Deployment overview
One instance of Meeting Management can manage a small Meeting Server deployment with only a single Call Bridge or a large Meeting Server deployment with multiple clusters of Call Bridges as shown below.
Figure 1: A single Meeting Management within a Meeting Server deployment
Meeting Management connects to Meeting Servers via the Call Bridge API. To get information on meeting activity, it installs itself as a CDR (Call Detail Record) receiver and events client on each Call Bridge and gets information about active meetings via API requests, CDRs, and Meeting Server events.
Note: If you choose to only use Meeting Management for licensing and provisioning for a cluster, then Meeting Management will not act as a CDR receiver or events client for Call Bridges in that cluster.
For greater reliability and accuracy you can configure more than one NTP server; Meeting Management supports up to 5 NTP servers. We recommend that all Meeting Servers and all instances of Meeting Management are connected to the same NTP servers.
Authentication of users
Meeting Management supports locally managed users as well as user authentication via LDAP. You can choose to have only local users, only LDAP users, or both.
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Local users are added and managed locally on the Meeting Management Users page. These users are authenticated directly by Meeting Management.
One local administrator user is generated during installation, and you can add more users after you have signed in for the first time. Local users are useful for setup and test, and for making LDAP changes without getting locked out of Meeting Management.
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LDAP users are added via mappings to existing groups on your LDAP server. Meeting Management uses your LDAP server to authenticate these users by checking their group membership when they sign in.
Authentication via LDAP is recommended for general use and administration.
We recommend that you have at least one local administrator user account. This is to make sure that you can still access Meeting Management if there are LDAP issues. For general use in production we recommend that users are authenticated via LDAP.
Note: All users can be either administrators or video operators. Their permissions depend only on the role, not whether they are managed locally or via LDAP.
Security and auditing
Meeting Management supports TLS 1.2 for its secure connections to its web interface and to connected servers.
Backup files are protected with a user-supplied password.
Event logs for active and recent meetings are available in Meeting Management. Audit logs and system logs can be sent to external syslog servers.
Also, advanced security settings let you comply with your organization's security policies if specific settings are required.
Diagnostics and troubleshooting
Meeting Management stores a limited amount of system logs locally. All audit and system logs can be sent to external servers.
Crash logs and a log bundle are available for support purposes.
Call Bridge details, local user accounts, and passphrase dictionary can be restored separately from other configuration details.
Integration with Cisco TelePresence Management Suite (TMS)
Cisco Meeting Management can be integrated with TMS, so you can use TMS scheduling, endpoint management, and phone book features while using Meeting Management to monitor and manage your meetings.
Meeting Management connects to TMS via its booking API, and every 5 minutes it checks that it can access phone books and updates information about scheduled meetings. Upcoming meetings are seen in Meeting Management up to 24 hours before their scheduled start time.
For a more seamless management across Meeting Management and TMS, each scheduled meeting has a direct link from its meeting details in Meeting Management to its editing page in TMS.
Licensing of the Meeting Server
Meeting Management is mandatory with Meeting Server 3.0 or later for licensing purposes. If you are using traditional licensing, then there are no changes to connections in your deployments. If you are using Smart Licensing, then you must connect to the Cisco Smart Software Manager, see below.
For more information on how to enable licensing, see the Installation and Configuration Guide. For information on license status levels, trials, and enforcement, see the License status and enforcement section.
Connection to the Cisco Smart Software Manager for Smart Licensing
You can use Meeting Management to monitor whether your Cisco Meeting Server deployments are using more licenses than you purchased. For traditional licensing, license files are installed on Call Bridges within the Meeting Server deployments, and Meeting Management receives information about both installed licenses and usage from the Call Bridges.
For Smart Licensing, Meeting Management uses the Smart Agent to communicate with the Cisco Smart Software Manager (Cisco SSM). Meeting Management sends daily usage reports to Cisco SSM, and Cisco SSM then reports back whether the deployment is in compliance.
Note: If you have more than one instance of Meeting Management connected to the same Meeting Server cluster, for example to add resilience, then only one instance of Meeting Management should be connected to the Cisco Smart Software Manager. If you connect both instances, the reported usage will be counted twice.
Cisco Meeting Server Cloud Connector for email or Webex Teams notifications
You can connect to the Webex Control Hub to see status for Meeting Management deployments from the Webex Control Hub interface and set up email or Webex Teams alerts.
The Cloud Connector also sends statistics to Cisco so we can improve our products. If you want to see what information is sent, see the Cisco Meeting Server Cloud Connector online help.
Provisioning users and creating space templates on Meeting Server clusters
You can use Meeting Management to provision Cisco Meeting Server web app users by importing users from one or more LDAP servers to connected Meeting Server clusters. You can also create space templates, which are pre-configured space settings that web app users can use to create new spaces.
Note that Meeting Management is not communicating directly with the LDAP servers for this purpose. Instead, LDAP server details and filter settings are sent to the Meeting Server, and the Meeting Server uses the details to provision users when an LDAP sync is triggered.
Note: For security and auditing reasons, we recommend that you create a separate bind user account for each Meeting Server cluster on each LDAP server.
Resilience
To add resilience to your Meeting Management deployment, you can connect up to two instances of Meeting Management to the same Meeting Server deployments. They must be configured independently; both get their information directly from the connected Call Bridges and TMS servers. No information is exchanged between them. We recommend that the two instances of Meeting Management are placed in different locations so e.g. power outages or connection issues will not affect both instances at once.
There is no failover; both instances are active at all times, and settings that are local to Meeting Management, such as pinning a meeting at the top of the list, are only seen in the instance of Meeting Management where they were set.
Note: For resilient deployments, use only one instance of Meeting Management for licensing to avoid duplicate reporting. See Licensing.
Figure 2: A resilient Meeting Management deployment
Capacity limitations if you have large volumes of meetings
The performance of the meeting management functionality depends on the volume of meetings on the connected Call Bridges. See the capacity table in the "Before you start" section of the Installation and Configuration Guide for capacity limitations. If you have a deployment that exceeds the capacity for large deployments, then you must disable the meeting management functionality. You can do this individually for each connected cluster.
If you are using the Cisco Meeting Server API or 3rd party tools
We strongly recommend that you do not use the API - or any 3rd party tool using the API - to manage active meetings at the same time as you monitor or manage meetings using Meeting Management.