Cisco Unified MeetingPlace, Release 6.x -- About WebConnect

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Cisco Unified MeetingPlace, Release 6.x > Web Conferencing > Configuring > Configuring WebConnect

Before you configure WebConnect, you should understand the following concepts:

• Prerequisites for Configuring WebConnect
• Restrictions for Configuring WebConnect
• WebConnect Concepts and Definitions
• About Scheduling a Meeting with WebConnect
• WebConnect and Segmented Meeting Access Environments

Contents 1 Prerequisites for Configuring WebConnect 2 Restrictions for Configuring WebConnect 3 WebConnect Concepts and Definitions 3.1 Table: WebConnect Concepts and Definitions 4 About Scheduling a Meeting with WebConnect 4.1 Table: Example WebConnect Rollover Sequences 4.2 Figure: How Meetings Are Scheduled with WebConnect 5 WebConnect and Segmented Meeting Access Environments

Prerequisites for Configuring WebConnect

• Verify that your system meets the requirements for WebConnect configuration by reviewing the System Requirements.

• Install Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing and make sure that User Groups, Meeting Categories, and User Profiles are synchronized on all internal and dedicated external sites that are participating in a rollover map. If these parameters are not synchronized, rolled meetings will fail.

• You must use Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Services for synchronizing user profiles.

If you do not have a profile synchronization procedure installed, see Importing User Profile and Group Information.

• You must synchronize Meeting Categories between two Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Audio Server systems manually; otherwise, Meeting Category searches will not work properly.

• All Cisco Unified MeetingPlace internal web servers from a site must use a single, shared SQL Server. However, this can constitute a single point of failure for a multi-site internal MP Web deployment. Therefore, we highly recommend that you use a high availability server environment and network links to avoid any loss of performance and service.

• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace external (DMZ) web servers should not use a single, shared SQL Server. Each external web server must use a dedicated SQL Server.

For example, say you are configuring two sites, called Site A and Site B, with internal and external web servers. After you install the internal web server(s) for Site A, install the internal web server(s) for Site B and have these use the same SQL Server that Site A uses. Use one dedicated SQL Server for the external web server(s) at Site A, and a different dedicated SQL Server for the external web server(s) at Site B. So in this example, you would need three separate SQL Servers: one for the internal web servers at Site A and Site B, one for the external web server(s) at Site A, and one for the external web server(s) at Site B.

• If you use Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Video Integration, and a single MCU is shared among sites, the Video Integration can be installed on the web servers at only one site. If each site has its own MCU, the Video Integration can be installed on web servers at each site. In either case, the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Audio Server at each site must be licensed for video.

Restrictions for Configuring WebConnect

We do not support the WebConnect feature on UNIX systems.

WebConnect Concepts and Definitions

See Table: WebConnect Concepts and Definitions for definitions of key WebConnect concepts.

Table: WebConnect Concepts and Definitions

Concept	Definition
System	A standalone Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Audio Server system.
Site	A natural group of systems on which users can schedule and host their meetings. Sites are not limited to any geographical limitations. Sites are limited to standalone or network configurations. Servers that can be reached via Single Number Access must belong to the same site. Currently, each site can only contain one system.
External site	A site that is outside your network and used for dedicated use. External sites can have either the same features, for example, the ability to attach documents or access meeting recordings, or more features than sites that are on your network. Dedicated external sites sharing the same database is not a supported WebConnect configuration.
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace services	A suite of services that supports Cisco Unified MeetingPlace by offering a range of deployment options: Managed Services -Equipment owned by Cisco installed at a customer site and connected to their network, but managed by the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Services group. Hosted Services -Equipment owned by Cisco installed off-site at a hosted facility but still connected to a dedicated customer network. Hosted Services is equivalent to a dedicated external site. For further information on Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Services, see your Cisco sales representative.
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace image	A collection of sites (internal and external) that end-users can roll across. Separate images do not share database information, such as lists of meetings, or profile directories. A site can be a member of several different images, for example, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Services (a site) can be part of Image 1, which contains all sites within the U.S., as well as part of Image 2, which contains all sites within Asia Pacific.
Rollover map	The sequential mapping of sites within a Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Image. For an example of a rollover map, see the About Scheduling a Meeting with WebConnect.

About Scheduling a Meeting with WebConnect

The ability to schedule Cisco Unified MeetingPlace web conferences is achieved through a single interface: the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing home page. End users are required to know only one URL regardless of which server they wish to schedule on.

Before users begin scheduling meetings by using WebConnect, make sure of the following:

• User profile time zone settings are accurate. Using the default "localtime" setting can cause errors by scheduling rolled meetings for a different time of day.
• Time zone and profile information are synchronized between all internal and dedicated external sites.

After receiving a scheduling request, Web Conferencing attempts to schedule on the first site indicated in the scheduler rollover map. If it cannot schedule this meeting on this site, Web Conferencing refers to the scheduler rollover map and attempts to schedule on the next listed site. For example, each map in Table: Example WebConnect Rollover Sequences contains a different rollover sequence. If your user group is assigned to Map A and you schedule a meeting, the following occurs:

• Web Conferencing first attempts to schedule your meeting on the Santa Clara site.
• If the Santa Clara site is unavailable, Web Conferencing then attempts to schedule according to the sequence outlined in your rollover map: San Francisco, and then Dallas, and finally Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Services.

Table: Example WebConnect Rollover Sequences

Map	Rollover Site 1	Rollover Site 2	Rollover Site 3	Rollover Site 4
Map A	Santa Clara	San Francisco	Dallas	MP Services
Map B	San Francisco	Santa Clara	Dallas	MP Services
Map C	Dallas	Santa Clara	MP Services	N/A
Map D	Dallas	San Francisco	Santa Clara	N/A

When Web Conferencing locates an available site, it schedules the meeting. If configured, a warning message prompting the user to confirm rollover to another site appears. For information on configuring the warning message, see the To Configure a Site.

For deployments with Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Video Integration, video scheduling options will be displayed on the scheduling page for users with video scheduling privileges whether or not they are accessing the site that has the Video Integration installed. If the user tries to schedule a video meeting from a site that does not have the Video Integration installed, the rollover mechanism will redirect the video scheduling request to the site that has the Video Integration installed.

From the New Meeting page, users can choose to schedule on a site other than their default site by choosing one from the Site drop-down menu. If the meeting cannot be scheduled on the chosen site, rollover will ensue, beginning at the first site on their rollover map. Users can also choose to click Try on This Site Only, which effectively turns off the automatic rollover function. However, if users check this check box and scheduling fails, they will receive an error message.

Note: Recurring meetings will only roll if all meetings in a recurring chain fail to schedule on the initial site.

Figure: How Meetings Are Scheduled with WebConnect illustrates how meetings are scheduled with WebConnect.

Figure: How Meetings Are Scheduled with WebConnect

1. User submits a request to schedule a meeting.
2. Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing attempts to schedule the meeting on Site 1, as indicated on the user rollover map, or on a particular user-specified site.
3. If Site 1 is unavailable, Web Conferencing rolls the scheduling information to Site 2.
4. Web Conferencing locates an available server on Site 2 and schedules the meeting.
5. The scheduler receives a message indicating that the meeting has been scheduled on Site 2.

WebConnect and Segmented Meeting Access Environments

In a segmented meeting access environment, where there are some web servers inside the corporate network and separate web servers in a DMZ reserved for external meetings, meetings scheduled on internal servers remain on internal servers throughout the rollover process. Meetings that are intended to be available on the external server roll to external servers.

Factors you should be aware of when configuring WebConnect for SMA environments include:

• Every site requires one external web server in the DMZ zone.
• Users can only schedule externally accessible meetings on sites that have a web server residing in the DMZ.
• To provide external users access to meetings, the meeting scheduler must use a profile that can schedule meetings on external web servers. These external web servers must exist on all sites within the meeting scheduler rollover maps.