WebEx Alternative:
Nefsis Web, VoIP, & Multiparty Video Conferencing is Faster
Nefsis Commentary — The following commentary describes the high-level architecture of Nefsis versus WebEx; and with
that as a basis, explains how and why Nefsis provides a noticeably faster web conferencing, desktop sharing, and multipoint VoIP
& video conferencing experience.
The context of this material is fully interactive, online meetings, where all participants send and receive audio and
video, not just the presenter. Some basic knowledge of Internet routing is assumed.
Webinars Yesterday, Online Meetings Today
The primary emphasis of early web conferencing products was 1-to-many presentations such as webinars and other marketing
events. As customers became more adept with these applications and the the client-side components became more capable, the actual
use of web conferencing products started to shift to online meetings.
Webinars remain a major part of the scene, but online meetings drive the cost savings, travel alternative, green computing,
and the prevalent financial benefits of this technology to line employees. The shift to online meetings, with fully-interactive
participants, also wiped out many early WebEx competitors whose receive-only technology could not adapt to the multipoint,
full-duplex demands of online meetings.
The Next Generation
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Nefsis, a WebEx alternative, was founded on a multipoint, real-time routing architecture, designed specifically for proxy and firewall
traversal, and high connection success rates in corporate environments. The next generation distributed the servers across
a true, cloud computing for video
conferencing implmentation, achieving improvements in latency times not available to fixed-site data centers.
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The term "Cloud Computing" has generated a great deal of attention recently. Since companies such as Microsoft
announced their Cloud Computing strategies, the use of the term has become commonplace in IT vocabulary. As with many buzzwords,
the definition of the term is often misunderstood or worse, the underpinnings are lost as variations creep into promotional
materials.
Don't Confuse SaaS with Cloud Computing
A common misperception is that all SaaS (Software as a Service) providers utilize a Cloud Computing architecture. This
couldn't be farther from the truth. Simply making the server component (of a client/server application) accessible via
the public Internet, does not qualify as Cloud Computing.
Implementing a true Cloud Computing solution requires development from the ground up, distributing the server load and
access points across the Internet, and some would argue, load balancing, fail-over, and real-time response to changing user
demands and Internet conditions. These are the main reasons why Nefsis outperforms all other web conferencing SaaS providers
in the most compute-intensive and latency-bound applications, such as multipoint video conferencing and desktop sharing.
For Example, WebEx Media Tone...
As an example, Webex provides basic PowerPoint® and document sharing. Audio is provided through VoIP or standard phone
service. WebEx video is supported in a limited manner. As with any SaaS company, Webex learned that user experience is heavily
dependent on the quality of the network. In an effort to overcome the inherent weakness of the public Internet, Webex created
the MediaTone Network™. Simply put, MediaTone provides virtual private network connectivity to the centralized Webex data
center. In effect, the user is "back-hauled" through various access points to a data center. The benefit of MediaTone
is that it bypasses the public Internet for a most of the network route.
This was of great benefit a decade ago, but today, may in fact add to the number of network hops (in order to reach the access
point). Nor does it address the 'single bad hop spoils the whole network route' problem, that afflicts the remaining
portion of the route. Moreover, back-hauling and/or otherwise providing a virtual private network connection to a centralized
data center is not Cloud Computing.
Versus Cloud Computing & End-to-End Parallel Processing
Nefsis addresses both compute-intensive tasks and network routing via Cloud Computing that, among other things, assigns
virtual servers in response to round-trip latency times for the user.
A system based on a Cloud Computing architecture, such as Nefsis, provides a better round-trip latency time benefit than
back-hauling to private networks, plus much more. Processing power is distributed across a large number of computers spread
throughout the Cloud. Distributing the experience across the Cloud — and closer to the user — minimizes round-trip
latency which is critical in video and VoIP conferencing. In addition, performance and reliability are enhanced through automatic
load balancing and failover.
WebEx was built using traditional programming practices that fail to leverage the full capabilities of your computer.
Today's computers have multiple
processor cores, but most conferencing applications, such as
WebEx, were designed to use only a single core. Nefsis is the
first multipoint video conferencing application to fully
leverage all the cores of your computer, no matter how many.
Nefsis was designed from the bottom up as a
parallel processing
application. Each major functional component is an independent software module working in tandem to deliver a
fluid conferencing experience. The computation is distributed evenly across all available cores.
Nefsis is a registered trademark of Nefsis Corporation. WebEx and MediaTone are trademarks or registered
trademarks of WebEx Communications, Incorporated. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.