Software Audio Conference Bridge

Product Description
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MeetNow Audio is the solution offered by Stonevoice to provide a full Audio conference MCU.

MeetNow Audio is a software component able to integrate with any H.323 systems and allows Audio conferences scheduling through an easy graphic interface.

MeetNow Audio engine supports up to 24 participants which may be invited to a conference by sending an email from the management interface. The email sent to participants contains general information about the scheduled conference plus an Invitation Number which will be used by MeetNow Audio to authenticate participants.

MeetNow Audio supports anonymous participants; therefore the same Invitation Number may be used by different participants. However, this does not involve the addition of another seat in the conference. The maximum number of seats is defined by the administrator when scheduling the meeting, considering the maximum number of participants supported by MeetNow Audio. This number depends on the purchased version (more ports allows more simultaneous users), and eventually other concurrent meetings.

Once the meeting has been scheduled, it is any time possible delaying or anticipating.

At a glance:

Cost effective solution as completely software based: runs on a simple Windows Server.
Per port licensing, regardless the number of phones or users.
User-friendly and GUI based: fast and simple to schedule and manage rooms.
Native Multilanguage to provide web interfaces and IVR messages in different languages.
Pin Authentication to access a conference room.
Dial-in / Dial-out capabilities.
International Standards compliancy.
Protocols: H.323v4
Audio Codecs: G.711, G.729(A)
Audio Transcoding without no additional modules.
Cascading allowing users from remote locations to dial in locally and avoid bandwidth saturation.
QoS support with Diffserve, TOS, IP Precedence for best Audio quality at all times.

Architecture
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In the typical architecture of a Audio conference system, the MCU is the ‘core’ device.
The different endpoints, whether they are hardware or software, are connected through the MCU doing the audio mixing.
MeetNow Audio has the unique advantage of combining into a single Audio conference call different Audio terminals such as PSTN phones, Mobile phones, H.323 Audio Software clients or IP Telephony solutions.

- Integration with IP telephony systems: Cisco example
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With MeetNow Audio you can add multipoint voice conference over IP networks, providing powerful audio transcoding, advanced resource management and seamless interoperability with standard endpoints.
MeetNow Audio is compliant with Cisco IP Communications infrastructure (CallManager and CallManager Express).

Cisco Call Manager Configuration
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MeetNow Audio interacts with the Cisco Systems™ CallManager as a traditional H.323 endpoint.

Add an H.323 gateway with the IP address configured for MeetNow Audio and its H323 listen port (1723). Following the sample: 192.168.0.1

Insert a Route Pattern pointing to the number configured for MeetNow Audio’s conferences.

- Cisco CallManager Express configuration
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MeetNow Audio interacts with the Cisco Systems™ CallManager Express as a traditional H.323 endpoint. It is only necessary to add a dial-peer on the router to forward to MeetNow Audio the calls which should take part to a conference:

Here an example:

dial-peer voice 1 voip
destination-pattern 8000
session target ipv4:192.168.0.1:1723
dtmf-relay h245-alphanumeric
codec g711ulaw

where 8000 is the number you have to call in order to join to a conference and 192.168.0.1 is the IP address of the server where the MeetNow Audio is running (1723 is the H.323 TCP listening port).

- Integration with general H.323 systems
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With MeetNow Audio you can add multipoint voice conference over IP networks, providing powerful audio and Audio transcoding, advanced resource management and seamless interoperability with standard endpoints.
MeetNow Audio is compliant with many vendors and it has been designed to fit any IP environment and is completely compatible with H.323.
For certified H.323 Audio client and Audio Voice Gateway please contact Stonevoice
In an H.323 network, calls are placed using the DNS name/IP address of the MCU without the need of any IP telephony system, so very easy to configure.
You only need to change the MeetNow Audio H.323 listen port by following this link in the web browser:
http://192.168.0.1:1423/Parameters
supposing 192.168.0.1 is your MeetNow Audio server IP address.

Change from 1723 to 1720 and click on Accept. Please restart the MeetNow Audio engine.

MeetNow Audio is also compatible with H.323 gatekeeper managed network, with architecture like the following one:

How to use MeetNow Audio
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To reach the management web interface you have to enter in your browser the URL:

http://192.168.0.1/sv/MeetNow/Audio

where 192.168.0.1 is the IP address of the MeetNow Audio server. Login with administrator account (default: username = admin / password = admin).

Once logged in, the home shows as follows:

Administrator can manage MeetNow Audio engine through the Manage Engine link.

Once the engine is started, the first thing to do is create a Meeting Room.

- Meeting Room
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A Meeting Room may be compared to a “room” containing a certain group of participants.
For example, you can create a Sales Room, where adding the sales contacts you need to connect in a conference and a Tech Room, adding the tech contacts.
Sales contacts through their Invitation Number will be connected each other in the Sales Room, tech contacts in the Tech Room, so different independent private rooms.
A meeting room may be used infinite times; therefore it is possible to use the meeting room as a work group and schedule a meeting which will start every week (for example the Tuesday at 10 o’clock) where the participants will be always the same sales contacts of the company.

So, you need to start by creating a Meeting Room following the 4 configuration steps:

First step to assign a label to the room (es. Sales Room)

Second step to specify the name of the invitees; the system automatically generates Number can be changed either in term of number of digits: the same Invitation Number can be used by more participants to take part to the same conference.

Third step to plan/schedule the conference meeting. The fields involved are:

- Subject: in which you have to insert an indicative name for the meeting

- Start: here you have to enter the beginning date and time of the meeting; you can use the calendar by clicking on the button.

- Duration: is the total duration of the meeting; at the end of the configured minutes (120 in the example) the communication will close.

- Seats: the seats are the places reserved for a Audioconference; this means the maximum number of participants. In the example below, up to 20 participants can take part to a conference together; an eventual 21st user will be not accepted in the conference. The number of seats may be modified also when the meeting has already started; the same Invitation Number may be used multiple times to participate to the same scheduled meeting if you only would like to define one general invitee.

- Countdown Time: the system warns the participants when the conference is going to finish. In this field you have to specify how many minutes before the end of the meeting the users will be informed.

- Comments: some notes about the meeting or a short description.

Once finished it is possible to edit the schedule, delete it or create a new one. The scheduled conferences are indicated with a yellow bar in the room of the meetings, in correspondence of the date, the time and the meeting room for which they was created.

With the last step it is possible to forward the invites to the participants; you only need to enter the email address of the participant and MeetNow Audio will automatically send the email (you can see it in the preview) with the conference details and the Invitation Number

Test the Email parameters
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Before sending any invitation you need to configure the mail parameters. Using the appropriate tool you can quickly configure the email parameters and test the email functionalities.

The fields in bold concern the parameters of the SMTP server used by MeetNow Audio to forward the invitations. Once you save the configuration, these fields will be automatically filled when you open the tool again. These fields concern:

From (address):this is the email address to which the invitation is sent.From (name): this is the name that appears as sender of the invitation.
Reply to: this is the email address which receives the replies to the invitations.
Server: this is the IP address of the SMTP server; using the “Ping” you can test the connection to the mail server.
Authentication: if enabled, it is necessary to specify the username and password of the SMTP server.

The fields that are not in bold instead are not fixed and you have to complete them manually:

To: this the email address of the addressee.
Recipient Name: this is the name of the addressee.
Attach file: this gives you the possibility to attach a file to your email

Once all fields have been completed, you can proceed with the test. By clicking on “Test Connection” the system will control the connection to your own mail server, verifying if the authentication parameters are correct. If the test is successful, you can send a probe email with the button “Send Mail”. Save the configuration with the button “Save parameters” before you close the tool. In the case the parameters have not been saved yet and you try to close the tool, a message will ask you if you want to save the configuration before closing or continue without saving .

Creating Users
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MeetNow Audio allows creation of users to manage the system with different credentials, assignable by the administrator:

The administrator can chose what the user will be able to do:

Schedule Meetings: if you flag this field, the new user will be able to schedule new meetings or modify and delete existing meetings. He will also have the possibility to see the current meetings and the status of the engine (started or stopped).

Manage Engine: if you flag this field, the user will also have the possibility stop and start the MCU engine.

Manage User: by flagging this field, the user will be allowed to create, modify or delete MeetNow Audio users.

If you flag all the three fields, the user will have full control of the application; the user will then have the same permissions as the administrator. If you flag none of the fields instead, the user will only be able to see the current meetings and the status of the engine

Take place in a conference
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The invitation to a conference is received via email, this is a sample:

Dear Mike,
you have been invited to the following Meetings:

Sales Meeting (starting at 2006-06-29 10:21, duration: 60 minutes)

To join please:
1. Call the pilot number 8000
2. Insert the invitation number 1234 followed by #

Regards,
Stonevoice MeetNow Audio

The message contains general information about the conference, plus an Invitation Number that you have to enter to be authenticated by MeetNow Audio. If the Invitation Number is correct, you will be connected to the relative room; otherwise, the attendant will warn you that the code is invalid and will ask you to enter a correct Invitation Number. It may happen that the code is correct but the meeting is not started yet; in this case a message will inform you that there are no active meetings in that moment.

Depending on the Countdown Time configured by the administrator, a message will inform you when the meeting is going to finish.

Licenses
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The registration of the application happens through an easy “Registrator”.

The Registrator provides some information about the MeetNow Audio version installed on the server and about the Operating System where MeetNow Audio is running (see “Version” and “Operating System” fields). You should send this information to the Stonevoice support in order to receive the unlock codes for the application. You also need to provide the Serial Number of the application, which is different depending on the number of ports purchased. So pay attention to select the correct number of ports, from the “Options” filed (20 in the example above), before selecting the given Serial Number. In order to obtain the unlock codes it is also necessary to provide to Stonevoice the name of the company which made the installation and the name of the customers company, and last, the license code of the application. You can find on the PDF provided as you bought the product. All this information should be sent to licenses@stonevoice.com.

When you receive the unlock code, click on the “Activate” button of the Registrator. A new window will appear where you have to paste the provided code.

Once entered the code, click on “Unlock”. If the provided code is correct, a message will inform you that the application as been correctly licensed otherwise contact the Stonevoice support.