time and make fast, informed treatment decisions.

Erasmus recognized that the power of the data sharing

The Solution

and manipulation also expanded the value of the investment, as the initial system was deployed at the Medical Center’s facilities in the Netherlands Antilles and at satellite clinics throughout the Netherlands. It is also being used for remote training.

Radvision’s desktop conferencing server was installed inside Erasmus’ firewall, answering the medical center’s need for patient privacy and foolproof security.

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CASE STUDY

ETH Zurich Adopts Radvision Technology for itsDesktop Video Meetings

A university thrives on the exchange of knowledge and cooperation between its own members and with other educational and research institutions - as a result, video communication is being increasingly implemented by prestigious institutions such as ETH Zurich. Committed to providing its students and staff with the most advanced technological tools, ETH Zurich has been using video conferencing since 2001. The university encourages professors to deliver lectures from home; graduate students to attend meetings and follow presentations from wherever they are; colleagues and research groups outside ETH Zurich to cooperate with the university; and many more collaboration scenarios.

The Mission

ETH Zurich needed a scalable, high definition desktop video solution that was interoperable with H.323 and H.320 and supported both PCs and Macs. The system also had to be able to standalone and require minimal additional deployment costs.

The Challenge

“Our requirements were clear-cut,” explains Thomas Rechsteiner, Head of Videoconferencing Services at ETH Zurich. “The solution had to be easy-to-use and platform-independent, allowing everyone to use their own computers. It also had to be scalable, compatible with the existing infrastructure and equipped with a firewall transversal mechanism to enable easy access to the system regardless of location.”

Previously, ETH Zurich was using a mix of video equipment from a number of different vendors. Although the system was up and running, there were several challenges that needed to be addressed. For example, the solution was not interoperable with other traditional, standards-based (H.323) video systems, it was not scalable, and its security mechanism regularly blocked a number of functions. Finally, the video network was PC-based, leaving the 40 percent of lecturers and students who used Macintosh computers without video access. ETH Zurich set out to find a new solution that would address these challenges while also enabling the university to leverage its existing investments in video.

Customer: ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich)Country: SwitzerlandIndustry: EducationProduct: SCOPIA Elite 5115 MCU, SCOPIA iVIEW Management Suite, SCOPIA Desktop and SCOPIA IP/ISDN Gateway

About

About ETH ZurichETH Zurich - also known as The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - was founded by the Swiss Federal Government in 1854. With more than 17,000 students from 80 countries around the globe, ETH Zurich is ranked among the top 20 universities in the world. Approximately 400 lecturers and professors currently teach and carry out research in the fields of engineering, architecture, mathematics, management studies and natural and social sciences. More than 20 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to ETH Zurich students or professors, the most famous being Albert Einstein in 1921, and the most recent being Richard F. Heck in 2010.

For more information, visit http://www.ethz.ch/about/index_EN

ETH Zurich now has a fully scalable, HD desktop video conferencing solution with the availability to grow as needed. Staff and students take part in video meetings from locations around the globe using their own computers. The SCOPIA Desktop firewall traversal function also enables delegates from outside the university’s network to quickly and easily join conferences. Meetings are moderated using the same user interface, while screen content, such as presentations and videos, are easily displayed or exchanged amongst participants using PCs, Macs, and traditional room-based video systems.

As part of its future rollout, ETH Zurich will soon be phasing in mobile devices to meet the growing demand for video conferencing and telepresence applications on the move. There are also plans to integrate Microsoft Lync. The

The Benefits

Looking Forward

After assessing a number of solutions, ETH Zurich made the decision in 2010 to implement a Radvision system including two SCOPIA 5115 MCUs that connected to emulate a single virtual MCU with 30 ports; a SCOPIA IP/ISDN Gateway to access the legacy world and enable ISDN-based communication; SCOPIA iVIEW Management Suite, and SCOPIA Desktop with 300 Desktop Pro video conferencing licenses.

“We decided to go with SCOPIA Desktop because Radvision fulfilled all of our requirements,” adds Rechsteiner. “Radvision was actually the only company offering a product that also ran on Mac OS when we were

The Solution

evaluating the competition.” Hans Geeler CEO of CollabCom AG, a Radvision partner located in Horgen, Switzerland, assisted ETH Zurich with the implementation and deployment of the Radvision solution.“We had a long and intensive evaluation period of almost two years. We analyzed all the available solutions on the market but none could fulfill the requirements except Radvision SCOPIA Desktop. It was the one solution that covered the technical, multi-platform support and the licence schema requirements of ETH.”

“The advantages are clear to see,” says Rechsteiner. “Collaboration and meetings across many locations have become not just easier to organize, but more effectively carried out. Productivity has increased, our people save time and gain flexibility, and we’ve significantly cut travel expenses. Lastly, thanks to SCOPIA’s superior interoperability, we were able to use our existing equipment as well, making the solution even more cost-effective.”

Rechsteiner also emphasizes how easy the solution is to install and operate. “Users don’t need license keys, administrator rights or any in-depth technical knowledge. SCOPIA is ready to go with a click of the mouse,” he adds.

SCOPIA solution supports both platforms with SCOPIA Mobile for the iPhone and iPad as well as the SCOPIA Video Gateway for Microsoft Lync. With the Radvision solution, ETH Zurich’s investments – both past and future – are well protected.

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Among its primary goals, FCCN seeks to consolidate e-Science in Portugal and to this end, provides necessary communications infrastructure and support to researchers. High expenses involved in face-to-face meetings at sites across the country were restricting the frequency of training sessions essential for professors, students and individuals associated with RCTS institutions.

The Mission

CASE STUDY

FCCN needed to build their video conferencing service on a platform that would be simple to use and easily adopted by end users with HD video, audio and data over the public Internet. Interoperability with H.323 and SIP was also key to enabling connectivity with other standards-based video conferencing systems.

FCCN also needed to provide a highly scalable centralized video conferencing service to many institutions through the public Internet, while maintaining defined security and access rights provided by each individual institution.

The Challenge

FCCN wanted to provide easy access to video services for permitted users inside an institution federated to the FCCN video service, while each institution managed access rights of their own users. In effect, creating a multi-tenant service where permitted end users are not required to enter login credentials multiple times and can access the service from anywhere on the Internet, along with denying access to users outside the community. These requirements demanded a robust API and SDK to allow customization of the video platform.

Radvision and FCCN Enable Desktop Video Collaboration at Universities in Portugal

FCCN needed to deploy an advanced web-based video conferencing solution to deliver a cost-effective collaborative working environment for users located in different buildings and campuses in multiple locations. The collaborative environment needed to enable online classes, meetings and workgroups where users could include remote experts, bring in professors from other distant institutions to teach local students and effectively allow students to attend classes remotely.

Customer: Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN) Country: PortugalIndustry: Education Product: SCOPIA Desktop, SCOPIA MCU, SCOPIA iVIEW Management Suite and Conference Recording

About

About Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN)FCCN is a private non-profit institution which provides advanced communication for the national research and education community and promotes Internet technology and services in Portugal. Since its establishment in 1987, FCCN, with the support of universities and several national R&D institutions, has significantly contributed to the Internet’s expansion in Portugal. FCCN operates the National Science, Technology and Society Network (RCTS) – a high-performance network for organizations with superior communication needs which serves as a platform for developing and testing advanced communication applications and services. FCCN also manages the ‘.pt’ domain registration service, provides services to professors, students, researchers and university staff, and is involved in several national and international projects.

For more information, visit http://www.fccn.pt/en/.

With Radvision’s SCOPIA conferencing platform, FCCN has an all-in-one web conferencing system that is robust, easy-to-install, and video room system-compatible.

The Benefits

FCCN chose Radvision’s SCOPIA conferencing platform including:• SCOPIA Desktop for HD video conferencing on the

PC and Mac.• SCOPIA MCU for multi-party conferencing.• SCOPIA iVIEW Management for management of the

video application. Radvision’s SCOPIA platform was integrated into FCCN’s sophisticated COLIBRI web collaborative environment through the SCOPIA platform SDK and APIs. COLIBRI is the e-learning portal providing overall access and scheduling of the video conferencing service enabling online classes, meetings and workgroups for professors and students. The system began undergoing testing in early 2010 and was fully deployed within a year. Today, some 2,500 users

The Solution

at over 20 universities across Portugal are holding more than 700 video sessions a month using the Radvision / COLIBRI solution. Most users connect at 384-768kbps, providing good bandwidth utilization as well as excellent audio, video and data quality.In addition to use across universities, the combined solution has also been used as a core tool to conduct distance learning as part of a project called e-Raízes Redes, promoted by a Portuguese High Education Institution. The goal of e-Raízes is to implement and disseminate e-learning strategies “from paper to screen,” where teachers have the ability to easily exchange data with homebound students using PCs and projectors. The solution is also being used to train teachers and tutors involved in this project.

Additionally, the solution’s H.239 data collaboration, embedded firewall/NAT transversal and recording and streaming features have also proven to be key benefits.

“The COLIBRI collaboration service combined with Radvision’s SCOPIA solution provides a state of the art educational video tool integrated with many existing systems. We are proud to be part of the integration team that brought the innovative solution together to enrich student communication across Portugal.”Salustiano Garcia, Viking Telecom General Manager

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ICN offers its subscribers a robust intranet, with more than 3 gigabits of Internet egress via multiple POPs and access to Internet 2. In addition to access and backbone transport, ICN provides value-added services including DNS filtering, QoS, multicasting, equipment and access circuit discounts, technical support and consulting. ICN, as a network service provider, also evaluates the need for, as well as developing and introducing other services in response to constituent requirements. Video conferencing over IP is a powerful ICN service that is in high demand from its constituent members.One of the user communities on ICN is composed of institutions communicating with video over the Illinois

The Mission

Video Education Network. The Illinois Video Education Network (IVEN) was established in 1995 through a joint initiative of the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) and the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB). The joint venture leverages ten regional video networks that include public and private universities and colleges, community colleges, secondary schools, health care facilities and a few business locations. Thousands of video calls are made each year over this network and it is considered essential to meeting the managerial and educational objectives of the state. Many locations on the Illinois Video Education Network make their video calls on the ICN H.323 network.

Radvision Enables Illinois Century Network School Video Services Solution

Customer: Illinois Century Network (ICN)

Country: USA

Industry: Education

Product: Radvision Video Conferencing Infrastructure including: Multipoint Conferencing Unit (MCU), IP-to-ISDN Gateway and H.323 Gatekeeper

About

About ICNAs a “service provider” for school and public facilities throughout Illinois, the Illinois Century Network (ICN) provides a service to hundreds of institutions for regular communications with peers and mentors in the state of Illinois. ICN’s video service is based on products that are highly reliable, easy for administrators as well as customers to use and scalable to meet the demands of hundreds of facilities with one or more video conferencing endpoints.The Illinois Century Network consists of points of presence in virtually all Illinois LATA connected in a partial mesh via OC12, OC3 and DS3 circuits. Constituents connect to the ICN via Fast Ethernet, OC12, OC3, DS3 and DS1 and other means.

One critical shortcoming of switched network and ISDN-based systems for video conferencing is that the same network connection cannot be used for multiple applications or one consolidated network for multiple smaller locations. This led most schools to have two or more

The Challenge

dedicated T-1 or higher connections to their campuses, one for video conferencing and the other to the ICN. By moving to IP, the schools can converge their video and data applications onto a single high speed network that both reduces the cost of ownership and operation for


Radvision was selected as the partner of choice for the ICN video service because Radvision’s products met or exceeded ICN’s requirements for ease of administration, support for call detail records (CDRs), strong diagnostic tools, redundancy and failover capabilities, as well as other product-specific features.

This implementation allows users to try the technology prior to committing to a full deployment of their own. A constituent wishing to enjoy the benefits of video conferencing or distance learning can deploy a relatively low cost video system and use the existing ICN connection to connect to H.320 or H.323 sites worldwide.

The Benefits

ICN uses Radvision’s MCU to provide subscribers with the ability to participate in multi-site video calls without the expense of purchasing and maintaining regional equipment. MCU resources are configured to offer various conference services based on the number of sites in a conference, connection speeds and formats. Speed matching permits the users on a call with multiple data rates to receive the best experience their connection will support without degrading the experience of participants who have higher bandwidth capabilities.

ICN offers services to a group of approximately 50 H.323 endpoints associated with the IVEN and ICN. Once

The Solution

they are registered with Radvision’s advanced H.323 Gatekeeper, it provides call control, address resolution and sets policies such as bandwidth usage and traffic direction for the ICN H.323 endpoint users, ensuring optimal performance.

The H.323 Gatekeeper also manages Radvision IP-to-ISDN Gateways distributed throughout the network - for those users who are authorized and wish to access sites not currently on the ICN or the Internet. The ICN Gateways offer ICN constituents the ability to complete H.323-to-H.320 video calls both on-net (within the IVEN network) and via ICN-provided PRI trunks to other H.320 networks.

institutions as well as lower the cost of entry for other organizations currently without video conferencing.

Another incentive for those using legacy circuit switched networks to migrate to an H.323 video conferencing network is the opportunity to have higher quality video and audio, higher call retention and more telephone-like features accessible to users during a video session.

Compression algorithms have improved substantially since the late 1990s and not all hardware purchased in the first generation network is capable of supporting processor-intensive tasks such as required by the latest codecs. When a call is established by an IP application, such as an H.323 device, the quality of service provided by the network can be specified and guaranteed during a session.

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The State of Michigan’s Department of Education created 22 Regional Educational Media Centers to promote the use and management of various media to enhance education for K-12 learners, and to develop and implement cooperative projects to promote cost-effective services, and create opportunities for professional development. REMC #1 serves more than 12,000 students and 700 educators. Additionally, the agency manages the data communications network for its districts and coordinates its distance learning.

REMC #1 was a pioneer in distance learning in Michigan. More than a decade ago, it was one of the first organizations to share courses through its analog fiber network. However, as the demand for more educational courses and advanced technology increased, REMC #1 was forced to upgrade its network and technology.

To address this demand, the agency selected Radvision, a leading provider of products and technology for real-time voice, video and data communications over IP networks and an expert in the video conferencing space.

REMC #1 installed Radvision’s Multipoint Conferencing Unit (MCU), H.323 Gatekeeper, and scheduling and management system. These products enable REMC #1 to schedule and deliver classes, virtual field trips, professional development and other collaboration.

By choosing to move to an IP-network connection for distance learning and video conferencing, REMC #1 saved in access costs, decreased system complexity, and can now also participate in video sessions using Internet 2. Internet 2 is a consortium of over 180 universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow’s Internet. Internet 2 is recreating the partnership among academia, industry and government that fostered today’s Internet when it was in its infancy. The primary goals of Internet 2 are to create leading edge network capability for the national research community that enable revolutionary Internet applications and to ensure the rapid transfer of new network services and applications to the broader Internet community.

Michigan’s Regional Educational Media Center Deploys Radvision’s Video Conferencing Solution to K-12 Schools

Customer: Michigan’s Regional Educational Media Center #1Country: USAIndustry: EducationProduct: Radvision’s complete video conferencing

infrastructure solution including Radvision’s Multipoint Conferencing Unit (MCU), H.323 Gatekeeper, and scheduling and management system.

About

About REMC #1

REMC #1 provides support to 22 school districts in five western counties of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Their programs increase and enhance educational opportunities while saving the districts both time and money. The eliminated travel will also be a safety measure in the harsh winter environments experienced in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The Mission


The deployment of the Radvision solution has opened the window of opportunity for the small, rural districts in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A student within these districts now can take a virtual field trip to the Cincinnati Zoo, or receive a music lesson from an expert from the University of Michigan. In addition, each district has the opportunity to select its own courses independently of the other.

The Benefits

The Radvision solution was a move from the legacy analog video conferencing network to a digital one, eliminating the need for a separate network. The Internet bandwidth and consolidated infrastructure now enables REMC #1 to schedule classes, virtual field trips, professional development and other collaborative programs for students and teachers to any wired classroom in the district. In addition, it gives these districts access to Internet 2.

During the evaluation period, REMC #1 was highly impressed by Radvision’s product performance. Its products demonstrated higher call quality with less delay than other products on the market. The Radvision products also required much less rack space and provided greater capacity to handle more of its endpoints and simultaneous calls.

By providing REMC #1 with a bundled solution, there was no integration work to combine disparate technologies, multi-vendor products, or scenario testing necessary to ensure compatibility of the video conferencing network components.

The Solution

This included:• Radvision’s Multipoint Conferencing Unit (MCU) with high density and performance providing the ability to conduct conferences for voice, video and data between three or more endpoints.• H.323 Gatekeeper with advanced call management to set policies and control network resources such as bandwidth usage and traffic direction, ensuring optimal network performance.• Scheduling and Management System allowing users to schedule conferences directly from Microsoft Outlook. The system centrally manages conferencing, collaboration and meeting resources, including multiple time zone scheduling, attendee invitations, recurring events, reporting capabilities and network resources.Radvision’s expertise and product design for distributed architectures of video conferencing networks was also a key decision factor.

REMC #1 faced the challenge of providing enhanced and increased educational opportunities to a geographically dispersed area with limited resources. Their 22 districts cover 4,871 square miles and have a varied student population.

The Challenge

“We are talking about the largest district in this area having 1,600 students and the smallest district having only eight,” said director Greta Erm.

“One district is offering Finnish, one is offering College Writing and yet another is offering Accounting. There is even a plan to connect students in another district to students in Norway and Finland. This would not have happened last year,” REMC #1’s Erm says. “The Radvision solution has made it possible and this is just the beginning.”

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New Zealand National Research & Education Network Deploys Radvision Next Generation HD Video Conferencing Solution

Customer: Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand (REANNZ)Country: New ZealandIndustry: Higher Education / ResearchProduct: SCOPIA Elite MCU, SCOPIA Desktop, SCOPIA iVIEW Management Suite

About

About Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand (REANNZ):Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand (REANNZ) operates the Kiwi Advanced Research & Education Network (KAREN) supporting more than 220,000 users at over 120 New Zealand universities, research institutes, government agencies and private sector partners.

KAREN is the exclusive broadband network, linking education, research and innovation organizations in New Zealand.

KAREN Video Conferencing Service (KVCS) is owned by REANNZ with Advanced Video Collaboration Centre (AVCC) and Communication Partners providing management on a day-to-day basis.

Video conferencing is an essential tool for the KAREN community; use of the technology for research, teaching and day-to-day business has sky-rocketed over the last three years. The solution needed to accommodate this fast growth along with desktop conferencing at a very

The Challenge

competitive price point. With KVCS being a shared resource, the solution also needed to scale for large events including conferences, lectures and workshops accommodating large numbers of both interactive and streamed viewers.

CASE STUDY

KVCS allows people in New Zealand and across the world to communicate with each other in real time using simple video conferencing tools. Subscribers to the service can participate in high definition (HD) multipoint video calls, schedule meetings and invite participants, webcast or record their event, and benefit from a free HD desktop video conferencing application.

The Mission

“Having the ability for anyone to effortlessly download SCOPIA Desktop and participate in an HD video conference from their PC or Mac, without worrying about firewalls, will dramatically increase the adoption, productivity and maintained use amongst universities and other institutions within New Zealand.”

Nathan Gardiner, Director Advanced Video Collaboration Centre

KVCS users save money with reduced travel costs, have improved productivity with less time spent traveling, share resources for course delivery, access international experts easily and experience increased participation from remote parties.

The Benefits

KVCS has been used in a variety of ways including:

• National and international collaborative research• Remote diagnostics in medical and bio-security

environments• Delivery of courses• Interviews of remote candidates for job vacancies• Scientific outreach to schools• Accessing international experts for speaking events• And graduate oral examinations.

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In the first 6 months of operation, KAREN supported over 4,400 meetings on Radvision’s SCOPIA solution with meeting activity growing from approximately 200 in the first month to nearly 1,200 per month. Also recently hosted on the SCOPIA solution was the “Signs of Change” national e-conference linking lecture theaters in six cities enabling participants and speakers to travel only to the nearest venue. Hosting the conference on the SCOPIA solution saved

Looking Forward

nearly $200,000, hundreds of hours sitting on airplanes, and over 85 tonnes of CO2. With the clearly successful rollout and strong usage growth in a short period of time, REANNZ is already planning for expansion of the SCOPIA solution and adding new capabilities such as support for the Apple® iPhone® and iPad™.

KAREN’s deployment of Radvision’s SCOPIA conferencing solution included the SCOPIA Elite MCU, SCOPIA Desktop and SCOPIA iVIEW Management for a full video conferencing solution with the following key capabilities:

• Full HD Multi-Party Video Conferencing: full HD video conferencing and data sharing with multiple participants within KAREN and beyond.

• Virtual Conference Room: video conference in seconds inside a ‘private virtual office’ for ad-hoc meetings.

• HD Desktop Video Conferencing: use and distribute the free desktop client software for HD video conferencing on both the PC and Mac with an inexpensive web camera. The client is a simple web browser plug-in that downloads

The Solution

in seconds and seamlessly connects through firewalls offering an ideal solution for users in the office, on the road or at home.

• High Scale Web Streaming: stream video conferences including presentations to viewers around the world, direct to their web browser.

• Powerful Conference Booking and Management: schedule meetings, send automatic meeting invitations and moderate attendants with the easy to use booking system. Monitor application usage through an extensive range of visual reports.

• Conference Recording: record any meeting for a permanent record or for streaming at a later date.






CASE STUDY

Eight core subjects form the National Curriculum: Thai language, mathematics, science, social studies, religion and culture, health and physical education, arts, careers and technology, and foreign languages. OBEC promotes and manages this basic education for all age groups and provides equal access to all students. The students are equipped with moral-led knowledge integrated with the philosophy to secure a strong Thai economy. OBEC also provides an environment for education to be innovative for both the students and the teachers.

Customer: Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC), Ministry of EducationCountry: ThailandIndustry: Education Product: SCOPIA XT1000 HD Room Systems, SCOPIA MCUs, SCOPIA Desktop, SCOPIA iVIEW Management Suite

About

The Mission

CASE STUDY

OBEC established 185 Educational Service Areas (ESA) to decentralize administration; however, policies and training are required to be consistently delivered across all areas of Thailand. Educating an entire country, providing all students with the same level of education, can be logistically difficult, making video conferencing an essential tool for success. The initial primary objectives are: policy notifications from headquarters to be

The Challenge

communicated to all ESAs; follow-up on performance and adherence to established policies and standards; and OBEC officer and staff training. The solution must allow for live meetings as well as recorded meetings for review, guaranteeing participation for all involved. The solution must scale to cover all of Thailand, be very simple to use and easily managed without requiring significant IT staff.

“Radvision’s solution has made communication much easier for the entire OBEC organization, especially when important policies need to be discussed and implemented in every service area simultaneously.”

Thailand’s Office of the Basic Education Commission under the Ministry of Education Deploys Radvision HD Video Conferencing Systems and Infrastructure

About the Office of the Basic Education CommissionThe Thai education system consists of 12 years of free basic education; 6 years of primary and 6 years of secondary education.

The Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC), under the Ministry of Education in Thailand, is responsible for policy creation and control of primary through secondary schools.

There are 32,500 schools under the supervision of OBEC consisting of 30,000 primary and 2,500 secondary schools.

Mana Tiaochae, Plan and Policy Analyst OBEC

OBEC users save money with each meeting, provide consistency across all education sites, experience collaboration and innovation, and ultimately maintain the educational development of its community. OBEC uses video conferencing in diverse ways, including:

• Regular large-scale conference calls with all 185 Educational Service Areas and numerous secondary offices concurrently.

The Benefits

OBEC deployed SCOPIA XT1000 HD Video Conferencing Room Systems, SCOPIA Desktop, SCOPIA iVIEW Management Suite and SCOPIA MCUs enabling highly effective communications amongst headquarters and all 185 Educational Service Areas, reaching every province in Thailand. Key factors leading to OBEC selecting Radvision’s SCOPIA solution included:

• Advanced Technology: High performance room systems, unmatched telepresence and desktop communications and mobile conferencing.

• Ease-of-Use: Radvision takes a solution approach to ease-of-use, focusing on the entire application and not just individual components making it simple for even first-time users to connect and participate in a large-scale, recorded multi-party HD video conference.

• High Quality: The SCOPIA solution is a powerful combination of hardware and software that supports the highest resolutions available in today’s video conferencing solutions.

The Solution

• Affordability and Price / Performance: With Radvision’s SCOPIA solution, OBEC can connect with more users with equal or better quality at lower prices than competitive offerings.

• Superior Design and Architecture: Every component of the SCOPIA solution has been designed for deployment in a distributed IP network allowing conferencing infrastructure to be deployed strategically throughout the network with intelligent call distribution. OBEC benefits from increased redundancy, network traffic optimization, resource management and high scalability.

• Support: Radvision and its business partners provided an effective way for OBEC to acquire a complete video solution through expert planning, installation, training and support services.

• Knowledge and Expertise: Since 1992, Radvision has been an innovator providing products and technologies for unified visual communications over IP, 3G and emerging next-generation networks.

• Video conferences are broadcast via the Internet to schools that currently don’t have access to video conferencing systems.

• SCOPIA Desktop provides easy and very affordable communications amongst ESA offices and schools.

• With the recording capabilities of the SCOPIA solution, recordings are able to be played back on-demand as needed, allowing for training, policies and other information to be communicated without requiring all sites to participate live.

Currently, all OBEC ESAs have video conferencing systems available for use. With the early success of video conferencing that OBEC has experienced, video conferencing will soon be available in more individual schools throughout Thailand providing the ability for OBEC to carry out its mission even more efficiently and effectively.

Looking Forward

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The University needed an interactive system that was of such high quality that the technology barrier would dissolve and teachers and students would conduct themselves as if they were in the same classroom. The video conferencing system would also have to be able to accommodate standard classroom teaching aides such as slides, video, or live feeds from diagnostics or operating theaters.

The Mission

Piemonte University selected Radvision’s products for the teledidactic program video conferencing network. They chose Radvision’s powerful and economical Multipoint Conferencing Unit (MCU) for bridging the participants into a single conference. Radvision’s ECS H.323 Gatekeeper was chosen to manage the network traffic and access for quality controls and system monitoring.

Piemonte University, Establishes Telemedicine and Distance Learning Program with Radvision Video Conferencing Solutions

Customer: Universita degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale, School of Medicine and Surgery

Country: Italy

Industry: Medical /Education

Product: • Radvision Multipoint Conferencing Unit (MCU) • Radvision ECS H.323 Gatekeeper

About

About Piemonte University

Universita degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale, or Piemonte University, is a prominent institute of higher learning headquartered in Novara, Italy. The University has campuses and associated hospitals around the country and wanted to offer professional training courses integrated with University degree programs for nurses and physiotherapists to its constituents through video conferencing.

Piemonte University’s plan has many critical success factors:• High availability of the system - The system needed to sustain 8 hours a day of video conferencing every day of the academic year with continuous setting and transmission format changes to accommodate a variety of lesson plans.• Quality of transmissions - The quality had to be ‘true to life’ to make the technology element ‘disappear’ and allow students and teachers to conduct themselves as they do in a traditional classroom environment. • Synchronization of audio and video - Many lessons were supported by PowerPoint presentations, slides or films on medical subject matter. It was critical that the instructions

The Challenge

and explanations were perfectly coordinated with the images displayed for a seamless learning environment with comprehensible and accurate information. • Intuitive and simple to operate - Students and teachers needed to feel completely at ease with the system and operating video conferencing endpoints to provide the maximum degree of participation for everyone involved.• Easy diagnostics and administration - The technical staff of the University needed to be able to support and maintain the system without having in-depth experience in video conferencing. It needed to be manageable and scalable to accommodate growth and expansion of the distance learning program.


Today, the aggressive teledidactic program offers four concurrent courses at three locations. Through the teledidactic program, the University is able to accommodate over 200 participants in each of its courses. These courses would normally be inaccessible to students due to economic reasons and physical circumstances.

One of the obvious advantages of this arrangement is the ability to enable students who would not normally have access to the classroom environment because of handicaps, incarceration, remote geographic locations or areas with poor transportation. Additional advantages include optimization of costs and time, optimization of teaching personnel, uniformity of the lesson content, and

The Benefits

The stringent requirements of the University program demanded a feature-rich solution that would still be cost-effective. Although the initial program called for only four sites to participate; they wanted a solution that would be flexible and scalable to accommodate new endpoints and expansion of the network.

After conducting a series of market, service and product comparisons coupled with the system requirements, the team at Piemonte University chose Radvision’s MCU and H.323 Gatekeeper to provide the network infrastructure of the video conferencing system.

The Radvision MCU is tailored to the customer’s needs. The solution can incorporate voice, video and data bridging, along with Gateway functionality for connectivity between IP and ISDN networks.

The immediate network architecture only called for an IP (H.323) MCU, but the visionaries at Piemonte University understood the importance of having the option to open

The Solutiontheir network to other teledidactic or research programs that may have an existing ISDN network, and therefore installed a Radvision Gateway as part of the system. It was also important to know that they could add additional features or MCU ports as their own program developed.

Managing and monitoring the network was also a serious consideration in the University’s choice of the Radvision ECS H.323 Gatekeeper. The importance of being able to control access, traffic flow, optimize bandwidth usage, and monitor the entire system from a single administrative point was very efficient and attractive.

The Radvision products were also compatible with a broad spectrum of video conferencing endpoints that were essential teaching aides for the courses. The University deployed Polycom endpoints at the four locations and housed the Radvision solution at the main campus.

reduction in space and service requirements for students. “Selecting a system (not just a product) based on a design, which takes into consideration the possibility of its expansion and integration with the most innovative technologies, has proved to be a wise decision,” said Dr. Emanuele Albano, Director of the Department of Medical Sciences. “We intend to continue to expand the teledidactic program to encompass a wide variety of courses for a broad base of disciplines.”

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UHD needed to replace its existing video network infrastructure (MCUs) with a reliable, robust platform that delivered value added features, such as firewall traversal, high definition support and remote desktop connectivity and data collaboration.

The Mission

University of Houston-Downtown Expands its Video Horizons with Radvision Infrastructure and Desktop Conferencing

Customer: University of Houston – Downtown (UHD)

Country: USA

Industry: Education

Product: Radvision’s complete video conferencing infrastructure solution including SCOPIA Multipoint Conferencing Units (MCU), SCOPIA Desktop and iVIEW Suite Management and H.323 Gatekeeper application.

About

About University of Houston – DowntownSince opening its doors in 1974, UHD has grown in mission and service, and now offers baccalaureate degrees in 48 areas and four master’s degree programs. Enrollment has surpassed 12,000 students who attend classes in four Colleges: Business, Humanities and Social Sciences, Public Service and Sciences and Technology. A fifth college, University College, serves as the entry point for all students coming to UHD. Approximately 2,000 students graduate each year with degrees in humanities and the arts, social sciences, business, the sciences and technology, education and criminal justice. As one of the four distinct and separate components of the University of Houston System, UHD offers educational opportunities and access to students from a variety of backgrounds including many first generation college students, students who work full or part time, students who may have family obligations and students who transfer from community colleges and other higher education institutions.

“The SCOPIA platform proved to be a robust package that encompassed reliable desktop conferencing, built-in firewall traversal and HD support. This single-vendor solution proved reliable, dependable and blended ergonomically with our workflow – without compromising system stability or application deployment.” Steve Cachia, Manager for Video Network Services, UHD Division of Information Technology. A UHD video conferencing room

CASE STUDY

For both audio and video, the system was tested for out of order packets and lost packets and the results were verified and deemed excellent. The system proved robust to handle added remote desktops via SCOPIA Desktop. The high definition tests were also very successful, with the quality on the PC significantly impressive.“We are now positioned to offer our constituents a completely seamless solution that extends our advanced

UHD is planning to roll out SCOPIA Desktop for a large number of users. While this pilot was within the limits of the university’s operational centers (UH-Cinco Ranch, UH-Sugarland & The University Center), plans include expanding to encompass security and crisis management, as well as e-learning. “The SCOPIA Desktop is a springboard for offering connectivity to the university’s many ‘road warriors’ and opening

The Benefits

Looking Forward

UHD enjoyed years of positive experience with Radvision’s Gatekeeper technology, especially when it came to engineering issues. For the staff at UHD, strong engineering was a critical factor in choosing a new vendor. Radvision’s standard-based vision was in sync with UHD’s approach and laid the groundwork for a fruitful partnership.

UHD deployed two Radvision SCOPIA® MCUs, SCOPIA Desktop, and iVIEW™ Suite and Gatekeeper in an

The Solution

extensive, full-scale pilot. The first stage of the pilot was to ensure that the new infrastructure would stand up to the rigorous test of UHD’s present capacity, without compromising the constituent’s experience. These tests were completed in a full production environment, with special emphasis on remote desktop connectivity. High definition testing in a production environment with Polycom and Tandberg endpoints and standard PC’s was also carried out successfully.

systems right to the desktop,” says Steve Cachia, Manager for Video Network Services, UHD Division of Information Technology. “With the SCOPIA platform’s Flat Capacity Plus™, we are getting more value from each port, while reducing the burden on the system to handle network, audio and video separately. And we can transmit sessions using H.264, HD & H.239 without restriction.”

a whole new world to so many of our constituents,” adds Steve. “The SCOPIA MCU and SCOPIA Desktop have been proven to deliver a reliable, robust platform that meets our needs. We have found a true partner in Radvision; a partner that shares our vision of what video conferencing can do, and where it will take us.”

UHD is a pioneer within the University of Houston System in utilizing video conferencing technology. It is used both in distance learning and day to day communications between remote sites, with up to 80 hours of constant connectivity per week. As such, the video conferencing system is a mission-critical part of the university’s communications

The Challenge

infrastructure. The new infrastructure not only needed to deliver value added features, it had to be easy to use, integrate seamlessly with existing endpoints and workflow, and deliver the robust performance for UHD’s heavy usage today, as well as with projected added desktop connectivity and high definition.

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Date post:	05-Dec-2014
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