Mutiny on the bridge

[Equipment Gal]

Greetings, our Polycom MGC 100 is in need of some serious upgrading that could cost $$$, also,the management of it is being redirected to another dept which may create more complexity in scheduling and managing events. I am thinking of going the route of purchasing our own smaller capacity MCU that might have more flexibility/features (such as web based scheduling & event registration) and that could cascade with the larger polycom MCU when needed. has anyone out there ever had experience with breaking off from a centralized MCU and creating their own? what advise do you have?

[BasicITOne]

Yes it is fairly easy and straight forward project. Chose a MCU that can be purchased with the fewest ports required then software upgraded to more port as need increases. Also chose one that has no reduction to port count or conference count based on speed or resolution. Cost will be an issue but if the business case is there then ROI is more important than initial cost.

Look at the Codian (TANDBERG) 4200 series and also look at the TMS software to manage it all.

[ucforme]

I agree with the above comments, it seems Polycom has not quite nailed down the RMX froma reliability perspective. So I would lean towards the Codian/Tandberg.

[dgiesen]

There are a lot of factors that go into the decision process of choosing to upgrade or purchase a new MCU. The applications of use, network environment, endpoint capabilities and integration with other communication tools all play a factor into this decision process. A MCU can be a fairly large investment. I would recommend speaking with an organization that has plenty of experience with deploying MCUs and integrating them within an organzation's existing IT environment.

If you are interested, we at Video Guidance can provide guidance regarding this project. Just search for us on the web!

Dan.

[Boris]

But if you look forward, check TANDBERG Codian 4501.
You can set up it in 6 HD call or 12 SD call mode.
Seems, now that is best solution for small market with HD.
Also you should need HD in nearest future.

[BasicITOne]

There are a lot of factors that go into the decision process of choosing to upgrade or purchase a new MCU. The applications of use, network environment, endpoint capabilities and integration with other communication tools all play a factor into this decision process. A MCU can be a fairly large investment. I would recommend speaking with an organization that has plenty of experience with deploying MCUs and integrating them within an organzation's existing IT environment.

If you are interested, we at Video Guidance can provide guidance regarding this project. Just search for us on the web!

Dan.

Sales pitch or offer of help it is hard to tell. ;)

[J Barnes]

We moved from an MGC100 to a Codian 4505 MCU with a Tandberg VCS gatekeeper, ISDN Gateway and Tandberg Management Suite. It wasn't cheap, but the purchase, 1st year maintenance and installation costs all combined were competitive with just the maintenance cost of our MGC alone. We could only get peanuts as a trade-in for our MGC100, so we kept it up and running just in case we need more capacity.

TMS has an online portal to allow end users to schedule their own conferences, we don’t use it here for a number of reasons, but I’ve been happy with all the other administrative features.