Automatic Deployment of a Communication Mesh for Synchronous e-Learning Activities

Abstract

Synchronous e-learning platforms are frequently used to train the personnel of large corporations. Usually, these corporations are geographically dispersed in multiple sites, so efficient transport of multimedia streams during an e-learning activity is essential. In order to interconnect the groups of participants, it is necessary to deploy a communication mesh. If the number of sites is high, non-automatic deployment of the communication mesh is complex, cumbersome and prone to errors, delaying the startup of e-learning activities. In this paper, an automatic deployment technique based on a centralized server is proposed. This technique continuously updates the composition of the communication mesh, and involves only those sites where there are active participants in the e-learning activity, modifying the mesh topology in function of the joining and leaving of participants. Tests show that the proposed automatic deployment technique makes use of the available bandwidth efficiently.