From Talent1st

[edit] Introduction

The TFN-100 system, referred hereafter as Blindside, is an Open Source Multi-Media Communications platform comprising two integrated systems:

1. The Blindside Voice Services system, and
2. The Blindside Web-casting and Web-Conferencing system.

Blindside targets two application areas:

1. Distance Learning: to deliver graduate-level courses in the department of System and Computer engineering.
2. Affiliate communications: to provide communications facilities (i.e., voice conferencing, Web-Casting and Web-Conferencing) to the affiliates of the Talent First Network.

The Blindside Voice Services System is deployed and in general use by the Department of System and Computer Engineering, and by TFN as a stand-alone application for voice conferencing.

The Blindside Web-casting and Web-Conferencing system is currently undergoing trials by the Department of System and Computer Engineering, and it is anticipated that it will be made generally available in early 2008.

Directions for accessing the Blindside Voice Services system:

• From outside of Carleton University dial:
  • 613-520-2600 ext 7610
  • 613-520-7610 or
• From outside of Ottawa and toll free anywhere in North America dial:
  • 1-866-520-2505
• From inside Carleton University dial:
  • 7610

Blindside is entirely comprised of Open Source Software. The central software project utilized by the Voice Services system is Asterisk. While the central software project utilized be the Blindside Web-casting and Web-Conferencing system is Blindside.

[edit] Voice Services System

The Blindside Voice Services System is located at Carleton University within hosting facilities managed by the department of Computer and Communications Services (CCS).

The software comprising the Blindside Voice Services System resides on a single compute server having the following hardware configuration:

• Dell Model 2950
• Dual Core Xeon Processor 5060 with 2x2MB Cache, 3.20Ghz, 1066MHz FSB
• 4 GB of 533 MHz memory
• 73GB, SAS, 10K RPM Hard Drive, no RAID (Operating System)
• 146GB, SAS, 10K RPM Hard Drive, no RAID (Voice Conferencing System)
• 24x IDE CD-RW/DVD ROM Drive
• Gigabit Ethernet NIC
• Redundant Power Supply
• Sangoma A101D voice card (terminates a single T1/PRI)

Such a configuration will typically cost ~$5000 CDN.

The Open Source software stack installed on this Dell 2950 compute server includes:

• Ubuntu linux
• Asterisk 1.2.18
• MySQL 5.0.22
• Web-MeetMe 2.2.2

Network connectivity to this Dell 2950 includes a PSTN T1/PRI and a 2MB guaranteed Internet connection to Carleton University's ISP (Telecom Ottawa).

The Dell 2950 is configured to support voice conferences comprising:

1. PSTN only calls (i.e., arrive via the PSTN T1/PRI)
2. VoIP only calls (i.e., arrive via the Internet as either SIP or AIX2)
3. combination of PSTN and VoIP calls

It should be noted that whereas the PSTN T1/PRI imposes the physical maximium of 23 PSTN calls participating in voice conferences at the same time, it is understood that a much larger (and unknown) number of VoIP calls can participate in voice conferences at the same time.

In addition to the production/in-service Dell 2950 there is also a second compute server that is used for development and testing. This computer is referred to as the sandbox server and it has the following hardware configuration:

• Dell Model 2850
• Processor: 3.0GHz/2MB Cache, Xeon, 800MHzFront Side Bus for PowerEdge 2850
• Memory: 2GB DDR2 400MHz (4X512MB) Single Ranked DIMMs
• Primary Hard Drive: 73GB,U320,SCSI,1IN 10K,PE2850
• CD-RW/DVD ROM Drive
• Gigabit Ethernet NIC
• Redundant Power Supply
• Digium TE210P (terminates a double T1/PRI)

The Open Source software stack installed on this Dell 2850 compute server includes:

• Fedora Core 5
• MySQL 4.1.20
• Asterisk 1.2.12.1
• Web-MeetMe 2.2.2

This Dell 2850 is located at Carleton University within hosting facilities managed by the department of Systems and Computer Engineering (SCE). Network connectivity to the Dell 2850 is Gigabit Ethernet (GE) to Carleton University's backbone. This GE connection, and the backbone generally, is a CCS managed service. This CCS managed service includes shared access to the 2MB guaranteed Internet connection to Carleton University's ISP (Telecom Ottawa).

[edit] Enhancing Blindside

There is a work underway to upgrade the Blindside server to support recording of presentations. This is motivated by the following:

1. University of Carleton wants to create an archive of presentations
2. Capture the individual components of a collaboration (voice, video, slides, events, etc.) so this information could be shared with other collaboration systems (such as Moodle).

For more information see Enhancing Blindside.