Tech Tip – Convert the Paging Gateway OVA File for Unsupported VMware

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Allie McGuire

For customers using the Singlewire Paging Gateway in a virtual environment, Singlewire distributes the solution as a VMware OVA file, which includes the host operating system along with a pre-configured copy of the Singlewire Paging Gateway, so you can easily boot up the system. The OVA files are specifically for the VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 and later server in a production environment, but customers wanting  demo/lab environments can use the VMware vCenter Converter to convert that OVA to another format for VMware versions such as Workstation, Server, and Player.

This PDF will walk you through how to convert the OVA to another format.

Download Tech Tip




Posted in Tech Tips | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Detect. Notify. Activate. M2M – Machine-to-Machine Notification from Singlewire

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Watch the video below to learn more about Singlewire’s approach to M2M or Machine-to-Machine for sending mass notification and emergency communication.

So we came up with Detect, Notify, Activate. Today, it's called M2M (Machine-to-Machine). That 's really where we fit. We worked with a train company, a German train company who had an interest in us. If they have a security threat down on a platform they want to notify every one of that but they also want to do other things.

So, their idea was when we send that certain message out to a particular platform, we want to not only notify the people on the platform, we want to notify the headquarters and some other individuals that this is going on and then when that notification sent reverse the direction of the escalator so anyone going down the escalator is now automatically returned.

I don't know how to say "whoa" in German, but that's what you'd expect if you were going down the escalator, and it comes back. That's really not - the notification is part of it, but it's only a small piece of it. You're really interacting with physical systems on both ends of that.

And really, notification should be attached to all kinds of things, not just a human saying there are doughnuts in the break room. Notifications can be attached to server events, the building events, the physical security events or video surveillance - all kinds of things.

And then, on the other end, you ought to be able to activate other systems as a result. It's vary rare that - if you're only sending a notification, and that's it, that's really paging. But if you're embedding it and integrating with all of these other things, you've got a complete system. And we spent a lot of time on our interfaces to make sure they're open and evolving with the interfaces that other people are building so that our system can drop in amidst these things, and you add that audio text component to it.


Posted in Use Case Videos | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Lots of Options for Deploying IP Speakers with Singlewire InformaCast

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Singlewire provides a cost effective solution to your paging needs, allowing you to manage it within the framework of your existing IT systems. And when you need to send an announcement, it’s as simple as picking up the phone, pushing a few buttons, and speaking your announcement.

IP speakers allow organizations to leverage their IP network for delivering overhead paging announcements. The IP speaker endpoints allow organizations an easy and cost effective way to implement an IP-based paging system or expand coverage with a pre-existing paging system.

There are a number of different options for IP speakers and there's a number of different options for IP speaker manufacturers. The great thing with having now five different IP speaker options, with that being A&D, Atlas Sound, Cyberdata, Valcom and now Barix, you can do multiple different things.

You can either retrofit existing installations of analog speakers or taking existing analog speakers and potentially convert them into IP speakers with some of these Paging Gateway or converter devices.

 But as well as looking at it from the standpoint of, you know, adding new overhead paging systems.  Not wanting to add old amplifiers, old wire, copper wire to run these lines to devices.  What you're going to do now, just very similar to what you did with your IP phones many years ago is add those devices to the network.

Aesthetically, there are a ton of options for IP Speakers. You drop ceiling speakers. You have outdoor horn-style speakers. You have the speaker clock combination with the LED display. Some of the LED displays of those IP Speakers have the capability of scrolling text with some of the different manufacturers.

And really what you're looking at, I think now the list is close to 50 different models that are compatible with InformaCast, which really gives you a ton of different options.

From a speaker placement design standpoint, many of IP speaker manufacturers help with that configuration or assistance. I mean really it's a question of them just asking for your floor plans of your organization and saying, according to audio acoustics best practices they can take that floor plan and design and tell you that you need to place an IP speaker here. You need to place one there.

According to what they need to do, so really it's not even a question of someone coming on site and doing a walk through any more. It's just an idea of the density of an organization, where wall placements are at and potentially, you know, the ceiling height and the different options for mounting speakers, whether it be drop ceiling speaker or something that needs to be wall-mounted.

So, there's a ton of different options with them, and now at price points that are very reasonable for individuals. Some of them are higher-end because they have many more functions and some of them are lower price just based of the fact that they're just more of a standard speaker than they are anything else.

 Very similar in what you saw in traditional analog systems.

Learn more – Compliant IP Speaker Overview | Consider Installing InformaCast Compliant IP Speakers

Posted in Podcasts | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Tech Tip – Trigger Weather Alerts with the Inbound Email Plugin

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Brad Parkel

The Inbound Email plugin, part of the plugin architecture for InformaCast 8.0 and later, allows you to initiate InformaCast broadcasts upon receipt of an email from a monitored email account. Once you have an email account set up within the Inbound Email plugin, you can configure email broadcasts that contain how the email account should be monitored, the broadcast to trigger, and the recipient groups to receive the broadcast.

For example, you could send a certain broadcast after receiving a weather alert email from a weather monitoring and alerting service such as AccuWeather (http://www.accuweather.com/alerts).

Configuring this alerting scenario requires:

  • A successful installation of InformaCast 8.0 or later
  • A successful installation of the Inbound Email plugin
  • A valid email account used with the Inbound Email plugin
  • An account with AccuWeather

Before you begin, ensure that InformaCast 8.0 or later and the Inbound Email plugin are installed properly. For more help with InformaCast installation, please see the “InformaCast Installation andUser Guide.” For more help with Inbound Email plugin installation, please see the “Inbound EmailPlugin Installation and User Guide.”

Click to Download

 

See Also – InformaCast Inbound Email plugin | Inbound Email Plugin Press Release | Emergency Communications with Singlewire Software

Posted in Tech Tips | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Emergency Communications with Singlewire Software

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Brad Parkel

With InformaCast, notifications can be triggered in a variety of ways depending on the needs of your organization; By systems or devices that require immediate action, by pushing a panic button located in a room or at a workstation, or by the simple action of someone dialing 911. When an event takes place, the appropriate message can be sent automatically to the right people or groups within your organization so that action can be taken.

In the event of an emergency, send communications quickly with Singlewire InformaCast. Here are three examples: When someone dials an emergency number in your organization, immediately detect and trigger a notification to security and first responders on the premises.

Emergency call was made from Greg Sliwicki Appleton Office at 12:14 and :15.

 As notification is being made, the call continues unimpeded to local emergency officials.

When there's a weather emergency, a notification can be automatically sent throughout the entire organization. This can include detailed text information and options for repeating the message multiple times.

 A winter weather advisory has been reported. If there's a need to lock down a building, a recognizable tone can be sent. Managers upon hearing the tone, can then refer to the text message for details and instructions. This provides information to the people who need to know the information, while not causing undo panic.

InformaCast gives you the ability to respond quickly and efficiently to these three scenarios and many more. Learn how InformaCast can be customized to the needs of your organization. Visit us at www.singlewire.com.

Additional Resources: Emergency Communications on www.singlewire.com | How Do You Know When a 911 Call is Dialed in Your Organization? | Laguna Honda Hospital Implements InformaCast for Patient Safety

Posted in Use Case Videos | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Paging Gateway for InformaCast One-Minute Video

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Learn more about the Paging Gateway from Singlewire Software by watching this one-minute video.

To learn how a Paging Gateway solution can benefit your organization, visit us at http://www.singlewire.com/paging-gateway.

Additional Resources: Paging Gateway Podcast | Product Page

Posted in Use Case Videos | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Schools Turn to InformaCast to Save Money with School Bell in Times of Austerity

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Consolidate bell & clock system and PA system onto one network for cost savings and improved flexibility

Singlewire InformaCast enables you to manage your bell schedules, centrally program and manage your clocks and provide you a means of immediately sending an emergency notification to your entire organization with the click of a button.

Yeah so it's helping. You know, what we hear sometimes in the budget cuts is that they're pulling back the facilities and maintenance people that are doing that day-to-day work. Now, what they're trying to become is more efficient with their time and how they send their people's people out to each site or how their resources are being allocated.

 The concept we talked about before of, you know, 60 different schools, 60 different bell systems, and having someone have to jump in a van, drive to each location, manage those bells.

That costs time and that costs money and it also costs resources, to have someone be able just to do that from their desk is in turn saving you money. And instead of having a lot of people manage those systems, you're actually consolidating meaning being able to do it through just a few individuals, and potentially giving them the ability to do different tasks that they weren't able to do previously because they were burdened with other things like managing the bell scheduling system.

Now, if things are happening throughout their facilities that they need to do more day-to-day routine maintenance, it's not gonna be something where you have to prioritize. Is the bell scheduling is more important than fixing something that's broken at a location?

So just from that standpoint trying to do more with less, you're definitely taking advantage of that with InformaCast.

Learn More – Watch On-Demand K-12 Demo | One-minute Video – School Bell Software with InformaCast | Consider Installing InformaCast Compliant IP Speakers

Posted in Podcasts | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Integrating IP Speakers and Analog Speaker with Singlewire LPI

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Singlewire’s Legacy Paging Interface (LPI) allows you to incorporate your existing paging system with our InformaCast® application. You save money and time by leaving your existing paging system in place, and you gain functionality and versatility in your paging abilities. With Singlewire LPI you can integrate with existing analog paging systems and newer IP-speakers.

Yeah, so you may see in many organizations where they have existing analog infrastructure, an existing system that's in place, some of these are older antiquated systems that, you know, are twenty, thirty years old.

 Some are, you know, we even hear about, are older than that or they're on their last leg. Some of the speakers that were connected to that system may not work any longer, and people will say OK we don't want to try to fix the system anymore we're just going to gradually migrate to IP speakers and put those into areas where the older speakers may have failed.

The other concept too, is you think about it from that zoning concept of IP speakers versus analog systems now. The analog systems typically are very large areas like warehouse maybe even a large office where it's a single broadcast zone.

 You may use those but supplement IP speakers in areas that wouldn't reach to or if you need to do individual zoning in different areas within that facility to put those IP speakers where you need some granularity.

So, a question of how big of a zone do you need, you know, sometimes analog makes a lot of sense because it's a one very big zone and some of the price points will make more sense to go analog but if you're really looking to get granular with zoning IP speakers typically are a better solution.

Learn More

Watch our short white board video on LPI


Watch the Video

See Also - Singlewire Bells and Clocks solution One-minute Video | Online K-12 Demo

Posted in Podcasts | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Case Study – Laguna Honda Hospital Implements Singlewire InformaCast for Patient Safety

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, California, implements a Singlewire InformaCast solution for triggering customized announcements to the overhead paging system when dementia and at-risk residents leave a specified area.

Our hospital is located in San Francisco, California. We've been here since 1866. Actually before California even became a state, we were here to take care of the Gold Rush era pioneers. We are part of the safety net system for San Francisco, which that means is if you do not have medical insurance or you're a Medicare, Medi-Cal, Medicaid, you come here and we take of you.

InformaCast has a great deal to do with patient safety, because with a wandering resident, they can easily walk out a front door. Because we have over 62 wooded acres here. They could be hard to find if they got outside. It allows us to take care of our dementia, Alzheimer's patients. Out of our 780 beds, we have a very small percentage with a wander issue.

So we put in your system just per small handful of patients, because it takes care of them better.

 Some patients, you know, they respond better with a voice that's familiar to them.

Stop . Go back.

 Since the resident hears it, any patient care assistant or nurse in the general vicinity also hears it. And because it comes up on, actually, a screen at the nurse's station, the nurse at the nurse's station knows where patient X is. So, that way we know, they are here and we need to help them.

 It has the ability to individualize the message. Not just with a language but even, like if a specific person would respond better with the voice of their mom. So we can use that and record that voice.

 It has become extremely valuable to us. It allows the nursing staff to actually spend more time with our residents taking care of them.The family sees it as a positive way to take care of a loved one, to help out a loved one. It allows us to actually save labor dollars because we're not using the nurse to go acknowledge an alarm or find someone.

We're now using AeroScout system to find that person on the floor and the InformaCast to turn them around. We want our residents to have the best care possible. And by freeing up the nursing staff from acknowledging alarms that we used to do, that's where we see our money savings.

Also see – Singlewire Solutions for Healthcare Podcast | Prompt Response From Singlewire Enables Quick Resolutions | Singlewire Solutions for Healthcare

Posted in Case Studies | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A New and More Cost Effective Way to Ring Your School Bells

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Centralizing your bell scheduling system into a software based solution can save your school district money and time. Our solution enables you to manage your bell schedules, centrally program and manage your clocks and provide you a means of immediately sending an emergency notification to your entire organization with the click of a button.

So the bells are basically configured through the software. We specify a time. Now we can actually specify a time down to the second, or we can trigger an alarm or an audio notification using InformaCast.

Those audio tones are just basically wave files saved within the InformaCast system.  So they can be customized. They can be tones you're familiar with. We do provide example tones for you to use, but we have people get very creative with that and potentially record their own spoken voice. We had a school district in Wisconsin where the principal recorded the passing bells. It was him saying the passing period one is happening at this time, please report to period two, that was their passing bells.

Or you can do the traditional ringing tone, that a lot of people are used or just some steady tone options but it's really the concept of specifying the time within the software, the type of tone that you want to have and you can select different options for tones.  So maybe the first period passing bell is one tone but the ready bell for the next period is a different tone let students know that there's a difference between those, and then just scheduling those throughout the day.

 You know, 7 AM bell one goes off, at 7:05, bell two goes off to let people know that they should be class at that time.

Learn More – Singlewire Bells and Clocks solution One-minute Video | Online K-12 Demo

Posted in Podcasts | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Create Paging Zones with InformaCast and IP Speakers

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Allie McGuire

Choose the IP speakers you want to send a message to when you deploy Singlewire’s InformaCast throughout your organization.

One of the biggest advantages of choosing IP speakers over traditional analog speakers is the zoning capabilities that come with each device you install. Every IP speaker is a PoE (power over ethernet) device that has its own IP address giving you the power to send an InformaCast broadcast to a single speaker, a small group of speakers, or all your speakers at once. You could page potentially to one individual IP Speaker, or to all devices, or any mix and match in between there. Using InformaCast you can create predefined paging groups for the groups of speakers you send messages to regularly.

“The advantage to IP Speakers is really the zoning capabilities with each individual device,” explains Brad Jungemann, Technical Architect at Singlewire Software. “Now since each device is individually run and it’s a power over ethernet device, it has its own IP address.  You could page potentially to one individual IP Speaker, or to all devices, or any mix and match in between there.”

For example, in a school setting you could set up paging groups for each grade, department, and individual school building. Or, you could page to a specific classroom or every speaker in your district at once.

For more information on IP speakers compatible with Singlewire’s InformaCast please visit http://info.singlewire.com/ip-speakers

For more information on InformaCast solutions for K-12 schools please visit http://info.singlewire.com/singlewire-solutions-for-k12/

Key Takeaways:

  • With InformaCast and IP speakers you can send a message to a single speaker or every speaker within your organization.
  • Use InformaCast to create paging groups for quick and easy access when sending overhead IP notifications.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Do Nothing Solution for Updating Your School Bells for Daylight Savings

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Brad Parkel

InformaCast automatically updates the clock and bell schedules to reflect the changes in daylight savings time, saving school districts time and money.

Learn more about Singlewire’s solution for bell scheduling by listing to this short podcast.

Yeah, so because we're running on a Windows platform, the system is updated for daylight savings, those bells and clocks are in turn being adjusted at the same time so those, the time source is that InformaCast server, which most people point some type of network time protocol source NTP so that they're getting accurate time throughout their entire school district.

So you don't have to be concerned that at this school the bell else going off a minute before the ones at the other location. Everything is synchronized and playing those audio streams alt the same time across the entire district, and if daylights savings time comes through, everything is just automatically adjusted in and it doesn't require additional maintenance of the system at that point.

Posted in Podcasts | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

DialCast: An Updated and Easier to Use Version of ReliCast in InformaCast 8

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Podcast interview with Singlewire Technical Architect Brad Jungemann.

Learn more about DialCast by listing to the podcast or reviewing the text transcript below.

Well, there's two different standpoints. There's the administrative standpoint of the setup and configuration.

 Some of those steps in the ReliCast feature were a little cumbersome or multiple steps. We basically took a five-step way to initiate a broadcast down to a one-step or one or two-step configuration.

 So, in the call manager, this is communications manager, previously you were calling a route point in ReliCast, hitting a CTI port, going to call park, going to a CTI port, and then to InformaCast, which... Admin user, that's a lot of work.

Now at CTI route potentially a CTI port involved, and then right to InformaCast. So we've simplified the steps. From a user standpoint, just even introducing both of these features, the ability to pick up from any phone within your organization to initiate a broadcast, is very powerful.

 And then, also, if you ever wanted to have it configured where from a cell phone potentially, an off-network being able to call into it, so if that CTI route point is accessible in your dialing plan and you could call to that number, you could potentially use your cell phone to be prompted for authentication and trigger and InformaCast notification, which is very powerful.

 Well, there's multiple options. There's ability to pick up the phone, have a list of phone numbers that you would potentially dial, each number being unique with a unique message associated with it.

And by dialing that phone number, it just automatically will trigger InformaCast broadcast, with the option once again of being prompted for authentication.

And all of these options, too, are either accessible from the phone or through the web administration page of InformaCast to trigger notifications, too.

Posted in Podcasts | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Singlewire Paging Gateway™: Deploying Mass Notification Across the WAN with Unicast

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Some customers have challenging Wide Area Network (WAN) environments, making it difficult to support using multicast. Singlewire’s InformaCast solution uses multicast in order to provide the speed and scalability of network-based mass notification. To accommodate these multicast-challenged environments, Singlewire has developed the Singlewire Paging Gateway ™.

The solution provides:

  • Ability to send mass notification broadcasts across the WAN using unicast, which is then converted to multicast at the remote site by the Singlewire Paging Gateway
  • Ability to compress the audio stream across the WAN, consuming 75% less bandwidth (20 kbps vs. 80 in an uncompressed stream)
  • Easy installation as a plugin from within the InformaCast software administrative interface

Deployment options in two formats: as a software virtual appliance, or as a dedicated hardware appliance http://www.singlewire.com/paging-gateway.

We're here talking with Jerry Steinhauer, Chief Technical Officer at Singlewire. Welcome, Jerry.

 Thanks, Brad.

We're here today to talk about the Paging Gateway, the new Singlewire Paging Gateway that will be introduced here in the next few weeks or so. And you're here to talk about that. Can you tell us a little bit more about why we're talking about it and what it is?

 Sure. We're really excited to kind of enter this, this new stage in our product development, but before I can really talk about what the Paging Gateway is let me give you a little bit of background.

 So, multicast has always been a building block of our scalable paging solution. So, what that means is when InformaCast triggers a broadcast, each device is going to receive that broadcast by joining a multicast group, and this is really efficient.

This allows a single multicast talker on the network to send to tens or hundreds or even thousands of phones or speakers simultaneously so it's very scalable. We believe very strongly in multicast as a protocol, and we've been able to build very large installations for our customers as a result.

 But the downside is that there are some customers who can't run multicast on their networks, and as a result can't take advantage of InformaCast. The big example here is managed MPLS networks.

So, some customers can have outsourced the setup and maintenance of their wide area network to a service provider. And when some of these customers ask their service providers to configure multicast the service provider says, "No, sorry, we're not going to do that," "We're going to make this cost-prohibitive for you because we really don't want to do that."

 And so, these customers have been unable to participate in InformaCast historically. What the Paging Gateway does is to transmit multicast over parts of the network that don't support it. So the example that I just used was the wide area network. We're really excited to release the Paging Gateway because it addresses this particular pain point for our customers.

Now, how will this be used? You talked about a network or campus. Are you talking connecting buildings between places within a city, or even over a larger geography like a couple states? A branch office, central office type set up?

 So if you, if you think about your network in terms of islands of multicast. Going back to the generic example I used earlier--if there's an InformaCast server at headquarters, and the wide area network is unicast only, then the main site and each of the remote sites would be considered a multicast island.

They can talk multicast in locally, within each part of that network. So within headquarters, you can talk multicast to other devices, but multicast doesn't pass over the wide area network. So, really you, you think about this in terms of islands of multicast within your your larger network.

 So, the headquarters would be an island, and each remote would be an island in this hypothetical situation.

Now, how would a customer use Paging Gateway?

So, basically the way this works, the way we envision this working, is to install InformaCast at the headquarters site, install a Paging Gateway at each remote site, then we go through some configuration on the InformaCast side.

 And so, when InformaCast sends a broadcast, it's going to send that audio as a Unicast to the Paging Gateway. So, InformaCast to the main site, originates that audio as Unicast traffic, sends it over the wide area network, and then the Paging Gateway turns that back in to multicast for phones or speakers at that site.

Now where is the Paging Gateway run?

 So, the Paging Gateway is going to be installed at each of those multicast islands.

So, we, in our hypothetical example here, we would install Informacast at the headquarter site and the Paging Gateway at each of the remote sites.

Okay, and what makes up the Paging Gateway? Are there, is this an appliance or software, how does this work?

 Great question. So, to begin with, the Paging Gateway does require Informacast 8.0, which we just released in the last few weeks and this is because the Paging Gateway is, on the InformaCast side, considered a plugin. And the plugin architecture, as most of our customers will probably know, is new with Informacast 8.0.

 So, the, on the Informacast side, we do require 8.0, because that's a, that's a plugin. As far as what the Paging Gateway is, let's kind of break that down.

 At the top level, there's a Paging Gateway application, and this is a web-based application. So the application, this is code that software that we supply that connects to InformaCast at the headquarter's site.

Underneath the application is a Paging Gateway operating system. And in this release, this is Linux. And just to avoid confusion because some customers have said, "Oh, you're supporting Linux, so that must mean you're not supporting Windows for InformaCast." This is... All we're really talking about here is the Paging Gateway operating system. So, the Paging Gateway OS is Linux-based. We're going to continue supporting Windows for the InformaCast

So some customers could ask, "Why would you choose for an application like this?" And, two reasons. The first is stability. Because since this is part of your emergency broadcast infrastructure, we want to make sure that Paging Gateway at a remote site is as rock-solid as InformaCast is at your main site.

And the second is that it's good fit for the hardware that we've chosen. And it can scale up from very small environments with limited CPU resources up to very large environments with multiple machines and many more resources.

So, underneath the Paging Gateway operating system is sort of, the Paging Gateway server. And we're offering two options here, because we like to give customers choices depending on what their infrastructure looks like. That server can either be physical device or a virtual device.

The physical server is a, it's a very small box, it's about six inches by eight inches by one inch. It's a single board computer with ethernet port on it.

 And we chose the single board computer, because it has low power consumption. It's going to be easy to install.

You don't have to have a 19-inch rack to install your Paging Gateway into. This is a really a first for us, as far as offering a physical device.

We hope that's for some customers, but we also recognize that some customers are really excited about virtualization because this allows them to choose what server platform they run the application on.

So we are also offering the Paging Gateway as virtual server, and what this will be distributed as is a VM Ware image. We're very excited to support VM Ware ESX and VM Ware ESXI in this release.

Customers who aren't familiar with VM Ware may know that VM Ware ESXI is free.

So the VM Ware is a no cost option for you, some customers may say well, we want to run, we want to test using VM Ware products like Player or VM Ware server to try the Paging Gateway in our lab.

And that's perfectly okay. But just to be clear, we're only supporting VM Ware ESX and ESXI for production loads. And that's in line with what VM Ware recommends, as well.

 So a branch office, remote location is either going to see an appliance that they can purchase, or, if they have an option to put a virtual server in, they could put it right on there.

You bet.

And then be able to the web portal admin that you had mentioned, and be able to get into configuring the system with InformaCast.

You bet.

 So really the, if the choice is physical or virtual, really the user experience is the same. The Paging Gateway works the same whether it's physical or virtual.

 It configures the same whether it's physical or virtual. It's really just an administrative choice, in terms of what makes sense for that particular customer.

 Very good. What impact does this having, you know, running Paging Gateway on a network have on, on a customer's network?

 So this, this can get into some network sizing issues and, and I don't want to get too far off in the weeds, but I do want to mention that we do have options for how that voice stream gets sent over the network.

That can either be done as a G.711 stream or a "speaks"
So G.711 consumes about 80K per second and Speaks consumes somewhere around 24K per second. So, depending on the customer's infrastructure between these multicast islands, the customer can determine, which will give them the results that they want given their amount of bandwith that's available and latency.

Basically, the trade off there is G.711, its higher bandwidth, its lower CPU consumption for us. Whereas, for Speaks, Speaks requires more for us to do that job because what we're doing under the covers is translating G.711 into Speaks to send that out.

So the trade-off there is lower bandwidth consumption over the WAN, higher CPU utilization on the Paging Gateway, and on the InformaCast server. So there's some trade offs there, but we feel what's important to provide choices for our customers, because it allows our customers to deploy InformaCast in more diverse environments.

 Very good. So just to play this back, what this Paging Gateway is giving us is the ability to pass multicast or put it into a unicast stream, pass it over the WAN, to a remote location.

 And there we essentially unpack it with the Paging Gateway on the other side. A virtual machine or an appliance that can then reach Cisco phones over at paging systems in that remote location.

That's absolutely right. I do want to add one more tag to that. And that is to say that the Paging Gateway also allows, you mentioned Cisco phones specifically, the Paging Gateway also allows to deploy IP speakers at remote locations.

Historically, we required multicast over the WAN to make those work. The Paging Gateway allows you to register IP speakers at remote sites, to InformaCast at the main site.

So, again, another choice for deployment in diverse environments.

 Very good. Jerry, this is coming out in next few weeks, so...

 Yes, indeed. You know, watch singlewire.com for updates there, we're really excited about this.

 We'll be putting more information on the website at singlewire.com/ paging-gateway.

 And so, stop by there to see what 's going on. Jerry, thanks again.

 Thanks, Brad.

Posted in Podcasts | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Singlewire on Cius: Using RemotePhoneControl and InformaCast

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Singlewire Software is developing a number of applications to run on the new Cisco Cius device including RemotePhoneControl and InformaCast. We invite you to watch the short video below to get a quick demonstration and overview of our efforts.

Hi, I'm Brad Jungmann, technical architect from Singlewire Software. I'm here with John Monroe, software engineer from Singlewire Software.

We are here to talk to you today about what Singlewire been up to in regards to the Cisco Cius on that platform, and how we're porting our applications and run with that more effectively. Namely will be our first RemotePhoneControl product along with our InformaCast product.

For our first demonstration, we have the RemotePhoneControl. We'll bring it up right here. Basically what you do here, it's similar to our existing product where you can create your own phones, list of phones, appropriate information, and then all you have to do is go ahead and pull down selected, the phones that you have existing and then you can go ahead and select and off select the one we have here in a room  and then all you've to do is go ahead and hit open and what it will do is show you the current phone line.

And you can see that in the background.

 And that's actually the phone that we have here in the room standing behind us here, too. So if you do a button push thing, what would happen?

 Yeah, what you can do here is you can drag it around. You can actual zoom in a little bit. And then all these buttons are actual are live, so all you have to do is basically touch screen.

OK you just control your phone.

And if you hit the speaker button it will actually take that phone off hook at that time?

Yes, that's correct.

Really handy tool with a Cius that can definitely take advantage of using that as a Cisco engineer or any voice engineer to help remotely troubleshoot any Cisco phones and do it from a mobile device, that's awesome. Great, so what we have here in the room today is actually a Cisco IP phone that we'll be sending a broadcast, too.  Along with a Barix device that we have connected to an actual strobe light.

That's an IP enabled device, it's powered over ethernet and it has relay contacts where you can trigger events. From the actual Cius. We will be triggering notifications. So any of the predefined messages that you have within the InformaCast solution or any of the predefined groups, we can send notifications to using this Cius application that John had developed.

 The second application that we currently have in development is basically a way to initiate an InformaCast broadcast. And what you do here is, what it's doing is pulling from the InformaCast server all of the messages that we have set up, along with all the recipient groups that are currently active.

So what you can do is pick your message that you want to send, and we'll just do the hammer here, and then pick where you want to send it to. In this case we've got a whole list here. For our demo we've got the Bistro demo right here. And what that's going to do when you hit broadcast, yes, will send out a InformaCast broadcast to the phone, and in this case we have contact closures set up also.

We're turning on the flashing light.

 Well that's great John. It's really great seeing what we do as Singlewire is part of the Cisco development network and taking advantage of what Cisco allowed for us to do with Cisco Cius SDK to develop an application for the Cius.

At Singlewire we look forward to developing more applications and taking advantage of that as a platform with the informant cast and the other solutions that we provide for Cisco.

Posted in Use Case Videos | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Migrate from ReliCast to DialCast – Whitepaper

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Allie McGuire

If you have upgraded to InformaCast 8.0, the newest version of Singlewire’s IP paging system, you may also be ready to migrate from ReliCast to DialCast. Our senior programmers and engineers at Singlewire have put together the white paper “ReliCast to DialCast: A Migration Guide for a Cisco Unified Communications Manager Environment” to help guide you through the migration process.
This white paper is an excellent tool for:

  • Customers upgrading to InformaCast 8.0 who have CUCM
  • Customers wanting to initiate InformaCast broadcasts by placing calls from an IP phone
  • Customers who want to simplify their InformaCast configuration

Beginning with InformaCast 6.1, installing ReliCast gave customers the ability to initiate pages as calls from a phone. ReliCast handled the receipt of a voice call and then trigged an InformaCast broadcast.

We’ve heard feedback from customers that ReliCast was too complicated to setup. We’ve listened! As a result, we’ve created DialCast as an integrated part of InformaCast.

ReliCast will continue to work with InformaCast 8.0 and you are therefore not required to migrate from ReliCast to DialCast at this time. However, ReliCast support will end in a later version of InformaCast. As DialCast is easier to set up, troubleshoot, and support, Singlewire recommends that customers use it instead of ReliCast.
Some of the capabilities that DialCast gives you:

  • Assigning a dialed number (e.g. 1234) to an InformaCast broadcast.
  • Use the dialed number to match other parts of the InformaCast configuration. For example, let’s say you have 9 buildings in Madison, call them buildings 1-9. Users dial 21 followed by the building number to page there. A single DialCast rule for 21(\d) allows DialCast to receive calls for 211 to building 1, 212 to building 2, and then send the call for 211 to the recipient group called “Madison Building 1,” 212 to the recipient group “Madison Building 2,” etc.

Before completing the steps in the white paper, you should have:

  • Upgraded to InformaCast 8.0 or later
  • Configured ReliCast and Cisco Unified Communications Manager according to the directions set forth in the “ReliCast Installation and User Guide”

Download our whitepaper




Key Takeaways:

  • With InformaCast 8.0, users can migrate from ReliCast to DialCast for initiating pages as calls from a phone.
  • The whitepaper “ReliCast to DialCast: A Migration Guide for a Cisco Unified Communications Manager Environment” will walk users through how to make the switch from ReliCast to DialCast.
  • ReliCast support will be discontinued in future versions of InformaCast.
Posted in White Papers | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Overhead Paging Demonstration of Singlewire InformaCast

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Singlewire InformaCast can be used for mass notification, emergency communication, clock and bell scheduling (for school class and shift changes), and overhead paging. The following video shows several examples of how InformaCast can be used for sending different types of overhead pages throughout an organization.

Hi, I'm going to give you a brief overview of InformaCast, a very powerful, secure yet easy to use paging and mass notification system.

InformaCast allows you to send text and/or audio messages to Cisco IP phones. It also allows you to send audio to indoor and outdoor speakers and allows you to zone devices to meet your needs. It provides you with easy and secure access by pushing a button or dialing a zone.

In our demonstration environment here we've set up phones to simulate three floors of a residence. We have first floor, second floor and third floor and a phone from which we'll be sending the messages.

 So, here I'm going to send a message just to the first floor.

Attention all staff, please come to the Governor's office.

Attention all staff, please come to the Governor's office.

There you saw me record the message and then send it out to the first floor paging system. Now I'm going to send a message to all of the zones in the building.

Attention staff, our meeting will begin in two minutes in the library.

Attention staff, our meeting will begin in two minutes in the library.

 There you saw me record the message and then send it out to all of the phones and speakers in the building. I can also send a page directly to any phone in the building.

At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording please press "#". Press "*" to cancel at any time.

Attention, please come to the governor's office immediately.

 Attention, please come to the governor's office immediately.

 The system allows you to do pre-recorded, ad hoc or live messages. Here is an example of a live message.

 Attention, please assemble. Our important guest has arrived.

 In summary, InformaCast makes paging throughout your facility easy, effective, and secure. For more information on InformaCast, please visit our website at singlewire.com. Thank you.

Learn more about this solution by visiting www.singlewire.com/learnmore.

Posted in Use Case Videos | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Prompt Response from Singlewire Enables Quick Resolution

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Brad Parkel

HealthNow Testimonial

“Just want to let you know that I was showing a new teammate around InformaCast today when we discovered the issue with the contract ID. I sent the e-mail to you just before lunch. I said, “watch this…they’ll respond before we sit down at the table.” Sure enough, you didn’t disappoint.

I have always appreciated the way both the sales and support teams at Singlewire have taken care of us. Thanks very much!!!”

- Dave Wolgast, Senior Voice Engineer at HealthNow New York, Inc. www.healthnowny.com

 

 

Posted in Quotes | Tagged | Leave a comment

STUGGE 2011 – REGISTER NOW – Singlewire Technical Users Group Gathering and Exchange

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Brad Parkel

Singlewire Software is excited to announce STUGGE 2011. This year’s event offers attendees an affordable conference that will allow you to gather answers and resources that will assist in the day-to-day business decisions your business faces regarding your existing and potential technology solutions.

As an added incentive, all registrants will receive three complementary copies of Singlewire’s RemotePhoneControl, a $1305 dollar value, just for attending.

CLICK TO REGISTER

This year’s meeting will include:

  • Product road map through InformaCast version 9.0
  • Review and preview of InformaCast plugins
  • Customer stories on best practices
  • Updates from our technology partners

Event registration and room reservations will be handled separately. Please register to attend, then reserve your hotel room through MGM Signature by calling 800.929.9411. A block of discounted rooms have been reserved for attendees with options to come early or stay on after the event. The negotiated rate for nights between April 4th and 7th is $99 a night plus taxes and fees and $199 plus taxes and fees for April 3rd or April 8th. Pleas use the group code SIS999 when making your reservations.

Webcasting and photography

Please note that by attending the STUGGE 2011, attendees have agreed to allow photographs, audio and video captured on-site to be used and edited for educational and promotional purposes.

Cancellation Policy

No refunds will be available once registration is complete. A registration may be transferred to another person. Please contact Jill Lenoble at jill.lenoble@singlewire.com for more information.

Any hotel cancellations are subject to MGM Signature policies.

Event Agenda

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

5:30 pm to 7:30 pm – Welcome Reception

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

8:00 am to 9:00 am – Continental Breakfast
9:00 am to 11:00 am – Opening Ceremonies/Keynote Addresses: InformaCast 8.1 and 9.0 features under development – SIP, redundancy, unicast enablement, etc.
11:00 am to 11:15 am – Break
11:15 am to 12:00 pm – Off-Network Notification
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm – Lunch
1:00 pm to 1:30 pm – Presentation: CyberData IP EndPoints
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm – Presentation: Customer (TBD)
2:30 pm to 2:45 pm – Break
2:45 pm to 3:15 pm – Presentation: Partner (TBD)
3:15 pm to 4:00 pm – Summary and Prioritization of Roadmap
5:30 pm to 9:30 pm – Evening Reception

CLICK TO REGISTER

 

 

 

Posted in Events | Leave a comment

Automatically Send Notification to Twitter with InformaCast

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Brad Parkel

When you send notification to your organization, automatically post it to Twitter.

Here’s how it works.

Using the free plugin for Twitter in InformaCast, simply type in the login credentials for your organization’s Twitter account.

When setting up a message group in InformaCast, you can see and choose your Twitter account from the list of options.

When you send notification to your organization, text from your message will automatically be posted to your Twitter account for others to see.

Use Singlewire InformaCast to easily post notification to your Twitter account.

Learn more about our solution by visiting www.singlewire.com/plugins.

Posted in Use Case Videos | Tagged , , | Leave a comment