Chapter 23: Phase III: Usage Reports and Feedback

Overview

In chapter 21, the Fabrikam Media and Training departments produced a series of training videos to kick off the company-wide deployment of Windows Media, thus enabling delivery of on-demand streaming media and unicast broadcasts to every desktop and meeting room that is computer equipped.

But because Fabrikam’s current network infrastructure is not capable of delivering the broadcast through unicast to all of the employees who might request it, Fabrikam, in chapter 22, implemented multicast on their network. Streaming via multicast makes more efficient use of their available network bandwidth because it delivers only one stream to many clients. Multicast streaming is also a viable alternative to transporting people to one location for large company meetings, classroom instruction, and new product briefings.

Now that the system has been running for about a month, Fabrikam is ready for the last task in the deployment of their Windows Media solution: designing and implementing a reporting system. Fabrikam management has asked the IT department to create a report to answer the following questions:

• How many employees have used streaming media since the rollout?

• How much of the content selected was actually viewed?

• How much buffering did employees experience while viewing?

• What was the overall quality of the stream?

• How did employees feel about using streaming media versus other online learning tools?

To find the answers to these questions, a system is needed to do the following:

• Collect and aggregate client usage data on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to illustrate content usage. The goal is to ascertain the popularity of various content files and broadcasts. This information can then be used to aid in program design, to show customers how their programs are doing, and to justify production expenses.

• Compile the data into key statistics that illustrate client usage, errors, and system health. The goal is to see where system improvements are needed in order to better serve end users and protect the network.

• Collect user feedback from the Media Guide site. This information can be used for data trends found in the client usage data or to provide subjective analysis of the data.

Most of the answers that Fabrikam needs are already part of the log files created by Windows Media Services logging plug-ins. However, collecting subjective data about the content requires a custom solution.