Vinteo Servers scaling and fault tolerance

To organize a videoconferencing service on the basis of Vinteo software it is enough to have one physical server, but to get a fault-tolerant system and a system that can bear high loads you need to use a cluster of several servers.

Vinteo server expansion

It is recommended to expand port capacity of Vinteo servers only by expanding license pool of Vinteo server, and if necessary - by installing additional platform server (hereinafter referred to as media server) in the cluster. To organize a cluster on the Vinteo management server the option Cascading of Vinteo server must be open. In this case server platform capacity can be expanded in a seamless and full-featured way in all sizes and does not entail any functional limitations. This expansion method preserves the single connection point of subscribers and license pool, and the whole logic of operation of the Vinteo server is preserved.

If a standard video conferencing system is used (for example, using geographically distributed servers (Vinteo or MCU from other manufacturers), the functionality of the system will have serious limitations, because

• it will require simultaneous control of not one but two servers during the same conference;
• typical cascading supposes the servers work in Master-Slave mode, in this case the conference layout will be formed on Master server, and Slave server subscribers can get to the layout only in voice activation mode;
• there are two mutually incompatible license pools, one for each server;
• cascading of videoconferencing servers of different manufacturers is made via gateway or trunk, which imposes certain, often even critical limits on the number of simultaneous calls through it, for example it is often impossible to organize more than 50 calls from one server to another;
• there is no possibility to assign audio channels to participants of another server, additional licenses will be required to connect conferences with other videoconferencing servers;
• there is no unified management of VCS participants and diagnosis of problems during conferences is difficult for the administrator of Vinteo server.

Solution architecture

Two server roles can be distinguished in the Vinteo system:

• the communication server and the management server (hereafter referred to as the management server);
• media server.

There can be only one control server in the system. There can be one or several media servers. The minimum number of physical servers is one that combines both roles.

Management server

Control server is the web-server and server that provides communication protocols (SIP, H.323, WebRTC).

To back up the management server, the following scheme is used: Main - Standby. The primary server is active and serves the system, the backup server synchronizes online with the primary and monitors its "health".

If the primary server fails to respond, the backup server designates itself as the primary and assumes the role of the management server, assigning itself the IP address of the primary and taking over all the management server services.

If the servers (primary and backup) lose connection with each other, the license becomes temporary and is valid for 72 hours from the moment the connection is lost. During this time you need to solve the technical problem with the failed server or, if it's not possible, contact the Vinteo technical support to resolve the issue with temporary license expiration date. When the problem with the failed server (the former primary server) is solved and it boots up, it will take the place of the backup server.

Media server

The media server is the server that transcodes media streams and builds the layout. To increase system performance, it is necessary to apply horizontal scaling of media servers - cascading. The management server will tend to load the media servers evenly, balancing the load between them, so the media servers are mutually redundant.

To provide redundancy of media servers in the system, it is necessary to have at least N+1 media servers, where N is the number of media servers required to serve the maximum number of participants under the given VCS scenarios.

It is necessary to specify a peculiarity: For each conference, one of the media servers builds the layout, and this server should serve all participants whose video falls into this layout. Therefore, when planning infrastructure, it is necessary to take into account the maximum number of participants on the layout and factor this parameter into media servers capacity.