This white paper offers you many ideas for maximizing the value of RealSystem G2 and Microsoft BackOffice products for you and your organization. You can use these two industry standards together to implement successful streaming media solutions in your company. Integrating RealSystem G2 with Microsoft BackOffice can ease the challenge of managing media assets and build off existing assets and infrastructure.
The solutions described in this white paper are designed to be built with software from RealNetworks and Microsoft, and augmented with code and scripts written in open standards such as Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (DHTML), and scripting languages such as JavaScript, JScript, VBScript, or Perl.
This paper highlights specific RealSystem G2-based solutions, and is organized in the following sections:
The RealSystem G2 Overview
RealSystem G2 delivers significant benefits over all other streaming media solutions:
BackOffice Overview
Microsoft, with its release of the BackOffice platform, delivered a comprehensive suite of tools that enables a web developer to design and implement powerful and cost effective web solutions. The Back Office Suite takes advantage of Microsoft's Windows NT Server 4.0 and Microsoft's Internet Information Server 4.0 to deliver highly scalable, easily managed dynamic web content.
Application solutions built on Microsoft® BackOffice are quickly becoming commonplace as corporate intranet and Internet developers utilize this powerful platform to create their applications. The BackOffice platform, built on the foundation of Microsoft® NT Server, includes:
In this white paper, we will focus our attention on solutions that can be built through the integration of RealSystem G2 and the BackOffice components of SQL Server, Exchange Server, and Systems Management Server. A complete RealSystem G2 white paper also exists for guiding your applications' integration with Site Server and Site Server, Commerce Edition.
RealSystem G2 and SQL Server
Solution: Flexible deployment of real-time updates to advertising and content.
A database-driven Web site with SQL Server and RealSystem G2 can use any of the industry standard scripting tools to create dynamic content for the Internet. You can now create a system that generates real-time or rotating updates to advertising or content. This can be achieved using scripts that cause updates on a timed or triggered basis, and then force the user's browser to refresh. Together with dynamic SMIL files or scripted Web pages with integrated streaming media, you can build a flexible and dynamic site.
Examples of sites that benefit from dynamic updating include:
This integration can be achieved today with RealSystem G2 Server and Player, Microsoft BackOffice's SQL Server and standard scripting languages, while the possibilities for dynamically updated sites are now limited only by your imagination.
Solution: Create a rich training solution using RealSystem G2, SQL Server, Internet Information Server (IIS), and Internet scripting such as VBScript, JavaScript, JScript, or Perl.
Delivering and managing the delivery of content and various media assets is best facilitated using a database. Building such a delivery and management system is straightforward with standard scripting languages such as VBScript, JavaScript, JScript, or Perl, along with DHTML, RealSystem G2, Microsoft IIS, and Microsoft SQL Server.
One of the biggest challenges in the development of interactive or dynamic media is managing the various media assets: the individual media assets as well as the aggregate assets of the organization. These include pre-built training, presentations, and project reports, to name only a few of the possibilities.
Rather than storing the actual media elements in the database, SQL Server stores pointers to them, along with descriptive information for present and future content developers. This keeps the database system's performance fast, and lets you maximize server performance and transactional bandwidth.
While object-oriented databases exist, and can be used to store media assets, you do not gain any advantage by this method of storage in delivery to the Internet or an intranet.
Actual video, audio, and graphic assets are best kept in hierarchical folder structures with tree-node naming conventions, which are then referenced by database. The actual naming convention you choose is not as relevant as finding a consistent way to qualify assets across an organization.
A SQL Server database sequences each section of training or communication to be delivered. In fact, it acts much like a child's animation flipbook. In the flipbook, each page contains a slightly different version of an image. As the pages are flipped rapidly, the animation comes to life. In the same way, each record in the SQL Server database contains instructions for the next step of the presentation or training. The scripting code requests each row or page of the flipbook. Since you are generating interactive media, each row includes common information pointing to the video, audio, text, and graphic assets to be used, as well as branching instructions should the user decide to go to a different location.
Other common information includes location instructions for branching, which describe where the user is taken to when the user clicks on a Next button, Back button, or other special navigation that you choose to present. Exceptions such as custom interactions or special page code can also be included right in the SQL database.
This type of database can generate a complete HTML page. Where a screen does not have a given asset such as a video asset on a given screen, that field is left empty.
Now the scripting language's task is simple. Your script or web-based program need only read a record and wait for the navigation link from the user to choose the next record to read from database. The navigation links are pointers to other records in the database - the next "pages" in the flipbook analogy. The script then loops to present the next screen to the user.
RealNetworks supports the complete Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) 1.0 standard. SMIL is a flexible layout language with an associated timeline; the SMIL files describe the integration of video, audio, and text within a timeline. All of the streaming assets are then displayed within a RealPlayer window according to this timeline.
Managing a large number of SMIL resources across a major project can be easy and systematic by integrating Microsoft SQL Server in the system. Using the database flipbook method described above, you can create dynamic SMIL files from a SQL Server database. This database-driven architecture makes managing large media projects manageable and scalable. It also reduces the risk of errors and development time.
RealSystem G2 is the leader in support for industry standard streaming video, audio, and text formats for the Internet, supporting more formats than any other streaming platform. By using RealSystem G2 and support for SMIL, together with Microsoft BackOffice products like SQL Server, you can take advantage of your existing investment in these media formats.
You can also re-use existing content without the time and expense of reprocessing it for the Internet. In addition to the large number of formats supported "out of the box" by RealSystem G2, the RealNetworks RealMedia Architecture (RMA) SDK includes many additional format renderers. You can use these rendering formats as guidelines for creating your own renderers. RealSystem G2's open architecture supports custom formats, again enabling you to re-use existing media assets better than any other streaming media platform.
We suggest that you call upon existing SQL talent within your organization to create a larger development talent pool for your web development. Using client-server development expertise on your Internet and intranet projects can take advantage of existing talents, at a time when getting new developers up to speed on Internet application development is difficult, due to the tight job market for people with this expertise. SQL development for the web will utilize your existing expertise in client-server development, and will help you create more robust and scalable web applications.
Licensing Tip:Always be aware of the software components' licensing requirements. Ensure you have enough RealNetworks Server stream licenses, and client access licenses for Microsoft SQL Server in your Internet or intranet solution.
RealSystem G2 and Exchange Server
Solution: Create a reference library of presentations, training resources, profiles for customer training solutions, rich media documents, and more.
You can integrate RealSystem G2 and Microsoft Exchange Server to create a reference library of presentations, training resources, profiles for customer training solutions, and rich media documents. Use Microsoft Exchange Public Folders to manage links to content. Using Microsoft Exchange's security models and Microsoft Exchange's Public Folders, your reference library can be made available with NT network security to manage access.
Exchange folders, such as the one shown above, can be used to classify information via department, via position, or any other categorization you choose. Exchange folders can include links to Web pages, documents, RealNetworks media files, and SMIL files. Development teams can even use Exchange public folders to store RAM or SMIL templates, to ensure consistent development formats are used for presentation and training materials across your company.
Microsoft Exchange folders take advantage of rules-based logic. Folder rules can automatically notify team members of new rich media content arrival. As soon as new items are placed in folders, and depending on the specifics of the rules you create in Exchange, individual team members or even complete teams can be automatically notified. This capability removes the burden of remembering who needs to be notified from the team, and lets the system manager modify one set of rules that benefit the entire team.
Note: Server performance - Microsoft Exchange requires increased RAM and CPU resources when you start supporting a large number of users. For optimal performance, we recommend that Microsoft Exchange Server run on its own server, separate from the primary domain controller (PDC), RealSystem G2 Server, or SQL Server.
Licensing Tip: Always be aware of the software components licensing requirements. Ensure you have enough RealNetworks Server stream licenses, and enough Client Access Licenses for Microsoft Exchange Server in your Internet or intranet solution.
RealSystem G2 and Systems Management Server
Solution: Use SMS to manage remote locations and distribute client updates and content updates.
RealSystem G2 Players now have an auto update feature. SMS can complement this feature by helping information technology (IT) managers methodically update desktops, ensuring the entire organization has the most current version of software to see the latest streaming media.
SMS can help you manage content distribution also. Large, frequently-played media pieces, such as corporate signature pieces, can be pushed to client machines. Using SMIL or including appropriate links in your Intranet HTML and DHTML can pull these pieces from the user's hard drive, thus reducing network bandwidth traffic. Using SQL Server to create database-driven intranet sites that create dynamic content, can make managing media distribution between local and network drives easy. SMS, used together with RealSystem G2 in this way, can help you manage network traffic while ensuring all users get a consistent, high quality experience.
RealSystem G2's System Administration is flexible in meeting your specific needs. The RealSystem Administrator of RealSystem G2 is totally configurable using standard HTML. You can create custom administrative consoles to manage your RealSystem G2 servers, making your administrative tools look and work the way you want. Administrative managers can use their favorite Java-enabled browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Together with Microsoft Systems Management Server and additional Microsoft server management options, you can readily have a complete administrative management and analysis tool from your desktop, tailored to the way you like to work.
Licensing Tip:As in the SQL Server and Exchange Server scenarios, always be aware of the software components licensing requirements. Ensure you have enough SMS licenses for your entire workplace to enable full management to every desktop.
RealSystem G2, the Commercial Internet System (MCIS) and Site Server
The Microsoft Commercial Internet System (MCIS) includes Microsoft Commerce Server and Microsoft Site Server. These components include Microsoft Transaction Server, Microsoft Personalization Services, and Microsoft Analysis tools.
Integrating RealSystem G2 and MCIS to deploy content to large audiences can shorten development cycles and improve your time to market. As the size of your audience grows, the scalability of RealServers, together with the scalability of MCIS, provide a smooth management path to handle the growth. The commerce pipeline and Microsoft Site Server, components of MCIS, help you handle the sale of content. You can use this framework to manage the distribution and access to pay-per-view or pay-for-use media.
You can also integrate Site Server Commerce Edition and third party tools like PreviewSystems' VBOX to create a Try-Before-You-Buy solutions for your streaming media.
Personalization services in Site Server can be used to track individual media preferences and deliver custom content by employee group, interest group, or any custom classification.
By creating a meaningful Internet site architecture for accessing your content streams, you can use Site Server's Log Analysis to understand usage and interests patterns, and improve media offerings to your users.
MCIS also includes support for Virtual Private Network (VPN) development. You can achieve secure distribution and access throughout all your existing network connections, including remote users. RealSystem G2's intelligent bandwidth negotiation is ideal for a Local Area Network (LAN) with both local and remote dial-in users. With the security of your NT network and the VPN capabilities of MCIS, you can distribute streaming presentations and training to all users, regardless of location.
Remote users will receive a bandwidth-appropriate stream, while internal users will realize the benefit of the LAN's speed, receiving the highest quality streams. As Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) and other remote connection technologies proliferate, remote users with high quality and high speed network access will automatically receive better quality streams.
Summary
The integration of RealSystem G2 with Microsoft® BackOffice products creates a powerful platform and synergy that you can use to develop robust Internet and intranet applications. You can create dynamic, flexible, and scalable sites using this platform with standard scripting and programming languages. Corporate enterprise and independent developers are building complete solutions for the delivery of streaming media communication, training, and information systems by integrating RealSystem G2, the most powerful next generation media delivery system available today, with Microsoft® BackOffice, the dominant set of server-based tools for Windows NT.
For More Information
This white paper touches on just a few of the solutions you can achieve with RealSystem G2 and Microsoft® BackOffice. To learn more about RealSystem G2 and how it can solve your needs for a complete, integrated streaming media system, visit our corporate Web site at www.real.com, or contact us directly at (800) 444-8011.