This is Part 1 of a multi-part series on Logitech LifeSize. Tomorrow, I will post a blog of my conversation with Rafi Anuar, Director of Product Management for Logitech LifeSize. Subsequent to that, I will post more on my experiences with LifeSize going forward.
Video conferencing and webinars have, for me, greatly reduced the amount of time I spend traveling to either my offices, events, meet with clients, or to confer with consultants.
Internally, we use Microsoft Lync for messaging, and we use HP Virtual Rooms for video conferencing.
However, both of them have their issues. Lync is excellent, and quite capable for internal communications and messaging. However, it is a bear to use for video. I know that video conferencing is possible. I just don’t have the resources to throw at it for that.
HP Virtual Rooms is adequate for us, in that it allows us to set up ad hoc conferences very easily. That’s why we use it.
Recently though, I have had a client with manufacturing partners in the Far East develop a requirement for rapidly implemented video conferencing. For that firm, the video fidelity of HP Virtual Rooms isn’t up to par.
To satisfy that request and others that have been made of us, we had to look.
Fortuitously, I had the opportunity to learn about Logitech LifeSize.
Logitech LifeSize is both a product and a company.
Co-founded in Austin, Texas by Craig Malloy, a longtime veteran of the video conferencing industry, Logitech’s LifeSize unit has products that I have found to be quite innovative, and interesting.
For one, LifeSize has two distinct product lines: for on-premises, and hosted. Secondly, on-premises LifeSize is itself delivered as a virtual machine!
These two features alone make LifeSize a product to try.
While the first is exciting, the second is positively brilliant.
The ability to run LifeSize as a VM from the get-go brings all sorts of HA and redundancy into the use of the product. If you mix in the ability to use the two preeminent hypervisors today, VMware and Hyper-V, then you have a product that is virtually future-proofed, as far as on premises is concerned.
According to Logitech LifeSize, the following configuration is required for optimal performance:
Virtual Machine Specifications HW processors: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2650, 2.0 GHz RAM: 32 GB DDR3 1600 Disk space: 100 GB min Network: 1 Gbps min
NOTE: Virtual machine configuration values are based on actual test results using a dual socket E5-2650 processor (Sandy Bridge), 32 GB RAM, with Hyper-threading enabled. Hyper-threading is required to achieve desired performance levels. Enabling Hyper-threading doubles the number of physical cores in both VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V and is represented as vCPUs. Both VMware and Microsoft license their virtualization technology based on the vCPU capacity.
For the cloud, LifeSize offers two products, LIfeSize Connections & ClearSea in the Cloud.
© 2002 – 2014, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
