Radvision vs. MGC-100

[Unclefester]

We have new management here in Iraq and they are suggesting we move from using the MGC-100 to a Radvision MCU. We are looking at brining in a backup bridge since ours is about 4 years old. Any opinions on which is the better MCU, which is more stable. I would be grateful for any assistance.

[ceg6vtc]

Uncle Fester, huh? Greetings from Fallujah.
I would, personally, suggest that you tell them to pound sand with regards to the change from the MGC to the Radvision. The MGC is, from how I've seen you use it, a much better appliance for the outskirts of the network. We use the Radvision MCU-30 and MCU-03A here and i can tell you that, though they are good, they do not have the flexibility that your MGC has. The learning curve is not quite so steep with the Radvision, but...
Also, the Radvision is much more difficult to allow dialing into conferences. The ones we have, anyway, do not have a "waiting area" where the participant goes until you can put them into a room. You need to know which service, which conference ID number, and what password is being used (if any).
That's all just my opinion, though. Give me a call if you feel like talking tech, the JOC has my number.

And I can't believe you didn't offer me the job :(

Bold Eagle - out.

[teacherlia]

You should check out the Codian MCU. Its amazing. The management of it is simple, the port count doesnt change with the speed of the endpoints, and get thgis, each participant can choose their own layout, so you can mix voice activated and continuous presence in the same conference.

It allows you to mix H.263 and H.264 in the same conference, and everyone can dial in at different speeds, it just doesnt care. We are really pleased that we have it, I cant understand how the other guys are staying in business.

[JNicotina]

The MGC does everything mentioned above about the codian bridge.

[Harvell]

It's hard to say which one is better right off the bat. If you have a bunch of Polycom endpoints running Siren14 for their audio protocols and you have an up to date MGC then that would be the way to go. Also the MGC is easier to manage endpoints (putting them in a call, participant lists, etc...). The Radvision does cost less depending on the setup. If you have a Cisco Call Manager the Cisco branded Radvision is the way to go for video telephony conference bridging services.

[Unclefester]

Thank you for all the input. The bosses have seen the light and decided to stay with the MGC-100.

[Vtech]

The Codian is not JITC approved which means no workie in the Siprnet. Also isn't the codian only IP and maybe ISDN? Here is the DOD arena we still use V.35 and will for a while. The MGC in my opinion is a proven design but very old and out dated. The Tandberg MPS has a new release due out soon that will have a lot of the same features as the MGC with a much smaller footprint and better port density.

[JNicotina]

The Codian is not JITC approved which means no workie in the Siprnet. Also isn't the codian only IP and maybe ISDN? Here is the DOD arena we still use V.35 and will for a while. The MGC in my opinion is a proven design but very old and out dated. The Tandberg MPS has a new release due out soon that will have a lot of the same features as the MGC with a much smaller footprint and better port density.
Codian is an IP only bridge at this point but they also market a PRI gateway that can be bought in conjunction with the MCU that will give you ISDN capabilities. In regards to the MPS, you will loose plenty of operational capabilities...one in particular off the top of my head...true transcoding. The MPS does highest and lowest denominator.

[Slimey]

Im kind of in the same boat here our current MGC-100 is 5 or 6 years old with the original cards and mcu still installed so I am trying to decide what bridge we should goto when we replace it here soon that will do IP and ISDN all in one box. Still leaning towards the MGC-100 side from what I have seen so far that is unless someone has more input to give me. =)

[James Flockton]

Im kind of in the same boat here our current MGC-100 is 5 or 6 years old with the original cards and mcu still installed so I am trying to decide what bridge we should goto when we replace it here soon that will do IP and ISDN all in one box. Still leaning towards the MGC-100 side from what I have seen so far that is unless someone has more input to give me. =)

I personally would stick with the Polycom/Accord MGC. If you were to be purchasing a new unit I would suggest you could get more for you money, but since the investment has already been made stick with the MGC. You would not get many more features from a new purchase and I'm sure that creating a cost justifacation for changing from a fully functional MCG-100 to buying a new Codian MCU and Gateway would be very hard to do...

[trapehzoid]

..yeah.. life stinks now.. why improve it? :)

you should look at the features of the mgc you use currently and decide which you use because you HAVE to with the MGC.. and which you use because you WANT to.. and then shop around for whatelse is available.. and then see what has the best combo.

alot of what the mgc offers people never use.. the other half is things you gotta use because it can't work any other way. bridges like the codian don't need as many granular controls because the mcu can just work. the mgc must be told which way to wipe

[tom9933]

Brian brings up an interesting question. We are kind of in the same boat as well and other than legacy P+C support I’m having thoughts of switching as well. We originally went with the MGC over the Rad (before Tandberg or Codian existed) because I was buying into the Polycom Office idea. In theory it’s still a good idea unfortunately it seems like the MGC is the part of the equation that is always way behind.
I know in our case we are currently looking at adding some additional capacity to our MGC 50 (IP only) and just the cost of the upgrade alone makes the Codian appear very attractive. Also our support costs for the MGC are a considerable chuck of money. I know when I talked with a reseller recently he mentioned I should buy the new MGC package rather than adding an additional CP card and Web Commander to my existing bridge. I’ve been told that the deals on new bridges are many times cheaper than the upgrades. The only issue with that logic is since support is based on list cost will you be able to support the new bridge.
I think one of the big issues for us will be higher resolutions in CP calls. Right now it seems like there are a lot of caveats with H.239, Cascading and a few other things when you need to have CP. In our case we use lecture mode for about 99% of our calls, so any features that don’t work in CP are worthless in my environment. Having said that I would assume that the CP modules in my MGC will need to be replaced to handle HD so unless the money truck rolls up this afternoon I’m going to try to wait to see how this shakes out.
Has anyone heard a definite answer concerning HD support from any of the other bridge manufactures? I know there has been talk about HD but I haven’t seen anything official other than the HD demo (non CP) at PUG.

[James Flockton]

I hear rumours that Codian will be supporting HD with their bridges but as far as I know nothing concrete has been said yet. I think the only unit that can do HD bridge calls so far is a LifeSize endpoint, but with regards to Cascading and stuff like that I think at the moment that is impossible...

[Slimey]

yes for me its figuring out the pros and cons between the mgc and the codian and see what feature sets would benefit us the most. The web gui is a major plus :)

on another note i see 7.5 MGC 50/100 Software is out on extranet.polycom.com

[Vtech]

You are correct about transcoding, but with DVS finally getting an upgrade (whenever that actually happens) and technology advances highest and lowest common is not going to present many issues. The first version of the MPS is not very robust. Version J3 is on its way and it has a lot of new features such as conference on demand, better conference security and a built in gateway. The best part is Tandberg's support which is better than Polycom at this point and always seems to be getting better.

Codian is an IP only bridge at this point but they also market a PRI gateway that can be bought in conjunction with the MCU that will give you ISDN capabilities. In regards to the MPS, you will loose plenty of operational capabilities...one in particular off the top of my head...true transcoding. The MPS does highest and lowest denominator.

[trapehzoid]

I hear rumours that Codian will be supporting HD with their bridges but as far as I know nothing concrete has been said yet.

Rumors? they had a press release stating they would with lifesize.. almost a year ago.. too bad their delivery seems to be right on pace with the lifesize schedule :)

[tom9933]

Bryan,
Thanks for the heads up I’ll download it right now :)
BTW are you running it yet? I think Ill be able to load it today or tomorrow.

[Slimey]

not yet maybe by the end of the day i will load it

[Slimey]

bridge update went smoothly and all seems well =)

[tom9933]

Same here and I even found out why my Siren 14 wasn’t working. Turns out they changed the value in the bandwidth setting on the default config from WB (wide bandwidth) to MB (medium bandwidth). When in MB the MGC disables Siren 14 support, a simple fix just wish they would have turned it on in the default file. I also cranked up the max 264 bitrate and tested 264 in a cp call at 768. So far so good :)

[Slimey]

that would be good to know if i had any plus cards :|

[gbroo]

Good Day.
Any idea when that new software release is due for the MPS?...
Thanks,

[Vtech]

It still hasn't been released from the beta site in Norweigh I think it's awaiting the documentation.

Good Day.
Any idea when that new software release is due for the MPS?...
Thanks,

[tom9933]

Bryan,
That and legacy endpoints seem to be a standard problem. When I asked one of my reseller contacts about this audio problem a while back he said he hadn’t heard about it. Then he said the reason was probably that most of his customers were still locking their video to 261 and their audio to 711.
Seems a shame with all the advances in compression to hear that a large portion of the user base still uses the old stuff. I guess though at the end of the day as long as you are up and running the better quality is just gravy. When I fire up a test call using the older protocols the rest of the staff immediately notices a difference. Sometimes I wonder if this would be the case if more users got to see the good stuff.

[Slimey]

has anyone had any problems using the mgc behind a nat to call out or recieve calls? in 7.5 they stopped working all of a sudden it always connects as partital

oh i should point out that it worked this way fine in versions 7.0.3 and lower....

[Vtech]

I have been so curious latley why some functions works with an older version of software but stops with the newer version. Do they just not test things and assume it works? It seems everytime we upgrade to a new version we have a problem. We here do not use NAT but are interested in any issues you have with 7.5 since we may upgrade to that soon.

has anyone had any problems using the mgc behind a nat to call out or recieve calls? in 7.5 they stopped working all of a sudden it always connects as partital

oh i should point out that it worked this way fine in versions 7.0.3 and lower....

[Slimey]

I downgraded back down to 7.0.3 and it works without a hitch now. It is a verifed problem as I have spoken to a engineer at (sbc) at&t that covers our maintance and this is the email he sent me.

I just spoke to the tier 3 engineer, Salim, who case has been escalated to. He has reviewed the logger file and the other items provided. Is the H323 card you have the original? The Polycom Engineer is guessing that there is an interoperability issue with that old card.

I have not heard anything since yesterday when I recieved this so only time will tell me more about what the problem is.

At least I am back up and running http://www.vtctalk.com/images/smilies/banana.gif