Fulfilling Microsoft Lync's Destiny as a Visual Collaboration Solution

Transcription

1 WHITEPAPER Fulfilling Microsoft Lync's Destiny as a Visual Collaboration Solution Providing the missing links for Lync video conferencing & collaboration May 2013 Sponsored by: Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 1

2 Introduction Many enterprises today are considering a unified communications (UC) platform as the foundation for a wide-scale rollout of personal video conferencing capabilities. Personal video conferencing promises to give PC-, Macintosh-, smartphone-, and tablet-enabled information workers the ability to connect with colleagues, customers, and partners in a more direct, intimate, and efficient manner, while the UC connection promises anywhere, anytime click-to-call convenience with an IT-friendly architecture. One of the leading platforms, if not THE leading platform, for enterprise deployments of UC is Microsoft Lync. Microsoft s current product is Lync 2013, the result of at least four major Microsoft UC software upgrades that stretch back over a decade beginning with Live Communications Server and Office Communications Server. Microsoft's strategy with Lync appears to have been based on a long term evolution that began with minimal native voice and video capabilities and a reliance on third party "partners" to bridge the gaps. Over time however, Microsoft has gradually filled in the missing pieces, particularly with respect to audio, telephony, and video, thereby forcing independent partners either to a higher functionality ground or moving them off the OCS-Lync reservation altogether. In this vein, Lync 2013 introduced a number of video conferencing capabilities that have historically been relegated to dedicated systems and services, while delivering several video conferencing features that have never before been available, including support for scalable video coding (SVC) and continuous presence multipoint displays via a gallery view. Nevertheless, enterprises today still face several significant challenges when the goal is to use Lync as the mainstay of their visual communications deployment. Microsoft Lync Overview Microsoft Lync is a unified communications platform that provides a consistent, single, unified-client experience for presence, instant messaging, persistent chat, voice, video, and data sharing. Lync is available as both a product that can be installed on the enterprise network, and as a service dubbed Office 365. The Lync Web App allows PC and Mac users to join a Lync Meeting from within an HTML5- based browser, and delivers a full Lync meeting experience, including multiparty HD video, voice over IP, instant messaging, desktop application, and PowerPoint sharing. Lync clients are also available for a variety of mobile hardware devices, including phones and tablets. Federation capabilities extend Lync communications to partners, suppliers, and customers who are also using Lync. In short, Lync simplifies the video conferencing user's experience by incorporating video into the unified client so that scheduling a meeting with video or escalating to video spontaneously is seamless and easy. Microsoft Lync Market Reality While Unified Communications (UC) solutions in general and Microsoft Lync in particular hold great promise for simplifying and unifying the enterprise communications experience, research results suggest that the deployments today are very limited in both depth and breadth. A 2012 Wainhouse Research worldwide survey of enterprise UC users asked about UC features that were deployed to more than 50% Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 2

3 of the user's organization. The results show that UC is still used primarily for presence and instant messaging (IM). In fact, IM was the only feature that more than 40% of the survey respondents put in this category (deployed to more than 50%). UC Features by >50% of the Organization Instant messaging P2P App sharing P2P audio Audio conferencing P2P video Web conferencing Video conferencing PBX B2B Federation Mobile integration Integration with room video Contact center integration Custom integration 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Figure 1 Source; Wainhouse Research 2012 survey of enterprise UC users For deployments to 50% of the workforce, only ~25% of respondents claimed that their UC solution was being used for video conferencing, and only 15% answered that their room video systems were integrated with their UC platform. Clearly, the actual benefits realized by UC investments are far lower than the potential benefits. In other Wainhouse Research studies conducted in both 2012 and 2013, video conferencing channel partners were asked about their customers' interest in integrating video conferencing with other enterprise systems. For integrating video with a UC platform; the "high interest" level rose from 17% to 28% while the "no interest" category fell from 19% to just 3%. Integrating with UC in all cases had a higher level of interest than integrating with telephony. These results are consistent with other anecdotal data suggesting that many large and small enterprises are looking to bring the video conferencing user experience into the UC fold. These results are also consistent with Microsoft's recent introduction of the Lync Room System reference architecture, a move designed to bring Lync into the enterprise conference room directly with support from established AV channel partners. Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 3

4 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Interest in Integrating Video Conferencing 8% 3% 11% 19% 24% 26% No Interest Medium Hi Interest 28% 14% 11% 17% 5% 10% Figure 2 Source; Wainhouse Research 2012 survey of video conferencing channel partners Cloud-based services are very much on customers' minds today. The buzz around "cloud" has caused many IT and UC managers to think about the future of hardware- and software-based solutions and the tradeoffs between hosted and CPE solutions. Much of the industry seems to be in transition mode - in fact 25-35% of all respondents in our end user UC survey indicate they are considering hosted services for those UC components that are currently deployed as a CEPE solution. Our data shows that all of the UC communication functions are deployed in a variety of insourced and outsourced support strategies. Web Conferencing Audio Conferencing Contact Center Shared Workspace Video Conferencing IM/presence Telephony Service 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% CPE Managed Hosted Hybrid Figure 3 Source; Wainhouse Research 2012 survey of enterprise UC users Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 4

5 Lync 2013 Video Capabilities Lync has long supported some form of visual communications. Perhaps the two most notable enhancements in Lync Server 2013 are 1) support for H.264 scalable video coding (SVC), an international standard the details of which are beyond the scope of this document, but a development that could make future interoperability with Lync much easier; and 2) a form of continuous presence for multipoint video calls (more than two participants) in which images from more than just the active speaker are displayed on a participant's screen. Microsoft's "Gallery View" displays a strip of up to five remote video windows (the five most recent speakers) rather than the traditional "Hollywood Squares" approach. Pictures, if available, are displayed for all other participants in the second row. People are moved automatically between the first row of video and the second row of still photos when they speak. Other Lync 2013 video capabilities include: A participant can check out his or her self-view before entering the conference. The video of the current speaker is highlighted with a blue bar below his or her tile in the top row. The video portion of the display can be shrunk to give more room to the presentation. Or the video portion can be eliminated entirely. The Polycom CX5000 is still supported and provides a panoramic view of a conference room, filling a second row on the display. The presenter's video can be locked on while all other videos are turned off. The meeting host can prevent any attendee from starting video. Participants can pin one or more video feeds to their gallery Figure 4 Video conference with Lync 2013 Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 5

6 Lync for Enterprise Video Conferencing: Five Challenges Despite the impressive evolution of Lync's communications capabilities, the UC platform is still stuck in a pilot phase with many customers, largely due to the challenges that come with enabling an enterprise s LAN / WAN to support the demands of a mass deployment of desktop video. Enterprises today still face five significant challenges when deploying Lync as the mainstream solution for their video conferencing needs. Overcoming these challenges will help Lync become the ubiquitous solution empowering information workers, speeding decision making, and enabling the next generation of B2B and B2C communications. 1. Interoperability with Room Video Conferencing Systems Well over 1.5M conference room video conferencing systems remain in use today. These devices almost exclusively support the ITU's H.323 protocol and/or the IETF's SIP protocol for signaling as well as H.263 and H.264 for video compression/decompression. While interoperability between the growing number of desktop Lync video users and the installed base of conference room systems has long been a market demand, such interoperability remains a challenge. To solve this problem, several vendors have introduced Lync gateways. Gateways provide the signaling and protocol conversions needed to bridge Lync with third party devices, but introduce cost, complexity, and scalability challenges. Other vendors have enhanced their SIP support so that a room system can register to a Lync server, and/or added support for Lync's proprietary codecs to support higher quality images, but these capabilities apply to only their latest products. The end result is that Lync-to-room-system interoperability is complicated, unreliable, and of very limited practical use today. Microsoft itself took a new approach to the interoperability challenge in February, 2013 when the company introduced the aforementioned Lync Room System (LRS). LRS is actually a detailed reference architecture rather than a physical product from Microsoft. The LRS is a locked-down PC with a dedicated Windows operating system and Lync installation. Microsoft s intent is to bring the familiar Lync user interface and experience into the conference room on a system with high quality audio-video peripherals. Systems based on the LRS architecture have been introduced by multiple vendors. The bottom line on LRS is that there is no interoperability problem with Lync desktops and mobile users because the room system itself is a Lync system. 2. Interoperability with Non-Lync Desktops (and mobile devices) Lync is Microsoft's UC platform for business, while Skype has been positioned as the UC platform for consumers. While Microsoft has promised Lync/Skype federation for mid-2013, the initial capabilities are limited to presence, IM, and voice across the two services. Video support is some time in the future. Similarly, Cisco Jabber and numerous browser based video conferencing options have gained significant traction, especially in the SMB and consumer space. Being able to connect those users to the Lync world remains a significant challenge. 1 However, the ability to do so holds enormous potential to link Lync and non-lync users and to enable B2C communications. Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 6

7 3. Limited Multipoint Capabilities Lync 2013 supports 1080p (1920x1080) and 720p (1280 x 720) high definition as well as VGA (640x480) resolution video for peer-to-peer and multipoint calls between Lync users. The resolution viewed by each participant may differ however, depending on the video capabilities of each user s respective hardware. Resolution aside, Lync 2013 supports one basic continuous presence format the Gallery View, showing up to 5 side-by-side taking heads. While this is certainly an improvement from Lync 2010 s low resolution voice activated switching, it falls far short of the industry standard continuous presence experience provided by most video bridge manufacturers. Multipoint capabilities have been available in the video conferencing industry for well over 20 years. As a result, experienced users are accustomed to well-developed, feature rich multipoint capabilities, including the ability to switch between voice-activated and continuous presence modes, to speed match and transcode between different codecs on different devices, and to see more than five participants in a video meeting. Microsoft's own multipoint capabilities are limited to Lync endpoints or Lync compatible room systems; customers who need to bring a non-compatible room system into a multipoint meeting with Lync or need to see more than five live video streams will need to deploy a video bridge or bridging service from a third party. The selection of third party bridges that support Lync is limited, however, and the devices remain costly. 4. Limited Data Collaboration Compatibility Data collaboration is an important capability that turns a video conference into a visual collaboration session. Screen sharing is very easy (one click interface) with Microsoft Lync and is one of Lync's strong points, provided all the endpoints are Lync endpoints. Screen sharing to or from a Lync endpoint from any industry-standard videoconferencing system is not possible because Microsoft uses a proprietary RDP data sharing protocol while the video conferencing industry uses either the ITU's H.239 or the IETF's BFCP or both. 5. Federation Complexity Lync federation enables users at company A to be able to view presence, send IMs, and place computerto-computer voice and video calls to Lync users at other institutions. Lync supports two key federation security levels as follows: - Open Federation: Anyone running Lync can discover and federate with other Lync environments configured for Open Federation - this poses large security concerns for many customers. 1 Lync 2013 does include a plug-in-based Web Attendee app that allows non-lync users to join a scheduled Lync conference via audio/video/content sharing from standard browsers on Mac and Windows. The Lync mobile client is also a/v enabled. Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 7

8 - Direct Federation: (also known as Allowed Partner Server federation) Users establish a series of one-to-one relationships of allowed and blocked SIP domain names and federation servers and do not allow for discovery of other federation partners. Each enterprise must share specific information in order to establish a federated connection. While this solves security concerns, it can easily lead to the NSquared problem (N 2 ) whereby enterprises find themselves establishing multiple, individual connections to a large number of partners. Consider the situation where a company is working on a product development project that involves external suppliers and agencies as well as internal resources in sales, marketing, and engineering. All of these resources need to communicate with client team members, and in addition, some of the partners need to collaborate with other partners. Lync allows for this type of multi-enterprise communication, but requires individual federated relationships, each of which needs to be configured properly and managed. For both sides of each federation connection shown in the diagram, a SIP domain name needs to be entered into the "trusted" layer. This process can quickly become overly burdensome. Contract SW Developer Material Supplier #1 Material Supplier #2 Ad Agency PR Agency Contract Manufacturer Law Firm Marketing Sales Client Internal Engineering Figure 5 Multiple Lync federations required for typical product development process While the actual process of federating trusting a partner s SIP domain takes an IT administrator minutes, the workflow that many organizations implement around federation is often cumbersome, and foreign to most users. The reality is, the business unit holds the relationship with each partner not the IT team. Therefore, the business unit needs to determine which IT resources to put together to trade information, and some organizations attempt to add barriers of approval to ensure they don t federate with a competitor or other mistrusted entity in all, this results in fewer federated relationships. Solution Spotlight - Blue Jeans Network Blue Jeans Network (BJN), the sponsor of this white paper, has taken a different view to the video services business. BJN offers not just a hosted video bridging solution based on internally developed software running on industry-standard servers, but also a bridging solution intended to make video calling frictionless: Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 8

9 Easy-to-use Interoperable with multiple protocols Feature-rich, including support for data collaboration Affordable for companies of all sizes BJN developers began with a roadmap of how an enterprise would establish a video conferencing environment that begins with federation, continues on to support users' meeting scheduling needs, provides an easy way for professionals and consumers to join meetings no matter what endpoint or protocol is selected (room, personal, or mobile), and finally delivers a superior AV experience. In the process, BJN addresses the five major challenges facing Lync video conferencing customers. 1. Interoperability with Legacy Room Video Conferencing Systems The BJN bridging service connects Microsoft Lync clients with industry standard SIP and H.323-based video systems from a variety of suppliers including Avaya, Cisco, LifeSize, and Polycom. The connection is seamless. There are no settings to change, configurations to check, or registrations to complete. With Blue Jeans, it is a simple matter to bring together Lync-based participants with teams meeting in large and small conference rooms. Figure 6 Blue Jeans Network screen shot: Lync desktop with room system conference Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 9

10 2. Interoperability with Browsers and Other Popular Desktop/Mobile Clients The ability to include web browsers and other popular desktop/mobile client users, as well as standards-based room systems, into meetings with Lync users is a game changer. Support for browsers and other non-lync solutions enables B2B and B2C video communications for Lync-based workers in both large and SMB enterprises. Interoperability with room systems, Cisco Jabber, a multitude of 3 rd party desktop clients and Lync is also supported by Blue Jeans' own browser-based client. This provides Lync users the ability to invite anyone internal or external to the organization, regardless of what client they have installed, including "no-client at all" (in the case of a browser with plug-in) into a video meeting. Whether joining a Blue Jeans hosted meeting from a standards-based room system, a Lync client, a browser, or via Cisco, Polycom, etc., Blue Jeans has simplified the "join meeting" process by providing invites that include detailed instructions, typically "click here to join," specific to each type of connection. Blue Jeans meetings between Lync and mobile users are often ad-hoc, unscheduled events, but the service also embraces scheduled meetings as well. Blue Jeans provides an Outlook add-in and a Google Chrome Extension that automatically add all the BJN contact details into the meeting invitation ( ). At the appointed time, the user need only open his calendar event and "click to join." 3. Scalable Multipoint Capabilities Blue Jeans supports up to 100 video participants per meeting and supports 3 layout options, including the traditional continuous presence mode, with up to 9 of the most recent speakers on screen simultaneously. Meetings can include any mix of any of the systems supported by BJN, thereby bringing Lync, Jabber, web browsers and room systems together in one rich video session. The multipoint capabilities, combined with the easyto-connect paradigm of Blue Jeans, make the service a natural for business collaboration sessions. Figure 7 Blue Jeans Network screen shot: multipoint video conference Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 10

11 4. Rich, Two-way Data Collaboration Capabilities The Blue Jeans service enables full two-way data sharing between Lync clients, browsers, other desktop/mobile clients, and industry standard video conferencing systems. The Blue Jeans bridge supports all the native data sharing and audio/video codecs used by Lync, SIP, and H.323 systems and is able to support up to 1080p content sharing to/from any device, including the web-based browser and ios / Android apps. Meetings are more productive with BJN because each participant can control content sharing using the user interface with which he is most familiar. Figure 8 Blue Jeans Network screen shot: data collaboration Figure 9 Blue Jeans Network screen shot: data collaboration Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 11

12 5. One-Time Federation With Blue Jeans, customers and any partners to whom they wish to connect over video, need federate only once - to the Blue Jeans service. BJN then handles the directory and SIP domain changes needed to enable B2B media communications between enterprises. Federation to Blue Jeans maintains the privacy of the enterprise since it does not expose Lync contact lists, presence or IM capabilities between enterprises. Blue Jeans resides in the middle as an exchange providing audio, video and content sharing capabilities between the parties, while offering connectivity to any other enterprise federated to the Blue Jeans meet-me service. Contract SW Developer Material Supplier #1 Material Supplier #2 Ad Agency PR Agency Contract Manufacturer Blue Jeans Network Law Firm Marketing Sales Client Internal Engineering Other Blue Jeans Benefits Figure 10 Simplified federation with Blue Jeans Network As a hosted or "cloud" service offering, Blue Jeans offers significant benefits to video conferencing users. First of all, there is no capital investment required, no upfront costs. And as a service provider, BJN is committed to providing sufficient capacity where port availability is never an issue. A variety of subscription plans from unlimited-use site licenses, to virtual ports, minutes plans and named user licenses, are available to meet user needs ranging from occasional to frequent. For some users, the cost of a multi-user subscription plan will be less than the monthly maintenance cost of a video bridge. BJN users never have to worry about software upgrades or hardware maintenance plans since the company is committed to continuous innovation, feature enhancements, and support for the latest endpoints, algorithms, and protocols on its own software-based video infrastructure. Finally, Microsoft Lync is available as both an on-premises solution (CPE) as well as through a hosted service from Microsoft (Office 365) and other conferencing service providers. Integrating between these two is simple with Blue Jeans Network because Blue Jeans treats any Lync client, whether joining a meeting from a CPE deployment or from a hosted service as a discrete entity with full functionality and interoperability. The major benefit for customers is that they will not need an on-premises Lync server in order to provide full video capabilities to Office 365 users. In this sense, Blue Jeans provides Lync-to- Lync connectivity that even Microsoft does not yet support. Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 12

13 Summary As a video conferencing solution, Microsoft Lync 2013 brings many improvements over previous versions, but Lync presents no threat to today's room video conferencing systems. Leveraging its IM and presence heritage, Lync is about making desktop-based meetings and presentations more productive and interactive. As a desktop video conferencing and collaboration solution, however, Lync 2013 does remove some of the impetus customers may have felt in the past to augment Microsoft's UC solution with third party video enhancements. Clearly, the need for a third party multipoint bridge is reduced based on the recent addition of continuous presence and H.264 support, if nothing else. And with HD support, now, more than ever, Lync customers may conclude that Lync video, while perhaps not quite as good as the solutions available from the video conferencing specialists, is actually "good enough." But a closer examination reveals that Lync still faces significant challenges in terms of interoperability, complexity, and multipoint functionality. Lync users will be well advised to look at a hosted video bridging and interoperability service like that offered by Blue Jeans Network to fill in many of the functionality gaps. About Wainhouse Research Wainhouse Research, is an independent market research firm that focuses on critical issues in unified communications, visual collaboration, and rich media conferencing technologies and applications. The company conducts multi-client and custom research studies, consults with end users on key implementation issues, publishes white papers and market statistics, and delivers public and private seminars as well as presentations at industry conferences. Wainhouse Research also publishes a free newsletter, The Wainhouse Research Bulletin that covers all aspects of rich media enterprise communications. About the Author Andrew W. Davis is a researcher, analyst, and opinion leader in the field of collaboration and conferencing. He is a co-founder of Wainhouse Research and currently focuses on covering the video side of the collaboration market as well as strategy consulting and new business development activities. A well-known industry guest speaker, Mr. Davis holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering from Cornell University and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard University. More about Andrew. About Blue Jeans Network Blue Jeans Network was founded in November 2009 with a passion to make video communications easy. Starting from the ground up, Blue Jeans was built as a cloud-based video collaboration service that enables people to connect with each other any time, any place and from any device. Blue Jeans Network extends high quality video communications beyond the traditional boundaries of specialized conference rooms and into the mainstream, allowing individuals and employees throughout an enterprise to interact more effectively with each other, and with their customers, partners, suppliers, family, and friends. Blue Jeans Network is a private company headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information visit bluejeans.com or follow the Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 13