Mconf: collaboration proposal to form a global infrastructure for web conferencing based on open source

Abstract

Abstract:The objective of this paper is to present and propose collaboration to the world to join the global web conferencing network known as Mconf (http://mconf.org), which is an open source distributed, scalable and federated global webconference system, with mobile access, composed of four main entities: 1) a customizable web portal that provides access to web conferences, shared documents, spaces and more; 2) a load balancer that allows the system to scale to thousands of users; 3) a web conferencing system powered by BigBlueButton; 4) a mobile web conferencing client. The only requirement for an institution to join the global network is to provide one server with enough resources (CPU and network) to meet the demand of their users. After that, the use of a global network brings many advantages, like: a) if one server fails, others can assume their users temporarily; b) if one server is overwhelmed, others can supply the extra demand; c) some servers which are idle during the night can supply the demand of the other part of the globe which is working during the day; d) servers can be allocated on demand in a virtualized dynamic cloud architecture. 29