Chapter 17: Phase I: Server Deployment

Phase I of the plan to deploy Windows Media at Fabrikam involves building a system that enables the company’s content producers and IT professionals to create on-demand content and stream it throughout their Toronto headquarters. They also plan to have limited broadcast capability.

In chapter 15, we saw how they built the compression suite for creating the on-demand content. In chapter 16, we saw how they designed the Media Guide portal Web site where end users can find content to stream or download. In this chapter, Fabrikam puts together the last piece of phase I: installing the Windows Media server farm in the data center. After the Windows Media server farm is installed, the basic deployment is complete: users can record and encode content in the compression suite, they can publish content to or find content on the Media Guide site, and they can stream content to their desktops from the Windows Media server farm.

Updating the Fabrikam Data Center

The data center at Fabrikam is typical of those in medium-to-large enterprises: multiple racks of servers and network infrastructure components that support business applications used throughout the company. The data center also provides access to the Internet. The corporate Web server farm is dedicated to internal communications, but another Web server is located in the data center perimeter network and can be accessed by the company’s partners and customers over the Internet.

The data center will house the Windows Media server farm, which will include the primary servers for streaming digital media to desktops and conference rooms throughout the company. A Windows Media server will also be installed in the perimeter network so selected content can be streamed over the Internet.

Users in the Toronto headquarters will connect directly to the server farm to stream on-demand and broadcast content. After phase II of the implementation is complete, end users outside Toronto will receive on-demand content that originated on the server farm, but that is actually streamed from a cache/proxy server. After phase III is complete, most end users will be able to receive multicast broadcasts originating from the data center server farm.