Shifting BigBlueButton 0.8 to only using FreeSWITCH ... feedback needed
Fred Dixon
FreeSWITCH for over a year now. We just haven’t used asterisk
internally for development of BigBlueButton for a while … all of our
development and testing has been with FreeSWITCH.
For the upcoming BigBlueButton 0.8, which will have record and
playback, we’re using features of FreeSWITCH 1.0.7 which has commands
for starting/stopping recording of audio. These associated commands
are not in the current app_konference module for Asterisk. They could
be added, but that’s an investment of time and effort of at least
three weeks, and probably more as it significantly increases the
testing and packaging effort. The end result is it will push out the
release of BigBlueButton 0.8, and we’re starting to ask ourselves if
the payoff is worth it.
We’d like to get your feedback on *not* supporting Asterisk in
BigBlueButton 0.8. FreeSWITCH will become the default install for the
voice conference server for BigBlueButton 0.8.
Here’s our thinking:
We’ve had very good experiences with FreeSWITCH. There are 1.0.6
packages for Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit and 64-bit, which meant we didn’t
have to package anything. FreeSWITCH uses all the CPU cores when
needed, has native support for speex (which was key for improving the
audio quality in BigBlueButton) and, perhaps most importantly,
FreeSWITCH does not require compiling a kernel module.
Asterisk’s requirement for a kernel module has caused a great deal of
frustration for members of our community who, following our setup
instructions, choose Asterisk and tried to install BigBlueButton on a
virtual private server. The catch was that many VPS hosting companies
run a custom kernel. We’d receive posts that BigBlueButton didn’t
install (a dependency broke), and, after a while figure, out their
hosting provider didn’t provide the associated kernel headers for
their custom kernel. No headers, no Asterisk with BigBlueButton.
Asterisk can easily forward incoming calls to FreeSWITCH, so
BigBlueButton doesn’t require changing an existing Asterisk to
FreeSWITCH, it’s just a bit more effort to integrate.
A while back we made the decision to stop trying to test and release
two different packaging systems (CentOS and Ubuntu). It was a quality
vs. quantity choice, and our preference is to choose quality.
We’re facing the same decision as we previously tested and released on
two different voice conferencing systems: Asterisk and FreeSWITCH.
For universities and colleges who are using BigBlueButton, we don’t
expect this to be an issue. They just want BigBlueButton to be solid,
simple to use, and have the core features they need to deliver remote
students a high-quality learning experience.
For companies using BigBlueButton, they have more options, such as
committing some of their development resources to helping us support
asterisk in BigBlueButton.
The bottom line: we're thinking hard about making FreeSWITCH the
default voice conference system for BigBlueButton 0.8. We could
re-introduce support for asterisk in a subsequent release, but, like
CentOS, we would calibrate our investment in asterisk based on demand
from our community.
Feedback welcome.
Regards,... Fred
Mack Maximilian
It helps us all to focus on the important stuff. :-)
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Chris
Martin Unger
after reading this Article http://www.freeswitch.org/node/117 afaik by
Anthony Minessale
Cheers
Martin
Am 07.06.2011 14:02, schrieb Fred Dixon:
> In BigBlueButton we�ve been moving our focus from Asterisk to
> FreeSWITCH for over a year now. We just haven�t used asterisk
> internally for development of BigBlueButton for a while � all of our
> development and testing has been with FreeSWITCH.
>
> For the upcoming BigBlueButton 0.8, which will have record and
> playback, we�re using features of FreeSWITCH 1.0.7 which has commands
> for starting/stopping recording of audio. These associated commands
> are not in the current app_konference module for Asterisk. They could
> be added, but that�s an investment of time and effort of at least
> three weeks, and probably more as it significantly increases the
> testing and packaging effort. The end result is it will push out the
> release of BigBlueButton 0.8, and we�re starting to ask ourselves if
> the payoff is worth it.
>
> We�d like to get your feedback on *not* supporting Asterisk in
> BigBlueButton 0.8. FreeSWITCH will become the default install for the
> voice conference server for BigBlueButton 0.8.
>
> Here�s our thinking:
>
> We�ve had very good experiences with FreeSWITCH. There are 1.0.6
> packages for Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit and 64-bit, which meant we didn�t
> have to package anything. FreeSWITCH uses all the CPU cores when
> needed, has native support for speex (which was key for improving the
> audio quality in BigBlueButton) and, perhaps most importantly,
> FreeSWITCH does not require compiling a kernel module.
>
> Asterisk�s requirement for a kernel module has caused a great deal of
> frustration for members of our community who, following our setup
> instructions, choose Asterisk and tried to install BigBlueButton on a
> virtual private server. The catch was that many VPS hosting companies
> run a custom kernel. We�d receive posts that BigBlueButton didn�t
> install (a dependency broke), and, after a while figure, out their
> hosting provider didn�t provide the associated kernel headers for
> their custom kernel. No headers, no Asterisk with BigBlueButton.
>
> Asterisk can easily forward incoming calls to FreeSWITCH, so
> BigBlueButton doesn�t require changing an existing Asterisk to
> FreeSWITCH, it�s just a bit more effort to integrate.
>
> A while back we made the decision to stop trying to test and release
> two different packaging systems (CentOS and Ubuntu). It was a quality
> vs. quantity choice, and our preference is to choose quality.
>
> We�re facing the same decision as we previously tested and released on
> two different voice conferencing systems: Asterisk and FreeSWITCH.
>
> For universities and colleges who are using BigBlueButton, we don�t
HostBBB.com
our shared servers and dedicated client servers over to freeswitch and
never looked back,
Regards,
Stephen
hostbbb.com
> after reading this Articlehttp://www.freeswitch.org/node/117afaik by
> 1KViewDownload
Andrew E
Andrew
hooface
Jan Boon
ke qing
Fred Dixon
Are you using Asterisk to handle incoming calls? Is it an option for
you to forward calls to FreeSWITCH for BigBlueButton?
Regards,... Fred
MarcosBL
On 8 jun, 12:57, Fred Dixon <ffdi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jan,
>
> Are you using Asterisk to handle incoming calls? Is it an option for
> you to forward calls to FreeSWITCH for BigBlueButton?
>
> Regards,... Fred
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 1:52 AM, Jan Boon <janboon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > If Asterisk is dropped I am out.
>
Jan Boon
Yes I use Asterisk for incoming ISDN-calls. I invested both in knowlegde and hardware (ISDN-cards, Grandstream videophones). Of course it is an option to forward calls to FreeSWITCH. I just do not like the idea to have for every function two components. I already went through the trouble integrating Apache with BBB instead of nginx and read about outphasing ActiveMQ for messaging. The price of the Big Blue Button becomes a little bit too high for me. I rather opt for a simpler, less integrated (and managed) approach for distant learning. Pushlets for presentation and Asterisk for voice conference and if needed a single video-stream (rtsp from ip video camera or Flumotion from webcam).
Regards Jan.
Fred Dixon
> I rather opt for a simpler, less integrated (and managed) approach for distant learning.
This might be the case where we can't satisfy everyone.
We're looking at (est.) three weeks of additional work to support
Asterisk, and that's not having prototyped any of the new commands we
need for recording using app_konference. Maybe moving to Asterisk 1.8
will make it easier for us, maybe not. It's just a big unknown.
Based on feedback we've received, we're going to focus on FreeSWITCH for 0.8.
Regards,... Fred
Jan Boon
Based on the feedback so far I fully understand your decision and still like the whole idea of the Big Blue Button. But for me under that button voice conference without latency is vital. Whiteboard, video, chat and recording are nice to haves (in that order). Therefore I hoped that this was solved before anything else, let alone outphasing ActiveMQ for other options. Although I think some decisions are not the ones I would have made (just responding to your request for feedback) I admire the work done by the team.
Iran Renato Neves
Γιώργος Κατωπόδης
Robin Mudge
Robin
Fred Dixon
We've made improvements to the audio, but we needed FreeSWITCH to do it. See
http://groups.google.com/group/bigbluebutton-dev/browse_thread/thread/a36d61df9b9fc45b#
Regards,... Fred
Γιώργος Κατωπόδης
Fred Dixon
We're working on getting a beta as soon as possible. Still more work
ahead, but we're getting closer.
Regards,... Fred
On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 11:09 AM, Pepe Flores <pep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi..
> where can i download BBB v0.80 ?
> thanks pepe
>
>
> 2011/6/8 Γιώργος Κατωπόδης <yiorgosk...@gmail.com>
>>> >>> >> internally for development of BigBlueButton for a while ... all of
> Sincerely,
> Pepe Flores
Xie Yan Qing
Jason Rousell
We've tried both asterisk and freeswitch in various setups and freeswitch has consistently impressed us with it's audio quality and ease of setup, so its definitely freeswitch 1 - asterisk 0 from us.
Joe
never could use FreeSwitch.
Due to the nature of our needs, we use mostly Amazon EC2 - we fire-up
a VM when needed, and we do have 2 FreeSWITCH and 2 Asterisk installs
- tried several configurations and there is no hope for FreeSWITCH. We
are based in UK so chances are that latency plus traffic, plus...,
plus ... adds to an unbearable background noisy experience. Asterisk
has latency but the sound is clean, it can manage the multiplex.
My vote is for a good working WebConference platform, but not sure
that FreeSwitch can handle all situations. So, consider 'long
distance' and low quality broadband on your evaluation, 10 people
around world, Zambia, Hungary, Bolivia, etc... Elluminate is a good
example on how to handle low speed / low quality lines keeping the
conversation/conference in sync
I don't know enough technically to compare Asterisk and FreeSWITCH but
Asterisk is a good old fellow established around the world with a vast
knowledge base, so there are chances you'll be excluding some part(s)
of the world...
But again the goal is for a good quality web conference not the
technology , but I suggest more exhaustive testing before you go ahead
with that decision.
Humble suggestion
Best,
Joe Rosa
I can there are hidden issues with FreeSwitch
Tom Chandler
and most of them have seen and/or would like to add BBB to their
operations. I know most of them will not want to change platforms,
I would suggest looking at Asterisk 1.8, and the new conference bridge
instead of meetme.
I have played around with it here, using .071, conference bridge, and
it works well. The speex support in 1.8 works well with my Polycom
phones.
Understand the concern and effort, but will live with the majority
rule here.
Thank You
Tom C
Welforum
Great work guys
Jeremy Peckham
Jan Boon
I change my vote to Linphone.
Since the camera and headset icons are separate in BBB it does not harm to kick off Linphone by clicking the headset icon. I get excellent quality with app_konference in Asterisk. Advantages: Linphone can be used ouside of BBB (with H264) and one dependency on Adobe less (it still hurts when they changed the protocol for Linux from 9 to 10).
Two things to take of:
1. Synchronising the identities of Linphone with BBB.
2. Caller-id does not show up correctly in BBB for Linphone (it does for Siemens and Grandstream SIP-phones).
Regards Jan.
stefano bossi
Jan Boon
BBB 0.71a works fine for me now with Asterisk and app_konference. I made some changes to the BBB-code. Now not only Linphone users show up correctly in the participants list, but also when people dial-in e.g. with a mobile phone into an ISDN-line the mobile number shows up. All with excellent quality, there is no need to fall back to speex. So point 2 is take care of.
Denis Zgonjanin
mhe
HostBBB.com
fine... have not looked to see if the flash demo with keypad is
available as source.
regards,
Stephen
On Jun 16, 7:26 am, mhe <herrmann.manf...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> +1 Freeswitch
Jan Boon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h6-PSpD-Oc
with Asterisk 1.8.4.2
Keep you posted on my progress.
Maybe I can gain some votes :-).
Regards Jan
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cyp
> +1 for FreeSwitch
>
Yes good. Work & solid ;-)
--
++
Cyp
Zeeshan Ali Shah
We tried app_konference in Asterisk it works very good second as written app_konference it can support 1500 users on one box.. i dont know how far it is true..
Will you drop app_konference with FreeSwitch in future ? or am i mixing things since app_konference seem to be conference bridge to asterisk ..
FreeSwitch has latency issue as we have test it so far.
Zeeshan
Le 08/06/2011 02:03, hooface a écrit :
+1 for FreeSwitchYes good. Work & solid ;-)
--
++
Cyp
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Zeeshan Ali Shah
I am not a commercial company only a curious tech person .
I will try to use freeswitch with speex to test how does the latency solve and definately recording is the major factor for me to stick with freeswitch atleast.
BR
Zeshan
Hi Zeeshan,
We'll still leave all the code in for app_konference. For 0.8, we're
going to focus on FreeSWITCH for the integration and testing of
improvements to reduce latency in audio (using speex) and support for
record and playback (start/stop recordings). Our goal is to get a
beta of 0.8 out sooner, not later.
To be clear, if you don't want to use speex or record and playback,
all the code will be there for supporting app_konference will be there
in BigBlueButton 0.8.
We hope that other developers can star to pitch in and make the
necessary updates to app_konference/BigBlueButton to support the new
features in 0.8. For guidelines on how to contribute to
BigBlueButton, see
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Contributing_to_BigBlueButton
For the moment we (the core developers) are going to focus on
FreeSWITCH for 0.8 for the near future. If you are with a commercial
company and want to see full support for Asterisk, but are not in a
position to contribute developer resources, you have other options as
well. See
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#When_will_feature_X_be_implemented?
Regards,... Fred
On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 3:46 PM, Zeeshan Ali Shah
<zee...@infoshield.info> wrote:
> Hi,
> We tried app_konference in Asterisk it works very good second as written
> app_konference it can support 1500 users on one box.. i dont know how far it
> is true..
>
> Will you drop app_konference with FreeSwitch in future ? or am i mixing
> things since app_konference seem to be conference bridge to asterisk ..
>
> FreeSwitch has latency issue as we have test it so far.
>
> Zeeshan
>
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 6:21 PM, cyp <c...@lipousse.no-ip.org> wrote:
>>
>> Le 08/06/2011 02:03, hooface a écrit :
>>>
>>> +1 for FreeSwitch
>>>
>> Yes good. Work & solid ;-)
>>
>> --
>>
>> ++
>>
>> Cyp
>>
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>
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Fred Dixon
We'll still leave all the code in for app_konference. For 0.8, we're
going to focus on FreeSWITCH for the integration and testing of
improvements to reduce latency in audio (using speex) and support for
record and playback (start/stop recordings). Our goal is to get a
beta of 0.8 out sooner, not later.
To be clear, if you don't want to use speex or record and playback,
all the code will be there for supporting app_konference will be there
in BigBlueButton 0.8.
We hope that other developers can star to pitch in and make the
necessary updates to app_konference/BigBlueButton to support the new
features in 0.8. For guidelines on how to contribute to
BigBlueButton, see
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Contributing_to_BigBlueButton
For the moment we (the core developers) are going to focus on
FreeSWITCH for 0.8 for the near future. If you are with a commercial
company and want to see full support for Asterisk, but are not in a
position to contribute developer resources, you have other options as
well. See
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#When_will_feature_X_be_implemented?
Regards,... Fred
On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 3:46 PM, Zeeshan Ali Shah
<zee...@infoshield.info> wrote:
> Hi,
> We tried app_konference in Asterisk it works very good second as written
> app_konference it can support 1500 users on one box.. i dont know how far it
> is true..
>
> Will you drop app_konference with FreeSwitch in future ? or am i mixing
> things since app_konference seem to be conference bridge to asterisk ..
>
> FreeSwitch has latency issue as we have test it so far.
>
> Zeeshan
>
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 6:21 PM, cyp <c...@lipousse.no-ip.org> wrote:
>>
>> Le 08/06/2011 02:03, hooface a écrit :
>>>
>>> +1 for FreeSwitch
>>>
>> Yes good. Work & solid ;-)
>>
>> --
>>
>> ++
>>
>> Cyp
>>
>> --
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>> "BigBlueButton-dev" group.
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>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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>> For more options, visit this group at
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>>
>
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Jan Boon
Probably the code for app_konference is not needed anymore. I checked out the trunk of Asterisk which should contain ConfBridge 1.10 for the upcoming Asterisk 1.10 (although 1.6 is still reported). I also cloned the git of Asterisk-Java. I implemented in that code the most important events and actions for conferencing.
The events:
registerEventClass(ConfbridgeEnd.class);
registerEventClass(ConfbridgeJoin.class);
registerEventClass(ConfbridgeLeave.class);
registerEventClass(ConfbridgeStart.class);
The actions:
ConfbridgeStartRecordAction
ConfbridgeStopRecordAction
ConfbridgeKickAction
ConfbridgeMuteAction
ConfbridgeUnmuteAction
For some documented actions I got a permission denied response (e.g. ConfbridgeListRooms and ConfbridgeList(room)), but all of the above is working (I can send you a log of a demo java program) and probably sufficient. When BBB 0.8 is released I will probably find a package org.bigbluebutton.webconference.voice.freeswitch in there. I will try, if time will let me, to create a new package org.bigbluebutton.webconference.voice.confbridge with similar functionality which should not be that hard unless the play and record piece is very complicated. Even though that code will not be official, in the end I will get a BBB 0.8 with Asterisk.
Regards Jan
Fred Dixon
Good progress! If you are able to get BigBlueButton 0.8 working with
Asterisk 1.10, we'd be interested in reviewing the code for inclusion.
For more information see
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Contributing_to_BigBlueButton
In the past we did all the asterisk integration ourselves ... it would
be great to work with others on improving this part of BigBlueButton.
Regards,... Fred