Coming Soon: 3CX WebMeeting on Your Local Network or Cloud

[TBWD]

What kind of server requirements will be needed for this to work?

 

[weimerd]

Thanks @Nick Galea for clearing up with the total video streams for one webmeeting. We see a high computing demand on client side during video calls. It depends on bandwith and computing power of the client how much participants are possible simultaneously on video meetings.

As a solution decoding could be done server side. This would save a lot of bandwith in addition. So please think of changing the way of how video streams are transported.

 

[SSherwood]

Thanks @Nick Galea for clearing up with the total video streams for one webmeeting. We see a high computing demand on client side during video calls. It depends on bandwith and computing power of the client how much participants are possible simultaneously on video meetings.

As a solution decoding could be done server side. This would save a lot of bandwith in addition. So please think of changing the way of how video streams are transported.

+1 to server side optimization. Without this, I fear 3CX new on-premise servers will bring zero improvement to the 3CX webmeeting experience for larger video team meetings, which is the main reason I was attracted to the idea to begin with.

I had wrongly assumed the client issues we experienced were server related, but now it seems much more likely to be a bandwidth and/or compute issue at the client side.

I refrain from mentioning other products on public posts, but other platforms out there handle this issue much more gracefully. Given the current COVID-19 landscape, team video meetings are going to be a large requirement for a few more months.

 

[edit10n]

@SSherwood - Well it does support a 100 participants. Just not all with streaming video. So you can definitely create meetings with that amount of participants but video will only stream for the participant that wants to talk and be shown. I believe there are other platforms that do it that way. At this point you can create 100 participant meetings with video but its tough on the clients.

Do you need to see all 100 participants in a meeting with those numbers? Normally its distracting or difficult to manage in our experience.

But to answer your question - yes they are separate, though optimized streams. We do not bundle the streams to one smaller stream.

I dont find a 100 participant video meeting to be an unreasonable expectation. While yes, I can certainly agree with the management challenges that can arise, however, with some experience there are ways to mitigate potential problems and be quite productive. One feature in most competitor products to help combat larger meeting issues is the ability to generate breakout rooms (particularly in meetings with video from all participants). These can be helpful to generate cohorts in a larger group of attendees who can then work through the meeting content in more manageable sizes, much like a traditional onsite meeting might be organized.

Last I used the 3CX webmeeting, it looked very similar to jitsi to the point I was curious if your product is built on jitsi or if it's proprietary? The other concern/requirement/request is the ability to integrate with an LDAP/AD directory. I know this feature has been heavily requested on the PBX product forums for sometime now, but I think the need for such functionality is almost a requirement in any enterprise deployment. It would be a hard sell to make without that core functionality from what I have seen in production environments on alternative products today.

I'm also curious to know more about how the on-premise webmeeting offering will be licensed and/or if you are planning to offer a hosted version much like you can do the instant pbx deployments on AWS/Google/Azure.

Hoping to be able to get my hands on the beta on-premise server to be able to do some stress testing and how the intensity of deployment.

 

[bsistemas]

It is great news that the 3CX customer can host their own MCU server on their local network!!. It will also be a good commercial argument regarding the company's own privacy policies compared to other video conferencing solutions. There are customers who are reluctant to have their data circulated through third-party servers. Being able to offer the customers to have control of their own MCU server on their local network is a great idea.

 

[charlesg]

I may have missed it - is there a release date? Does it support the whiteboard functionality as well?

I used to work at a partner and looking to have my new company replace FreeSwitch and Asterisk PBX with 3CX and one of the sell points is virtual whiteboards - but we definitely need them on-premise.

 

[jk2030]

When will 3CX WebMeeting on-premise be available?

 

[Stephane REVOL]

relly happy to be able to install on-prem webmeeting with efficient admin tools !

this week is the worst ; around 50% of meeting was a disaster :
1°) not all participants hear all others ( most of the time some but not all )
2°) screen sharing failed sometimes ( screen sharing icone goes blue but no screen shared )
3°) if I disable my webcam I loose my microphone, same on other members
4°) sometimes the shared link didn't comes on my webmeeting but in another one ( where my customer was alone, without me )
5°) need to set up my microphone into the webmeeting, but the speaker on the OS directly.
6°) a network issue break sometime the screen sharing ( screen shared freeze like a picture)
7°) uses blocked to the first "new" welcome page as it was not into our connexion procedure.

our webmeeting is so simple as nobody use a webcam, just the voice and screen-sharing : a priori no bandwith issue.

I don't know if this Monday update is the root-cause of all these issues , but I appear clearly we need a stable/tested webmeeting plateform to be able to count on this product and be efficient.

@Nick Galea ; I understand your point of view about the webmeeting functionnalities compared to other competitors on your thread/battle https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/what’s-cooking-in-our-remote-kitchens-the-3cx-road-map.71952/ . And in fact you're good; webmeeting has a good market position I don't need a lot of extra features to be efficient (my list below).
nevertheless : what it does the strength of this type of tools is the good stabilty of all its features, and unfortunately it is its weakness.
I spent my week to explain to my users how to re-schedule/re-create a meeting when it goes wrong hoping to be on another MCU, how to reset the connexion with ctrl+F5 , how to manage their speaker, etc etc...

extra functions :
- on-prem to be able to test upgrade
- admin tools for troubleshooting
- persitent chat on webmeeting (linked to disconnect/reconnect behavior)
- able to change the 3CX phone status when on-webmeeting

I'm waiting your on-prem version with a real enthusiasm and impatience !
BR
Stéphane

 

[Cascada]

@Stephane REVOL . Agreed, this week has been brutal. So many issues related to audio. Some of the video feeds, even with the camera on, didn't show anything. We have started to evaluate other platform for our clients. They understand that we are living "exceptional" (to say the least). However, other webmeeting platforms have been able to keep up with the increasing demand. I would like clarification on "on-premises / local network install," we use Amazon for all our 3cx installations. So, if we like to install 3cx webmeeting locally then we have to install a local server... What would be the minimum requirements to handle the enterprise license webmeeting (up-to 250 participants)?

 

[cobaltit]

I would like clarification on "on-premises / local network install," we use Amazon for all our 3cx installations. So, if we like to install 3cx webmeeting locally then we have to install a local server...

The answer is literally the title of the thread....


Coming Soon: 3CX WebMeeting on Your Local Network or Cloud

It simply means not 3CX hosted. I'm sure once the product is released they will list requirements for it as well.

 

[narrington]

Do we have an ETA so I can start working on a cost/benefit analysis for my CTO?

 

[Soriam]

I have a question: Will the On-premise solution be a different product altogether then, for which you have to buy another license?

 

[Juan Marriott]

I have a question: Will the On-premise solution be a different product altogether then, for which you have to buy another license?

It should be the same as advertised. The MCU should contact 3CX servers to validate licences.

Idea: what about to have primary MCU local, and be able to use 3CX seves as backup?

 

[A.Takacs]

As many other, I am happy to see the return of on-premise webmeeting (it was a stand-alone product that just vanished from the offering, much to our dismay)

 

[FS_Mathieu]

Truely waiting for it !!

 

[JRB-LU]

Hi,
We are more impatient than ever to be able to host our own webmeeting server in our own server
when I see in https://status.3cx.net/ these kinds of problems as of 24 Avril by 11H15 AM Paris time :


Node France (Strasbourg) 0027 temporarily not available for new meetings
Node France (Roubaix) 0041 temporarily not available for new meetings

Please, release Webmeeting server image ,
we must be prepared to continue to survive using 3CX to work in Covid lock out

 

[LeonidasG_3CX]

Hi there,

Hi,

Please urgently release this webmeeting image server for our own premices :

Today 24 April 2020, I see on : https://status.3cx.net/

• Node France (Strasbourg) 0027 temporarily not available for new meetings
• Node France (Roubaix) 0041 temporarily not available for new meetings

Please, urgently release !
3CX webmeeting is our only way to survive and work in this Covid lock out that will probably not be ended before several weeks

Hi there,

We have constant monitoring of all of our servers. Our monitoring shows that no faults have occurred today. We have hundreds of servers online and often will take down an unused MCU for maintenance.

When an MCU is in maintenance, you will see: 'Temporarily not available for new meetings'. We do a service to you by telling you this. It is not a real problem for you or anyone nor is related in any way to any problems you may experience in a meeting...

The public monitor service is an attempt on our side to be more transparent to customers. We may consider to only leave the RSS board for big announcements and remove the map view fully in order not to cause confusion.

 

[N_G]

@JRB-LU Please dont scaremonger. We have a pool of MCUs which are fully redundant and if one is offline another takes over. Yes we do regular maintenance and updates on them. The on premise MCU will simply be an addition to the pool so you can have very confidential meetings on your own MCU (not that we track anything but of course best way to be sure is to have it on your own network) Just to be clear there will not be a stand alone webmeeting product but just an MCU integrated with 3CX installation which will be something you can then select for a meeting if you wish.

 

[bsistemas]

Thank you very much Mr. Galea for the clarification.

It's great to be able to have an Integrated MCU in customer own 3CX local installation.

 

[Phone systems NZ]

With self hosting the web meetings will there be an option to increase the video limit above 25? i have some customers that want to be able to have more active video streams.