content distribution management - sports video group

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Connect your Content Supply Chain to Enable New Digital Business and Streamline Operations With a simple web user interface and no client software to install, users interactively initiate content transfers using the IP-based Signiant Acceleration Protocol to maximize network efficiency. Users can exchange content with other users, systems and applications regardless of the location and size of digital assets. Collaboration is fast, reliable and secure.

Accelerated Transport: Signiant Acceleration Protocol (SAP) enables the fast, reliable and secure movement of files over the WAN.

Centralized Network Management: Complete control over your entire network from a single view – all processes and transfers are controlled, monitored, tracked and reported.

Content Process Automation: Workflow Modeling Engine automates business processes, integrating with current products and systems to scale your business while keeping cost under control.

Content Distribution Management

“ Digitizing the Olympics was truly one of the most ambitious media projects in history, and we could not have done it without Signiant. We used Signiant CDM to automate 54 different workflows between 11 different companies. When all was said and done, we used Signiant to move over 2,200 hours of video on demand content and over 3,000 hours of highlights, rewinds, encores, and scoring results.” – NBC Universal


ApplicationsCollaborative Creation and Design: Dailies, Editing, Review and Approval, Software/Product Development

Content Distribution: Digital Syndication, International, Publishing, Product Launch, e-commerce

Content Aggregation: Remote Playout, Portals, IPTV, VOD, Data Collection

Cloud: Resource and Application Consolidation, Active Archive

Deployment and PackagingManager performs all administration, control and reporting of all system activity as well as orchestrating the execution of jobs (e.g. files move, notification). Users interact with the Manager through a Web-based administration for configuring the system, setting up jobs and automated tasks, managing current system activity and reporting system activity. HA Manager Cluster (Linux Only) – a second manager may be installed on a Linux cluster to provide high availability.

Media Agents installed remote computer and responsible for execution of jobs including file movement, interfacing with third party products and notifications. File movements typically happen from Media Agent to Media Agent. Can be deployed as single node or load balanced cluster.

Media Exchange is an optional java-based web application for end users accelerating the exchange of content, publish content to groups or interactively start workflows.

Relay Agents for firewall transversal and isolation of content from external network. Content is not stored on Relay Agents – only used to route packages through firewall.

Best Practice CDM Deployment Configuration



How it Works

Workflow Designer creates or modifies a job template by laying out job template components in a sequence and mapping inputs to outputs.

The job templates is saved in the job template library database.

A job is created from a job template by: a) an operator supplying job parameters and a schedule, through the administrative interface or b) an external trigger. External triggers include media exchange package submissions and third party applications calling Signiant’s job scheduling APIs.

Scheduler monitors system for jobs to run and tells the Supervisor to run a job using a specific job template and job parameters.

Supervisor requests and receives the job template from the job template library database and merges this with the job parameters.

Supervisor passes relevant job template components and job state information to Agents for execution.

In the case of a file transfer components, the supervisor contacts the controlling agent who in turn connects with one or more slave agents to perform the data transfer.

Agents report the execution status of each component back to the manager.



Software ModulesWorkflow Modeling Engine (WME) is a module to enables the creation of flexible workflow templates that automate the processing of content in numerous ways. For instance, a template may be as simple as moving a file from one Media Agent to another, but other packages may need to be processed differently, such as transcoding and a watermarking before publishing. A workflow designer models manual tasks and business logic in the WME using components and then publishes the templates to the library. Jobs are scheduled using the templates.

Media Exchange is an optional browser based software application that enables users to get content where it needs to be faster and more easily than ever before. Users can exchange content with other users, systems and applications regardless of location and size of digital assets. With simple web user interface and no client software to install, users interactively initiate content transfers that use IP-based Signiant Acceleration Protocol to maximize network efficiency. MX provides central management that enables complete control and security – all transfers are tracked and visible from a single dashboard and reporting tool.



Software ModulesMedia Mover is a standard software module that provides accelerated file movement based on some standard templates:

MediaDropBox transfers data between a single source location and one or many destination locations. It monitors the specified location at a user-determined interval and sends any changes detected in the source location to the specified destination locations.

MediaAggregator retrieves files from multiple agents to a single target agent.

MediaDistributor allows you to schedule a simple push distribution in which files are transferred from one source agent to one or more target agents.



Software ModulesManager Peering Module (MPM) is an optional software module that enables Managers to view and control Media Agents and Jobs on other Managers – allowing Signiant powered content networks to share content. Connecting Managers and Media Agents is based on the Cross Trust established by exchanging certificates. Once the Agents certificates are imported into a foreign manager, simultaneous Agent and Job control from more than one manager is enabled. Establishing Cross Trust relationships is simple through the GUI and administrators can even set the level of authorization (monitor vs. control) on a per agent basis.




Functionality Diagram

See the table on the following page describing the functionality illustrated in the diagram above.


Functionality Description

TRIGGERS, JOBS INITIATED BY: · Automated and Manual Template Triggers· SOAP API Calls from External Applications· Media Exchange User Interactive Workflows

AUTOMATION ENGINE · Executes Jobs based on rules and stored templates and solutions

SIGNIANT ACCELERATION PROTOCOL (SAP) TRANSPORT

· Fast, Secure, Reliable File Movement· Bandwidth Management creates virtual network pipes with dedicated bandwidth per job or job group

· UDP Based with failover to TCP and HTTP

JOB TEMPLATE LIBRARY · Stores standard, optional and customer workflow templates for the Automation Engine to execute.

CENTRAL MANAGEMENT INTERFACE

· Web-based administration interface for configuring the system, setting up automated tasks, managing current system activity and reporting system activity.

· Monitor and control current jobs.

SECURITY · Provides security services for system including certificate authority, user and agent access rights and encryption.

WORKFLOW MODELING ENGINE · Creates customized workflows job templates to be run as job instances based on triggers.

· Templates constructed from standard and custom Component Plug-ins, current available list: www.signiant.com/components

MEDIA EXCHANGE SOLUTION (OPTIONAL)

MX Users:· Send and Receive Digital Content to Users of the System as well as Ad Hoc Users

· Share Content with other Users in a Portal Workspace· Initiate Automated Workflows that are customizable and begin or conclude with MX

MEDIA MOVER SOLUTION INCLUDES MEDIA DROP BOX, AGGREGATOR AND DISTRIBUTOR

· Trigger based accelerated file transfer between locations using a variety of transport mechanisms including UDP, TCP, FTP or HTTP. Includes security, file check-pointing and certified delivery options.

MANAGER PEERING MODULE (OPTIONAL)

· Enables Media Agents to be Cross Trusted with Foreign managers for simultaneous monitor and control more than one Manager.



Feature Description

ACCELERATED FILE TRANSFER

· High Speed and Network Efficient File Transfer – up to 200X faster than TCP and 95+% Network Efficiency.

· Firewall friendly transfers with UDP and TCP transport options.· Automatic Retry, check-pointing and Resume of Partial or Failed Transferred.· Bandwidth Management Settings – WAN Accelerator Aggressiveness, Bandwidth Ceiling, Bandwidth Floor, Time of Day Bandwidth Throttle.

SECURITY · Internal or Integrated Directory Services (LDAP & AD) Authentication and Authorization· Encrypted Browser Sessions and File Transfers – up to 256 bit AES encryption.

· Built in Certificate Authority used to manage Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and establish secure communication between managers and agents.

· Certified Delivery provides digitally signed transfer for irrefutable proof of delivery.

CENTRAL MANAGEMENT

· Web-based administration interface with single-view status console.· Centralized control for configuring the system, setting up automated tasks, managing current system activity and reporting system activity.

· Monitor and control current running jobs in real time including bandwidth allocation.· Customizable and Schedulable Reports Jobs and System Activity.· Customizable email notifications of job status including successful transfer, errors.· Optional Manager Peering Module enables view of jobs running on other systems.· Programmable and status reporting via SOAP API.

ADVANCED USER AND GROUP MANAGEMENT

· Multi-Level User Access: Organization Administrator, System Administrator, Component Editor, Administration Interface Login, Monitor User, Guest, Unregistered User (Media Exchange-only).

· Groups – users with identical privileges, logical groupings (org, location, etc.), restrictions, defined menu options.

· Directory Services – internal user database, External Directory Services = LDAP/LDAPS and Microsoft Active Directory.

AGENT MANAGEMENT

· Agent Groups - logical collection of agents that jobs can use in place of individual agents. Used to manage many agents simultaneously to save time.

· Customized Access Rights on per agent basis – admin (upgrade, config), job environment (folder access, user), custom delivery logic.

· Network Options – configurable port settings.· Clustering for failover and load-balancing.

CUSTOMIZABLE WORKFLOWS AND AUTOMATION

· Automation Engine executes templates and scripts based on business rules and logic· Job Templates and Scripts Stored in Libraries.· Instances of Solutions, Templates and Scripts are run as Jobs by triggers including timers, business logic, MX Interactive Users or SOAP API calls.

· Workflow Modeling Engine and component plug ins used to build customer templates.



Technical Specifications

MANAGER SCALING 300 Agents/Manager

JOB STARTS Windows and Linux: 300/minute

CONCURRENT JOBS (PEAK) Windows and Linux: 300

MEDIA AGENTS CONCURRENT TRANSFERS 10 – per license and hardware limits

TRANSFER PROTOCOLS SUPPORTED UDP and TCP – configurable

RELAY AGENT CONNECTIONS 20

STORAGE SUPPORT SAN, NAS (NFS or CFIS – UNC Paths)

Minimum Hardware Requirements

Hardware Manager Media Agents

CPU Pentium 4, 2 GHz or higher Pentium 4, 2 GHz or higher

MEMORY 4GB 1GB

DISK DRIVE Customer Preference (allow 5GB Signiant usage)

Customer Preference (allow 5GB Signiant usage – either on box or external storage)

NETWORK INTERFACE 100Base-T 100Base-T

Administration Browser Support

Internet Explorer 7, 8; Firefox 3, 3.5, 3.6; Safari 3 (Mac)



Operating System Support

Operating System Manager Media Agents

AIX 5.3, 6.1 (64-bit) unsupported

CENTOS 5.2

LINUX REDHAT 4.4 AND 5.2

WINDOWS 2003 SERVER

WINDOWS 2003 R2 SERVER

WINDOWS 2008 SERVER

WINDOWS 2008 R2 SERVER

WINDOWS VISTA unsupported

WINDOWS XP SP2 unsupported

FREE BSD 6.3 AND 7.0 unsupported

LINUX SUSE 10.X unsupported

MAC OS X 10.4 AND 10.5 unsupported

SOLARIS 9, 10 SPARC (32 and 64-BIT) unsupported

SOLARIS 10, X86 (64-BIT) unsupported

WINDOWS 2000 SERVER SP4 unsupported

Note: With Linux, Signiant supports 32-bit Managers on 32-bit OS platforms and 64-bit Managers on 64-bit OS platforms, but does not support 32-bit Managers on 64-bit OS platforms or 64-bit Managers on 32-bit OS.

VMWare Support

VMWare Version Manager Media Agents

ESxi Server Version 3.5.0 and 4.0

Windows 2003 32 & 64-Bit Windows 2008 32 & 64-Bit Red Hat Linux 4.0 32 & 64-Bit Red Hat Linux 5.0 32 & 64-Bit CentOS 32-Bit

Windows 2003 32 & 64-Bit Windows XP 32 & 64-Bit Windows Vista 32 & 64-Bit Windows 2008 32 & 64-Bit Red Hat Linux 4.0, 5.2 32 & 64-Bit CentOS 32-Bit


content distribution management - sports video group

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