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Apache OpenMeetings video conferencing platform

Closed Society

Article from ADMIN 71/2022

By Thomas Joos

The free video conferencing platform has comprehensive collaboration tools with instant messaging, whiteboards, screen sharing, and team features in document processing – and it can be hosted locally so sensitive corporate data is not exposed to cloud services.

The Apache OpenMeetings (AOM) video conferencing platform [1] does not require special software on clients for access; all of its features are available in the browser. User management is handled by an integrated system in which you create users and add external email addresses on request. However, you can also connect to Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) systems such as Active Directory. Starting in version 6, Apache OpenMeetings also supports TLS 1.2 for OAuth and do-it-yourself captchas.

AOM lets you schedule meetings, create surveys, and back up data easily. The system is ideal for providing home office users a simple video conferencing system that can be set up quickly on their own hardware. Operation in virtual machines (VMs) or as a container solution is also quite easy to implement.

Users invite colleagues to attend meetings directly in the web interface. They then receive notifications to the specified email address or directly in the web browser during OpenMeetings sessions. Users can maintain their profiles, including photos, on the dashboard and change their passwords at any time. As a result, AOM also provides a good basis for teams that want to maintain their own user data.

OpenMeetings can also be accessed by APIs that support streaming media servers, such as Red5 and Kurento (which forms the basis of AOM). You also can use the AOM PHP client [2] via the REST API. AOM supports the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs as well as OAuth2. Voice over IP (VoIP) and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) can also be used.

Three demo servers [3-5] are available for an initial look at Apache OpenMeetings. After logging in, you can familiarize yourself with the AOM functions and start using the system. The installation is relatively simple but takes more than an hour to

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