Mediasite for the enterprise. Technical planner: TP-05

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Mediasite for

the enterprise

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Technical Planner: TP‐05 Mediasite for the Enterprise Sonic Foundry, Inc. Page 3 of 13

Mediasite Recorders

The Mediasite Recorder is responsible for capturing the presenter’s video, audio and visual materials in high resolution–automatically webcasting them live or on‐demand without changing how they present. The Recorder can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse or through a web interface, or it can be automatically scheduled to start and stop recording at predetermined times. The Mediasite Recorder is available in the mobile or rack mounted form factors.

Room-based capture: Mediasite RL Recorder

 For lecture halls, smart classrooms, conference and training rooms, or auditoriums

 Integrates with Crestron and AMX room control and automation systems

 Standard and HD models available

Portable capture: Mediasite ML Recorder

 For on‐the‐go webcasting, live events, conferences, hybrid events, and trade shows

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Mediasite Server

The Mediasite EX Server consists of multiple components that have various roles in managing the Mediasite solution. Depending on the business needs of the Mediasite system, the individual modules will be deployed across multiple servers. The major modules and their role are outlined in the table below.

Server components

Component Name Role Major System Requirement

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Component Name Role Major System Requirement

Database Responsible for storing presentation metadata, logs, and other settings. Media files are NOT stored in the database. Microsoft SQL Server 2005+ or Microsoft SQL Express 2005+ System Services Service responsible for creating Podcast and Publish to Go versions of a presentation. ‐ Windows Server 2003, 2008 or 2008 R2 ‐ Microsoft .NET 4 OCR Service Scans and indexes the text from the slide images captured by the Mediasite Recorder. The results are used to improve search capabilities. ‐ Windows Server 2003, 2008 or 2008 R2 ‐ Microsoft .NET 4 Search Service The indexing service scans all Mediasite presentations allowing users to search for Mediasite content. ‐ Windows Server 2003, 2008 or 2008 R2 ‐ Microsoft .NET 4 Transcoding Service Converts Mediasite presentations into different media formats (WMV, Smooth Streaming (H.264), MP4), enabling optimal playback on multiple desktop and portable devices. ‐ Windows Server 2003, 2008 or 2008 R2 ‐ Microsoft .NET 4

Server hardware requirements

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Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2  CPU: Intel® Xeon® Quad Core 2GHz or better  RAM: 4GB or more  Storage: o Web: Operating system plus 0.5MB storage per minute of content o Media: Operating system plus 2MB storage per minute of content* o Transcoding: Operating system plus 50GB for temporary files o System, Search and OCR Services: Operating system plus 50GB for temporary files  RAID storage configuration and redundant power supplies (recommended)

Microsoft Windows Server 2003

 CPU: Intel® Xeon® Quad Core 2GHz or better  RAM: 4GB or more  Storage: o Web: Operating system plus 0.5MB storage per minute of content o Media: Operating system plus 2MB storage per minute of content* o Transcoding: Operating system plus 50GB for temporary files o System, Search and OCR Services: Operating system plus 50GB for temporary files  RAID storage configuration and redundant power supplies (recommended) * Additional storage is required if recording with Smooth Streaming or making content available for portable devices.

End User Playback

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Deployment Models

Depending on the business needs for Mediasite, server hardware requirements will vary. The easiest way to determine the preferred deployment model is based on the number of concurrent users viewing content and any uptime or redundancy requirements. The table below outlines a general recommendation for the type of deployment for the most common scenarios. Sonic Foundry Professional Services can provide comprehensive assistance with deployment planning. Concurrent Viewers 0 – 500 500 – 1000 1000+ Deployme nt Ty p e

Pilot 3 Server 4 Server Load Balanced

Production 4 Server Load Balanced Load Balanced

Enterprise or Campus‐Wide

4 Server

Load Balanced Load Balanced Load Balanced

Three-server deployment

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Module locations: Web/Database Server Transcoding Server Media Server AD/LDAP (Optional) EX Server Software ADAM/AD‐LDS Media Server Control Service Database System Services OCR Service Search Service Transcoding Service

This deployment model is ideal for:

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Technical Planner: TP‐05 Mediasite for the Enterprise Sonic Foundry, Inc. Page 9 of 13 Module locations: Web Server Media Server Transcoding Server Database Server AD/LDAP (Optional) EX Server Software ADAM/AD‐LDS Media Server Control Service Database System Services OCR Service Search Service Transcoding Service

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Module locations: Web Server(s) Media Server(s) Database Server(s) NAS Transcoding/ Worker Server(s) AD/LDAP (Optional) EX Server Software ADAM/AD‐LDS Media Server Control Service Database System Services OCR Service Search Service Transcoding Service

 Deployments where redundancy and capacity are critical  Situations where a large amount of live and on‐demand content will be produced on a daily basis  Customers looking to leverage an existing database and Network Attached Storage (NAS) on their network  Situations where the number of concurrent users watching a presentation at the same time is high  Customers who plan on recording high bitrate content

Scaling Mediasite for Larger Deployments

When configured properly, Mediasite is designed to be able to record from many simultaneous recorders and stream the recorded presentations live and on‐demand to thousands of LAN or internet users. In order to scale to this level, Mediasite can be configured to integrate with 3rd party applications and various network hardware.

Authentication

Enterprise directories

Connecting Mediasite to an external Active Directory or LDAP directory allows Mediasite Administrators to take advantage of existing groups and users on their network to grant access to the Mediasite system. Roles can be created in Mediasite that are automatically mapped to users or groups in an external directory and used to secure Mediasite content. As users are added and removed from the AD or LDAP group, these users are automatically granted or denied access to the secured Mediasite resource. Please refer to the Mediasite Security Technical Planner for more details on connecting Mediasite to an external Active Directory or LDAP directory.

Single sign-on (SSO) using SAML 2.0

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Service Provider. For further instructions on integrating Mediasite with a SAML 2.0 identity provider, please refer to the Mediasite Security Technical Planner.

Alternate Single Sign-On (SSO) Solutions

Sonic Foundry offers custom development services, at an additional cost, to implement a custom login page that authenticates users based on alternate schemes like:  Single Sign‐On (SSO) based on integrated authentication with Internet Information Services (IIS)  Single Sign‐On (SSO) from a proprietary authentication system such as CAS or e‐Authentication In such cases, the new login page is specified as part of the ASP.NET forms authentication settings for the Mediasite EX Server and Mediasite uses it instead of the default one. For more information about SSO development, please contact Sonic Foundry Technical Support, or your Sonic Foundry Sales Engineer for pricing.

Custom SSO

Mediasite includes the External Data Access Service (EDAS) API that provides programmatic access to many server functions, including custom authorization via ticketing functions. Custom development using this API can be implemented by Sonic Foundry on an engagement basis or by a software developer with some Microsoft.NET platform experience. Examples of such integration include developing Mediasite extensions for a learning management system or content management system, or integrating Mediasite into a web portal.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Content Management Systems (CMS)

Mediasite Building Block for Blackboard Learn

The Blackboard Building Block allows Blackboard users to automatically publish any Mediasite‐recorded presentation, lecture or training, whether live or archived, to courses in Blackboard Learn. Single sign‐on (SSO) support streamlines access for students while ensuring content security and accurate reporting. For more information on this module, please contact your Sonic Foundry sales representative.

Mediasite Content Module for Moodle

The Moodle content module allows you to easily link to Mediasite content from within any Moodle course. With SSO support, students watch secure content without additional authentication to the Mediasite Server. This open source module is available at http://moodle.com.

Embedded presentations and catalogs

Mediasite’s built‐in embedding capabilities and flexible Player and Catalog layouts also make it easy to integrate video and rich media content within other Learning Management Systems (LMS), Content Management System (CMS), blogs, and any website that support embedded content.

Embedded Mediasite presentations retain any security restrictions that are assigned in the EX Server management system.

External Data Access Service (EDAS) API

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The documentation and sample code package for EDAS can be downloaded from the MediasiteCustomer Assurance Portal.

Network Integration

Firewall

Depending on how Mediasite EX Server is configured on a network, certain ports in the Windows Firewall or enterprise firewall may need to be opened. Please refer to the Technical Planner titled Network Setup and Firewall Considerations for more details.

SSL

By default, Mediasite uses a Self‐Signed SSL certificate to protect login credentials on the main login pages and to encrypt all back‐end traffic used between the different Mediasite components. For users wanting more security, it is possible to enable HTTPS for the entire web interface, requiring that users view all Mediasite Management Portal, Catalog and Player web pages over HTTPS. The video stream can also be streamed over HTTPS if content is encoded as a MP4 and served over IIS Media Services as a progressive download. When enabling SSL in a Mediasite deployment, Sonic Foundry recommends that customers purchase a certificate from a trusted provider.

Media Security

The system is capable of protecting video content through the use of the Mediasite Authorization module. The module is installed as a handler on IIS Media Services or a windows media authorization plug‐in on the Windows Media Server. When enabled, this IIS Media Services and Windows Media Services plug‐in ensures that the media file can only be viewed through the Mediasite player, reducing the chances of a hacker guessing the URL to the media file and playing or downloading it without permission.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

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Technical Planner: TP‐05 Mediasite for the Enterprise Sonic Foundry, Inc. Page 13 of 13 Any number of viewers can join the multicast stream and the network routing and switching hardware will provide a copy of the video stream to the user without any additional load on the server. An engagement with Sonic Foundry Professional Services is required for Mediasite multicast implementation. Mediasite account representatives or resellers can provide cost information relative to specific multicast deployments.

Push & Pull Distribution for live broadcasts

Mediasite 6 Recorder is capable of pushing a live broadcast to a media server. This may be required when the inbound connection to a recorder from the Mediasite server is blocked. This typically occurs when a Mediasite recorder is placed at a remote location relative to the server deployment. The default

configuration is for the EX server to pull the media stream from a Mediasite 6 Recorder. In both scenarios, you can specify a secondary media server to support failover of media servers.

Network Load Balancing (NLB)

In a load balanced deployment, the network load balancer is a critical piece to ensure that Recorder and End‐user traffic is automatically directed to the proper web and media servers. When using a 3rd party Network Load Balancer (NLB), the following points must be considered:  The NLB is configured with virtual IP addresses and FQDNs for Mediasite Servers and Media Servers.  Sticky / persistent mode is enabled to maintain a user’s connection to a single server for a session.  The NLB should preferably be set up in active/active mode for high‐availability and scalability. The NLB should be capable of balancing HTTP, HTTPS and FTP traffic. Please note that each additional EX Server requires a high‐availability license. To purchase Mediasite EX Server high‐availability licenses contact your Sonic Foundry account representative or reseller.

Mediasite Job Farm

Mediasite 6 offloads long running jobs to the Mediasite Job Farm. Various services run on the Mediasite Job Farm and include transcoding, OCR, publish to go, reporting etc. This allows the machine running the EX Server to be maximized for managing, browsing and playback operations. The job farm can be scaled by adding more units of a particular service for faster turn‐around times. The Mediasite Configuration Editor provides a dashboard that allows administrators to see how their job farm is performing. The administrator can use this information to add new worker machines to the pool of services based on metrics.

Additional Information

Additional installation and deployment information is available in the Mediasite EX Server Deployment

Guide, which can be downloaded from the Mediasite Customer Assurance Portal. New Mediasite customers may contact their Sonic Foundry sales representative for more information on scheduling a date for setting up a new Mediasite installation.