MCU Pools

MCU Management

The MCU Pools list shows the MCU pools, or logical groupings of media servers, that are defined in the Polycom RealPresence DMA system. In a superclustered system, this list is the same on all clusters in the supercluster. A pool may group MCUs based on location, capability, or some other factor.

Note: MCU pools vs. MCU zones

MCU pools were called MCU zones in earlier versions of the Polycom RealPresence DMA system. The name was changed to avoid confusion with the concept of gatekeeper zones.

Every conference room (VMR) is associated with an MCU pool order (either by direct assignment, via the user’s enterprise group membership, or from the system default). The pool(s) to which an MCU belongs, and the pool order(s) to which a pool belongs, are used to determine which MCU is used to host a conference. For details of how an MCU is chosen for a conference, see MCU Pool Orders.

Note: MCU pool orders

If you have a Polycom RealPresence Resource Manager system that uses the RealPresence DMA system API to schedule conferences on the RealPresence DMA system’s conferencing resources (MCU pools), you must create MCU pools and pool orders specifically for the use of the RealPresence Resource Manager system. The pool orders should be named in such a way that:

•They appear at the top of the pool order list presented in the RealPresence Resource Manager system.

•Users of that system will understand that they should choose one of those pool orders.

If the RealPresence Resource Manager system is also going to be used to directly schedule conferences on MCUs, those MCUs should not be part of the conferencing resources (MCU pools) available to the RealPresence DMA system.

Note: MCUs and ISDN gateway selection

MCU pools and pool orders are not used to select an ISDN gateway for simplified gateway dialing. See ISDN Gateway Selection Process.

You can use various criteria for organizing MCUs into pools, depending on how you want the MCU resources allocated for conferencing. For instance:

●You could put all MCUs in a specific site or domain into a pool. Then, assign a pool order to all users in that site or domain (via group membership) ensuring that their conferences are preferentially routed to MCUs in that pool.

●You could put one or more MCUs into a pool to be used only by executives, and put that pool into a pool order associated only with those executives’ conference rooms.

●You could put MCUs with special capabilities into a pool, and put that pool into a pool order associated only with custom conference rooms requiring those capabilities.

Polycom, Inc.

143