Scaling Up [Jitsi Meet](https://jitsi.support/wiki/understanding-jitsi-basics/) for Over 1,000 Users: A How-To Guide

So, you’ve got this task of making Jitsi Meet handle thousands of people at once? It’s definitely a challenge that needs some serious strategy and a bit of tech savvy. If you’re looking to boost Jitsi Meet for a crowd of, say, over 1,000 participants, you’re in the right place. This guide is your new best friend, walking you through the entire process with easy-to-follow steps, even if you’re just starting out or dusting off your skills.

Whether it’s a community gathering, online classes, or office meetings, get ready for some practical tips to build a stable and scalable video platform.

Scaling Jitsi: The Challenges

Don’t think you can just pump up the server power and call it a day. Nope, scaling Jitsi involves handling all sorts of tech issues when you’re catering to tons of users:

• JVB Resource Crunch: Jitsi Videobridge (JVB) is key here. It’s your go-to for handling media streams. Usually, one JVB can deal with about 50-100 participants—depending on how beefy your hardware is. Overstretching can lead to a messy drop in quality.

• Control Plane Overload: Then there’s Prosody (your XMPP server) and Jicofo (what keeps your meetings ticking). They end up shouldering more load as user numbers jump, and can easily choke if not scaled well.

• Bandwidth and Lag: Understand that video calls gobble up bandwidth and are pretty touchy with lag. So your network should be tough and possibly spread out like mini hubs or CDN setups near users.

• Security and Safety: More users mean higher chances of hacks or breaches. Ensuring encryption and keeping up with rules (think GDPR, or even HIPAA) is vital.

• Balance and Failover: You’ve got to nail the load balancing act and have failover plans so nothing falls apart during peak times.

Tackling these hurdles calls for solid infrastructure planning and a good grasp of your software setup, along with non-stop monitoring.

How’s Scaling Jitsi Different?

Unlike your usual web applications, video platforms have some pretty unique demands:

• It’s about forwarding media in real-time without delays.
• There’s a lot of CPU usage for handling media packets, especially with things like simulcast.
• Plus, keeping everything in sync across the platform is crucial.

Got all that? Perfect. Now you’re on your way to properly scaling Jitsi Meet.

Setting Up Virtual Infrastructure

Building out your infrastructure is where it all starts. Make sure it can deal with high data rates, has multiple moving parts, and redundancy to boot.

The Core Parts

• Loads of JVBs: Deploy a bunch of Jitsi Videobridge instances, either clustered or spread out, with load balancers to spread the load.

• Prosody, but Stress-Ready: Multiple Prosody servers will boost your resilience and care of bottlenecks.

• Jicofo to the Rescue: Redundant Jicofo instances mean better availability and fewer problems.

• Spread the Load: TCP/UDP load balancers (think HAProxy, NGINX, cloud options) will help balance signaling traffic.

• Database and Storage: Jitsi doesn’t go heavy on databases, but custom integrations—like auth systems or analytics—might.

Network and Hardware Tips

• Dedicated Servers or VMs with high I/O and CPUs. Media forwarding loves high clock-speed CPUs and quick NICs (10Gbps is ideal).

• Spread Out Data Centers near global users to cut down on latency.

• Plenty of Bandwidth to cope with loads of video streams.

• Containers or Kubernetes for a smoother scaling and orchestration process.

Ready for Scaling and Backup

• Always think ahead to avoid any single point failures.
• Jitsi’s built-in balance features or DNS SRV records help assign users dynamically to JVBs.
• Keep tweaking server settings, including JVM for Java components.

This groundwork sets the stage for deploying those scalable parts.

Multi-Component Scaling: JVB, Prosody, Jicofo

Next, you’ll need to adjust the main Jitsi components. Each bit demands tuning to keep things running smoothly when loads of video calls are happening at once.

Pumping Up Jitsi Videobridge

JVB takes on forwarding media packets and is super resource-hungry.

• Multiply Your JVBs: Share the load with several JVBs. Jitsi Meet dynamic load balancing directs users to the least busy JVB via Jicofo’s calls.

• Try Octo for Regional Calls: Octo lets you link multiple JVBs across areas, boosting performance for users far apart.

• Tweak Simulcast and RTP/RTCP Settings: Cuts down on CPU and bandwidth but keeps quality intact.

• Hardware Picks: For bigger deployments, load up with high-core servers (8+ cores) and at least 16GB RAM for JVB nodes.

Tweaking Prosody (XMPP)

Prosody’s job? Take care of signaling, presence, and authentication.

• Cluster with Prosody’s MUC Module: Several instances sharing a backend (like Redis) handle lots of connections nicely.

• Adjust Connections and Timeouts: Make room for many simultaneous connections by tweaking defaults.

• Secure It: TLS, strong authentication, and access controls are your friends here for privacy and security.

Adjusting Jicofo (Focus Element)

Jicofo helps manage conferences:

• Redundant and Ready: Keep at least two Jicofo instances as a backup. They’re in charge of working with Prosody to sort participants.

• Tune Threads and Timeouts: Essential for avoiding delays when setting up new meetings or simultaneous user joins.

• Stick with Session Persistence: Jicofo’s closely tied to JVBs, so keep session states firm across setups.

Get Everything Working Together

The more smoothly these components function together and share loads, the higher number of users you’ll manage. Always run the latest Jitsi Meet versions and configurations from official resources to make the most of scaling advances.

Keeping an Eye and Testing the Load

Don’t fly blind—monitoring is crucial. Keep tabs on how things are performing and put your platform through its paces regularly.

Monitoring Setup

• Count on Prometheus and Grafana: Jitsi’s got Prometheus exporter support to grab metrics from JVB, Prosody, and Jicofo. Grafana lets you visualize CPU, memory, bandwidth, user numbers, and errors.

• Watch Critical Stats:

  • CPU and memory of JVB
  • Track packet loss and jitter
  • Check how many are in each call
  • Keep an eye on signaling lag
  • Watch network bandwidth closely

• Set Alerts for spikes, resource lag, or calls being dropped.

Testing Under Load

• Fake Out the Concurrent Users: Use tools like Jitsi Hammer specifically meant for Jitsi stress testing.

• Test All Corners:

  • Load Prosody/Jicofo with signaling
  • Pressure JVBs with media forwarding
  • Stretch network latency and throughput

• Start Small and Build: Begin with lighter loads, grow it, spot bottlenecks, then improve before going big.

• Fine-tune Thanks to Data: After tests, tweak your server capacity and component counts based on the gathered intel.

In Practice

Back in my days running community video platforms, a CPU over 70% on JVB often signaled impending doom—like quality drops. Alerts let us pre-emptively add JVB capacity, dodging disruptions at events.

A Real-World Scaling Tale

Check this out—a big education platform scaled Jitsi Meet for over 1,200 users for their online seminars:

The Initial Scene

• A single JVB wobbled with 100 folks.
• CPU off-the-charts, lags, and call drops plagued busy times.

The Moves

• Introduced 5 JVBs with 8-core, 16GB RAM machines.
• Deployed a regional Prosody cluster and failover Jicofo.
• Made good use of the Octo relay protocol for cross-region calls.
• Hooked up Prometheus/Grafana for checking performance and ran Jitsi Hammer to prep for 1,200 user tests ahead of big events.

The Wins

• Clean, smooth calls with little lag.
• Client assignment handled evenly across JVBs.
• Early warnings led to proactive JVB scaling.
• Users enjoyed steady conferences with zero breaks.

This story’s packed with practical steps you can use for your Jitsi infra to host large sessions.

Wrapping It Up

Getting Jitsi Meet to run for 1,000+ users isn’t just about luck. It hinges on careful infrastructure plotting, boosting JVB, Prosody, Jicofo, and ongoing vigilance. Real-life success comes from using dedicated servers, savvy load balancing, and efficient media forwarding tweaks.

These insights equip you for building a solid, scalable system that handles hefty video calls without skimping on quality. Make sure to frequently test with Jitsi’s tools and keep tabs on your setup to catch glitches early on.

If diving deeper or skillfully scaling your Jitsi Meet system interests you, start with a modest multi-JVB arrangement, then expand. Scaling takes time and planning, but you’ll thank yourself down the line.

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Time to amp up your Jitsi Meet setup? Begin by comparing your existing system with these steps. Deploy additional JVBs and ensure Prometheus is part of your monitoring arsenal. If you need a tailored consultation or guidance, reach out for specialist advice.

Scaling Jitsi Meet is a tough nut, but doable with a solid strategy—now’s a great time to get started.

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