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VCS and geographic distribution of Pexip Infinity nodes

The Pexip Infinity solution allows for Conferencing Nodes to be deployed in a geographically distributed manner to take advantage of bandwidth savings and help ensure the highest possible call quality. From the perspective of a VCS, geographic distribution can take different forms, depending on the infrastructure available internal to the deployment. For illustrative purposes, this deployment guide describes a multiple zone configuration and a multiple subzone configuration.

Multiple zones

Example deployment with 2 VCS zones and 2 Conferencing Nodes

If multiple VCSs are dispersed throughout a WAN, call routing to Conferencing Nodes should be considered independently for each zone. The Pexip Infinity solution will ensure, for calls where more than one Conferencing Node is involved, that there is an appropriate connection between them.

In the illustrated case that follows, Conferencing Nodes are deployed in Europe and North America, the North America local VCS will route all calls destined for the Pexip Infinity solution directly to the local North America Conferencing Node. Similarly, all calls local to the European VCS would be routed directly to the European Conferencing Node.

Configuration of the VCSs within a network will be similar to the initial example in this deployment, with the only difference being that each of the geographic locales will be routed specifically to the local Conferencing Node. If there are multiple Conferencing Nodes in each location, then as before this can be configured on the VCS neighbor zone, and the VCS will round-robin between these nodes.

EU-specific configuration

The example screen shot shown below offers an example of how a European-specific VCS could be configured to route appropriate calls to two local Conferencing Nodes named EU_Node_1 and EU_Node_2.

EU-specific zone configuration

North America-specific configuration

The North America-specific VCS could then be configured to route appropriate calls to its local Conferencing Nodes. The zone configuration settings will be the same as for the European zone except in this case the peer addresses will refer to Conferencing Nodes located in the US, for example US_Node_1 and US_Node_2.

North America-specific zone configuration

Single zone, multiple subzones

Example deployment with 1 zone with multiple subzones, and 2 Conferencing Nodes

As the diagram above illustrates, distribution of multiple Pexip Conferencing Nodes from a single VCS can still leverage the bandwidth savings associated with geographic call routing. Instead of routing calls by independent VCSs as was described in the previous example, routing will occur based on subzones within the single VCS.  Specifically, calls originating from EU-based endpoints (and contained within a classifying subzone) will be routed to the EU Conferencing Node; calls originating from endpoints in North America (and contained within a classifying subzone) will be routed to the North American Conferencing Node; and so on.

Although the zone setup will be similar to that of the previous example, search rules will differ from the localized VCS configuration. In this example, the configured call source will need to be “Named” and include the name of the subzone containing the location-specific endpoints. An example of an EU-specific search rule is shown below.

Example search rule routing calls from a specific subzone to a specific Conferencing Node