Forum Discussion
Interop SfB and standard-based sip clients
Hi Jörg.
I have in on-prem environments used all kind of solutions to integrate a legacy VTC into a Skype for Business meeting.
- Pexip is the one I favor, as this is easiest for the user and supports all kind of endpoints. A meeting reception can be designed, so VTC users just dial the meeting lobby and enters the Skype meeting.
- Acano (Cisco Meeting Server) is suitable, if you have mainly Golden Gate Bridge branded VTCs. I haven't tried this med e.g. Polycom video endpoints, but "third-party video endpoints" is supported. Issues with connecting a Polycom endpoint might send you into a support limbo.
Both solutions are very resource demanding when decoding/encoding videostreams, so you should go for a rather big server.
Hope this helps you.
/Kenneth ML
There are currently many deployments of Polycom RealConnect out there today with Lync Server 2013 and Skype for Business 2015 Server environments. This supports all standards-based SIP and H.323 video systems from Cisco, Lifesize, and Polycom. This can be used for on-premises and hybrid Lync/SfB architectures.
Also available (in North America) as of this month is "RealConnect for Office 365" which is powering the Skype for Business Online Cloud Video Interop (CVI) solution. Same support for standards-based systems but the traditional MCUs are hosted in Office 365 natively as a service.
Note that RealConnect is the only qualified and officially supported video interop solution for Skype for Business and has been listed on the Skype for Business Catalog for some time now. It also was the first solution to use the MCU cascading architecture and provide a one touch join experience (without the use of third party Outlook add-ins) from most Cisco and Polycom room systems.
If you have an SfB Online tenant homed in North America then you can get trial licenses for the CVI service to test it out with any of your systems today.
There are also meet-in-the-middle solution available by using traditional 'VMRs' but this takes over the Lync/SfB MCU as the meeting controller and adds additional complexity to the solution and user workflows. I see less of this in the field as time goes on for these reasons.