Windows Media Services is no longer a built-in
component on the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. As such, it
will be necessary for those working with the Windows Server 2008 R2
family of operating systems to obtain Windows Media Services directly
from the Microsoft website. It will also be necessary to install and
configure the Windows Media Services role on a Windows Server 2008 R2
system. Windows Media Services enables the administrators of an
organization to organize video and audio files to be published to other
users. The publishing function sets the bandwidth that will be used
during the file distribution, controls the number of users accessing
audio and video files at the same time, and manages the overall
bandwidth demands of the Windows Media Services functions.
By properly configuring
and optimizing media services functions, an organization can minimize
the excessive demands of media services distribution over the network.
The decisions that need to be made include whether distribution will be:
Real-time live broadcasts
Single broadcasts at a time
Multiple files combined to a single broadcast
Multiple files in a single directory for selective broadcasting
Features Included with Windows Media Services Running on Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Media Services running on Windows Server 2008 R2 offers a plethora of features and functionality:
Cache/Proxy Management—
To bolster presentation experience, a plug-in can be used to provide
cache or reverse proxy functionality of digital media content. This new
feature reduces network infrastructure costs by decreasing the amount of
bandwidth required and used.
Server Core installation— IT professionals have the option of installing the Windows Media Services components on a Server Core installation of Windows Server
2008 R2. A Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 R2 is a
scaled-down version of the installation offering specific administrative
roles without the management interfaces and tools, which reduces
management and surface area attacks.
Multicast for Silverlight— Windows Media Services can now deliver multicast streams to Silverlight with the new Silverlight Multicast plug-in.
Single Installation Package—
Unlike Windows Server 2008, a single package is offered to make the
deployment of Windows Media Server on Windows Server 2008 R2 much
easier.
Tighter Integration with Hyper-V—
Streaming, performance, and manageability has improved when running
Windows Media Services on Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2.
Advanced Fast Start—
This new feature associated with Windows Server 2008 R2 leverages the
maximum available bandwidth allowed during the initial connection to a
stream, resulting in end users being able to see content as soon as they
connect. As soon as the playback begins, bandwidth is throttled back to
a regular amount.
Play While Archiving—
This new feature, which is only supported when running the Enterprise
Edition or Datacenter Edition, allows transmitted content to be archived
to a file. It is interesting to note here that the file can be accessed
on demand or rebroadcast even before the archiving is finished.
Advanced FF/RW—
When using this feature, independent files are used for fast-forward
and rewind functionality. Separate files increase performance playback
and reduce bandwidth contention.
Broadcast AutoStart—
This feature aims to minimize end-user disruption and downtime. The key
is to configure the broadcast publishing points to run automatically so
the stream automatically restarts in the event of a disruption.
Absolute Playlist Time—
Leverage this feature if there is a need to start a stream or playlist
at a certain time by indicating a specific value for time, such as 12:00
a.m. The time entry is based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Encoder Failover URL Modifiers—
It is possible to leverage more than one encoder to increase
reliability and redundancy of the source content. The result is that
Windows Media Services can be configured to pull source content from an
alternate location in the event of a failure.
System Requirements for Windows Media Services
Besides
requiring a Windows Server 2008 R2 system (Web Edition, Standard
Edition, Enterprise Edition, or Datacenter Edition), the basic
requirements for Windows Media Services are as follows:
Processor— One or more processors running at 550MHz or higher
Memory— 512MB of RAM or higher
Hard disk space— A minimum of 2GB
File system— NTFS
Ethernet network adapter running TCP/IP
Note
It is important for readers
to know that some features such as the Advanced Fast Start and the
Cache/Proxy Management functionality only operate if Windows Media
Services is installed on a Windows Server 2008 R2, Enterprise Edition or
Datacenter Edition.
Although these are the
minimum hardware specifications provided by Microsoft, most server class
systems today typically consist of Dual Quad-Core, a minimum of 8GB of
RAM, and at least a gigabit network adapter.
What’s key to the Windows
Media Services system is having enough processing speed to handle the
media streaming requests, enough RAM to cache the media streams, and
enough disk space to store the video files being shared and published.
In addition, it is a best practice to use a dedicated server for
streaming, limit the total number of users to 50% of the maximum user
capacity achieved by the load tests, and ensure the overall network
utilization is less than 50% of the maximum network interface capacity.
Tip
To improve the
performance of a Windows Media Services system, place the operating
system and program files on one volume and place the video files on
another volume to distribute the normal server processes from the
read/write access of the video files. In addition, placing striped drive
sets with ample hard drive controller cache can improve both the
sequential and parallel read/write requests of the video files as
Windows Media Services is more I/O intensive than processor intensive.
Determining Which Windows Server 2008 R2 Version to Utilize
Unlike the majority of
the Microsoft products, the bells and whistles are included with the
Enterprise Edition or Datacenter Edition. This tradition deviates with
Windows Media Services on Windows Server 2008 R2. Many of the Windows
Media Services features that were only included with Windows Server
2008, Enterprise and Datacenter Editions are now included with the
Windows Server 2008 R2, Standard, Foundation, and Web Editions.
Therefore, the feature sets with the Windows Server 2008 R2, Standard,
Foundation, and Web Editions are no longer limited in comparison with
the Enterprise Edition or Datacenter Edition.
Windows Media Services
supports the following editions of Windows Server 2008 R2: R2
Datacenter, R2 Enterprise, R2 Standard, R2 Foundation, and Web Server
2008 R2.
Note
Unfortunately, Windows
Media Services is not supported on the Itanium-based versions of Windows
Server 2008 R2. However, there have been significant improvements for
performance and manageability when streaming media with Hyper-V for
Windows Server 2008 R2.
To further assist readers and organizations in choosing the right version of Windows Server 2008 R2, Table 1 compares the features available with Windows Media Services based on each edition of the Windows Server 2008 R2 family.
Table 1. Comparing the Editions of Windows Media Services
| Feature Item | Standard, Foundation, and Web Editions | Enterprise and Data Center Editions |
|---|
| Absolute Playlist Time | X | X |
| Advanced Fast Start | X | X |
| Advanced FF/RW | X | X |
| Advertising server support | X | X |
| Broadcast AutoStart | X | X |
| Cache/proxy support | X | X |
| Custom plug-in support | X | X |
| Event-based scripting support | X | X |
| Fast Cache | X | X |
| Fast Reconnect | X | X |
| Fast Recovery | X | X |
| Fast Start | X | X |
| Fast Streaming | X | X |
| Internet authentication method (Digest) | X | X |
| Internet Group Management Protocol version 3 (IGMPv3) support | X | X |
| Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support | X | X |
| Intranet authentication methods (Negotiate authentication, Anonymous access) | X | X |
| Multicast content delivery | | X |
| Multiple authorization methods (NTFS ACL, IP Address) | X | X |
| Multiple control protocol support (MMS, HTTP, RTSP) | X | X |
| Multiple media parser support (Windows Media, MP3) | X | X |
| Multiple playlist parser support (WSX, Directory) | X | X |
| Play While Archiving | X | X |
| RTSP streaming | X | X |
| Robust event notification (WMI, SNMP) | X | X |
| Server-based content repacketization | X | X |
| Unicast content delivery | X | X |
To
end this section on a high note, there isn’t a need to purchase a
separate license for Windows Media Services because the software is
included as a free download from Microsoft’s website. For this reason, a
separate client access license (CAL) is not required to run the
services. However, there is still a need to license the server product
for Windows Server 2008 R2.
Updating the Windows Media Services Platform to Windows Server 2008 R2
It will likely be
necessary for most organizations to upgrade their systems running the
Windows Media Services platform to Windows Server 2008 R2. For those
currently running Windows Server 2003, it is a matter of upgrading to
Windows Server 2008 R2. However, a direct upgrade from Windows NT 4.0 or
Windows 2000 Server is not supported. Organizations in this predicament
that are running a legacy version of Windows Media Services on Windows
NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 Server will need to first upgrade the Windows Media Services platform to Windows Server 2003 and then upgrade again to Windows Server 2008 R2.
Tip
It is a best practice to
first back up the legacy Windows Media Services platform before
upgrading to Windows Server 2008 R2. This includes capturing and backing
up the configuration settings, log files, and digital media content.
Determining Which Windows Media Services Administration Tools to Leverage
When planning to run Windows
Media Services on Windows Server 2008 R2, organizations should consider
the numerous ways it can be administered and managed to find their best
fit. The following bullets identify the tools available for
administering Windows Media Services:
Windows Media Service snap-in—
This is the most common interface for managing Windows Media Services.
This interface is based on the traditional Microsoft Management Console
(MMC). It can be added as a snap-in to any server running Windows Server
2008 R2, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.
Windows Media Services Administrator for the web—
Organizations can choose to administer Windows Media Services over the
web. The web interface for administration is particularly useful and
appreciated by users who manage Windows Media Services from a
non-Windows machine over the Internet or on a network with low latency.
Command-line scripts—
Like many of the Windows Server products, Windows Media Services
administration tasks can be automated through the command line by using a
series of scripts.
When the full installation
option for Windows Media Services is utilized, both the Windows Media
Service snap-in and the Windows Media Services Administrator for the web
are included. It should be noted that the Windows Media Service
Administrator for the web requires the Web Server (IIS) server role to
be installed on the Windows Server 2008 R2 system. Alternatively, the
Windows Media Services 2008 R2 Remote Server Administration tool can be
downloaded from the Microsoft website.
