SAN JOSE, Calif. -- April 28, 1998 -- Cisco Systems, Inc. today announced its Multimedia Conference Manager software feature set that enables wide-area networks to handle H.323 conferencing securely and reliably. H.323 is the ITU international standard for Internet voice and video communication.
The Multimedia Conference Manager provides infrastructure support for data, voice and video integration services and supports H.323 applications such as voice over IP, data conferencing and videoconferencing. It also allows network administrators to implement quality of service (QoS) and apply policy on conferencing traffic without impacting other applications running on the network. Multimedia Conference Manager is implemented on Cisco IOS. software, the common platform that transforms a network into a mission-critical resource.
"Multimedia Conference Manager enables us to segregate the multimedia traffic from the normal network IP data traffic over the IBM Global Network," said Sid Overbey, vice president, Switched Access and Internet Services, IBM Global Services. "This capability enables us to provide our customers with a high-quality multimedia solution without interfering with the excellent service levels we provide to our managed network services customers."
"With H.323 applications freely available and video cameras available for less than $200, end users are starting to use H.323 conferencing over existing networks. Network administrators are asking for solutions to authorize users, apply policy and provide quality of service," said Cliff Meltzer, vice president and general manager of IOS Technologies and Engineering Operations at Cisco Systems. "Multimedia Conference Manager addresses our customers' requirements for supporting these applications and mission critical applications simultaneously."
Interoperability
Multimedia Conference Manager is H.323 compliant and will interoperate with all H.323-compliant products and technologies such as terminals, Gateways and multipoint control units (MCUs). Accord Video Telecommunications, Intel, Picturetel, RadVision, VCON, VTEL Corporation and VideoServer are among the companies that offer or plan to offer H.323 products.
Secure Communications, Address Resolution, Quality of Service and Policy
The Multimedia Conference Manger includes a Gatekeeper subsystem and a Proxy subsystem. These subsystems provide a secure mechanism for H.323 communications over extranets and provide H.323 address resolution solutions.
The Gatekeeper subsystem provides user authentication services, manages the bandwidth utilization for H.323 traffic, generates call detail records, provides address translation services and, when combined with Cisco Proxy function, provides QoS routing.
The Proxy subsystem consolidates H.323 traffic, enabling network administrators to provide QoS services, limit bandwidth and implement policy on that traffic.
Cisco Systems
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