In a high-availability installation, two or more servers
work redundantly to improve reliability, fault-tolerance, or performance. In a
high-availability installation, you install Mediasite Video Platform software on
a machine that works with a network load balancer and manage the primary and
secondary Mediasite servers as a single system. All Mediasite servers in the
installation point to common data sources and access them across the
network.
The number of servers required in a high-availability
installation depends on your usage requirements and how you choose to configure
your system. High-availability environments will vary from organization to
organization because you must take in account different factors including the
maximum number of viewers you expect at any given time, whether your
presentations will be largely on-demand presentations or live broadcasts, and
your network configuration and its current bandwidth usage and requirements from
everyday traffic. You must also consider how the machines will host the software
taking in account data storage as well as the locations of the directory,
database server, media server, and the Job Farm services.
You must set-up machines with network load-balancing to
support a high- availability installation before installing Mediasite Video
Platform software on those machines. The network load balancer’s IP address or
FQDN is required during installation.
Each additional Mediasite Video Platform
requires a high-availability license. To purchase Mediasite high-availability
licenses contact your Sonic Foundry account representative or reseller.
You can use virtual machines in your
deployment if they meet the system requirements. For additional considerations
and best practices, visit Sonic Foundry’s Customer Care Portal at
www.sonicfoundry.com/support. Also, make sure to use the Deployment
checklist to track vital information as you go along.
Modify hosts file on each server
Before installing the software, modify the hosts file on
each server in a load-balanced configuration so that the load-balancer's FQDN
resolves to the respective server's local IP address.
In a high-availability installation all web servers must
use the same certificate to protect confidential information exchanged between
them and the client. This is done by exporting the primary server’s certificate
and its associated private key to a file and then importing the file to each
additional server in the installation. You will use the Certificate Export
Wizard in IIS to export the primary server’s certificate.
For detailed instructions, see the IIS
documentation included with your server.
In a high-availability environment, we
recommend replicating the Mediasite Directory on another server to ensure that
if it fails on one machine, another one is available. For instructions,
see KBA10557 on the Customer Care Portal at www.sonicfoundry.com/support.