Customer story Government Connect

How Pexip connected video meeting solutions across the sprawling Aix-Marseille-Provence region

About the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolitan area

The Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis (AMP) is a regional authority that encompasses five major cities and 92 municipalities in France. It was created as part of an intercommunal cooperation effort that went into effect in 2016, when several pre-existing municipalities were merged to form this new metropolis in the southeastern part of the country. AMP manages activities such as regional urban planning, economic development, transport, culture, sport, and more.

Contact: Mr. Combes, Project Manager, Collaboration Department, Data and Digital Transformation Division, Digital Division, Métropole Aix-Marseille-Provence.

Challenges faced

How to communicate, both internally and externally, across a large and dispersed organization to effectively meet the needs of 92 municipalities in the area, and to secure a replacement product for the former BlueJeans (by Verizon) video interoperability service.

Results

Secure, flexible, easy-to-use cloud service. Guaranteed operational stability and quality of service. User satisfaction: easy connections from video meeting rooms and/or Microsoft Teams.

Challenges

How to facilitate effective communication across a newly unified region

The AMP regional authority was created in 2016, bringing together several disparate entities to form one large governing body to cover the area. To collaborate and communicate remotely, they needed a new and efficient communication and collaboration solution.

Many of the various offices already had conventional projectors or TV screens, but few had traditional video conferencing terminals (such as H323/SIP), many of which were considered too complex to use.

To harmonize and facilitate remote meetings within the territory, the Digital Department decided to implement Microsoft-based video conferencing rooms, called Teams Rooms. Since they were already Office 365 users, they were able to deploy Teams Rooms rapidly across their many sites.

The COVID crisis only served to accelerate the adoption of this service, and the AMP metropolis was one of the first in France to organize Metropolitan Commissions and Councils entirely remotely (in 2020), connecting over 250 elected representatives and councilors remotely.

Finding a bridge to connect different meetings solutions

The AMP metropolis’s second requirement was interoperability, meaning the ability to host participants and join any type of video meeting regardless of equipment or meeting services. Those requirements led them to Pexip’s doorstep.

Challenge

Besoin de faciliter la communication entre 6 intercommunalités rassemblant les 92 communes du territoire et leurs interlocuteurs internes & externes. Remplacement du service d’interopérabilité vidéo de Bluejeans en 2023.

Résultats

Service en mode Cloud sécurisé, flexible et plus simple à exploiter. Stabilité opérationnelle et qualité de service garantie. Satisfaction des utilisateurs.: facilité des connections depuis les salles de réunion vidéo et/ou Microsoft Teams.

Solution

Solution d'interopérabilité Pexip avec l'interconnexion vers Microsoft Teams.

Services Pexip utilisés

Pexip Connect standard: Avec passerelle (CVI) vers Microsoft Teams.

Solution

In 2023, the AMP metropolis selected the Pexip Connect Standard product to deliver the interoperability they needed for their many video meetings.

The Pexip Connect solution was selected due to its:

Extended interoperability with several meeting solutions, including Teams, Google, and Webex

1-click participant connection (One Touch Join)

Optimal Teams experience and interface, regardless of equipment

Resilience and quality of service

Monitoring tools and statistics

In addition, the level of security and data protection, embodied by Pexip's ANSSI certification, was an important factor in selecting this solution, particularly in facilitating its validation by the IT security team (RSSI).

“We chose Pexip's interoperability service for its performance and simplicity, both for IT administrators and users.”

- Mr. Combes, Métropole Aix-Marseille-Provence - October 2024

Results

The use of Pexip Connect has been a success across the team, meeting all their technical requirements and guaranteeing quality of service.

Any meeting, any room

Optimized collaboration between all the offices and their external contacts (ministries, central administration, government agencies, etc.).

All preparatory meetings (commissions) for metropolitan council meetings are held by video conference, with no travel constraints for elected representatives.

A seamless experience

Ease of use and transparency for participants

Easy set up for the technical team

Timesaving for the IT team in the management of the service

Next step? Ensuring video communication continues, even during crisis

The AMP metropolitan authority provides a catalog of applications for town halls, to encourage best practice in terms of communication tools, and they now recommend Pexip as the interoperability solution of choice.

In the future, the AMP authority says it may consider another solution from Pexip, called Pexip Secure Meetings, based on the company’s Infinity platform. The idea is to use Pexip to ensure a back-up video conferencing service dedicated to crisis management, among other things. This self-hosted video service operates in air-gapped environments, remaining operational even in the event of a network failure or cyber-attack.