Using Multiway with Pexip Infinity

Multiway™ is a Cisco TelePresence feature that allows an endpoint user to transfer an established point-to-point call to an MCU, so that more participants can join the conference.

If your deployment includes endpoints that support Cisco TelePresence Multiway, you can configure these endpoints to use Pexip Infinity Virtual Meeting Rooms for Multiway conferences.

The exact configuration required to support Multiway will depend on whether or not you use the VCS Conference Factory application (an application on the VCS which dynamically generates a unique conference alias for each Multiway conference).

For full information on Multiway, see the Cisco TelePresence Multiway Deployment Guide (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/unified-communications/telepresence-video-communication-server-vcs/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html).

Example scenario

The sections below describe how to enable the following example scenario:

• Alice makes a point-to-point call to Bob.
• They want to include Charlie in the conversation, so Alice puts Bob on hold, calls Charlie, and then Joins the calls together.
• All 3 participants are dialed in to a Virtual Meeting Room on Pexip Infinity.

Configuring endpoints using xConfiguration commands

The xConfiguration commands used to enable Multiway vary depending on the endpoint. Below are example commands for some more common endpoints, showing how to configure them with the alias meet.alice@example.com.

E20

xConfiguration SystemUnit MultiwayURI: "meet.alice@example.com"

MXP

xConfiguration Multipoint Mode: Multiway
xConfiguration Multipoint MultiwayURI: "meet.alice@example.com"

T150

xConfiguration Multipoint MultiwayURI: "meet.alice@example.com"

Deployments without VCS Conference Factory

In a non-Conference Factory deployment, each endpoint must be configured with its own Multiway alias, which must match a Virtual Meeting Room alias. When point-to-point calls are escalated to a Multiway conference, all endpoints call this alias and are routed to the same Virtual Meeting Room.

Endpoint configuration

The endpoint that initiates the join must support Multiway and be configured with a Multiway alias that matches a Virtual Meeting Room alias in Pexip Infinity. In this example, we have configured Alice's endpoint to use her personal Virtual Meeting Room alias of meet.alice@example.com as her Multiway alias.

Pexip Infinity configuration

No additional configuration is required on Pexip Infinity, beyond ensuring that at least one appropriate Virtual Meeting Room exists that can be used for Multiway conferences.

A Virtual Meeting Room used for Multiway does not need to be reserved specifically for Multiway. It can be a user's personal Virtual Meeting Room, as in this example.

If a Virtual Meeting Room that is being used for Multiway has a PIN configured, all participants must know the PIN and be able to enter it from their endpoint in order to access the conference.

In this example scenario we had already created a personal Virtual Meeting Room for Alice which uses the alias meet.alice@example.com, and we will use this Virtual Meeting Room for her Multiway calls. If you want to create a new Virtual Meeting Room:

On the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface, go to Service configuration > Virtual Meeting Rooms.

1. Select Add Virtual Meeting Room.
2. In the Name field, enter Alice.
3. Enter a PIN, if required.
4. In the Alias field, enter meet.alice@example.com.
5. Select Save.

The Virtual Meeting Room is now configured and available for use whenever meet.alice@example.com is dialed, including when it is dialed as part of a Multiway escalation.

Deployments using VCS Conference Factory

The VCS Conference Factory application dynamically generates a unique conference alias for the Multiway conference. When the VCS Conference Factory application is used for Multiway, all endpoints must be configured with the same Multiway alias. When this alias is dialed by the initiating endpoint, it creates a query to the VCS for the alias that will be used for the conference. The VCS generates an alias based on its Conference Factory configuration, and all endpoints then dial this alias to access the Virtual Meeting Room. This means that all possible aliases that could be generated by the VCS must be configured on Pexip Infinity and each must be associated with a unique Virtual Meeting Room.

Endpoint configuration

All endpoints must be configured with the same Multiway alias. In this example, they are all configured to use the alias pexip.multiway.

VCS configuration

In this example, we will configure the VCS to generate aliases in the range multiway1@example.com to multiway9@example.com whenever a Multiway call is initiated. Note that a range of 9 is for example purposes only and is too small for most deployments.

On the VCS, go to Applications > Conference Factory and configure it as follows:

Field	Setting
Mode	On
Alias	pexip.multiway
Template	multiway%%@example.com
Number range start	1
Number range end	9

Pexip Infinity configuration

On Pexip Infinity, we create 9 Virtual Meeting Rooms specifically for use by Multiway, and to each we assign one of the 9 aliases.

We could do this manually for each alias by going to Service configuration > Virtual Meeting Rooms and selecting Add Virtual Meeting Room. However, we can also use Pexip Infinity's importing configuration feature, so instead we select Import, and import the following CSV file:

multiway1,,,,,multiway1@example.com,
multiway2,,,,,multiway2@example.com,
multiway3,,,,,multiway3@example.com,
multiway4,,,,,multiway4@example.com,
multiway5,,,,,multiway5@example.com,
multiway6,,,,,multiway6@example.com,
multiway7,,,,,multiway7@example.com,
multiway8,,,,,multiway8@example.com,
multiway9,,,,,multiway9@example.com,

This creates a Virtual Meeting Room with the name multiway1 and an alias of multiway1@example.com; another with the name multiway2 and an alias of multiway2@example.com; and so on for all 9 aliases.