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We are in need of conferencing solution for our Windows network. Due to security restrictions, the traffic all needs to stay within our LAN. The conferences would all be small and a peer-to-peer architecture is preferred over needing to install and maintain yet another server application. So far, we've ruled out the following options:

  • Sype, Yugma, etc. - These would be ideal, but they send traffic outside our LAN through 3rd party servers
  • netmeeting - Poor video quality and soon to be deprecated
  • Windows Meeting Space - no audio/video

Is there anything else we should look at?

Sysadminicus
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3 Answers3

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Office Communications Server 2007 This will keep the traffic inside the firewall and give you pretty good A/V conferences. Rough pricing (depending on your discount) should be in the $500 for the server and $25 per user- retail pricing can be found on the website. I know your question posed the requirement of peer to peer rather than server based but as an admin I'd much rather maintain a single server instance rather than n-number of installations (especially if it ends up being installed company wide)

Jim B
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  • Wish I could upvote this multiple times. It can be a major headache to get set up that could have you cursing uncontrollably, but OCS 2007 is the best product out there for IM / Videoconference / Screen Sharing all in one on Windows networks. – Brandon Aug 05 '09 at 20:06
  • Does Standard edition support multi-person video conferencing, or is that only available in Enterprise? – dubRun Jan 28 '10 at 21:34
  • yes but you might want to add on a 3rd party video conferencing package depending on your needs or maybe a roundtable device – Jim B Jan 29 '10 at 02:40
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Yes, Windows communication server also provides Communicator - a msn-like window for chatting within your LAN. Also has things like whiteboard sharing, etc.

dubRun
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OCS sounds like a good alternative for what you're looking for, specially if you already have MS infrastructure. That said, I've been wanting to look at Ekiga (*Open-source) which would also keep calls inside your LAN, plus have the ability to drop in a gatekeeper in case you need need to make or receive off-net video/audio calls.

Download Link for Windows

alt text http://ekiga.org/images/ekiga_3.png

Ekiga's documentation: http://ekiga.org/documentation/ekiga.pdf

For screen sharing, take a look at this question: https://serverfault.com/questions/155/best-windows-remote-support-screen-sharing-tools

Community
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l0c0b0x
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  • I don't know if ekiga will keep *all* the traffic in the LAN; you might need a registration server at the bare minimum. I'm not sure. – Broam Nov 25 '09 at 19:14