Mediasite Enterprise Dashboard Assists DELTA Team
When it became time for semesterly reports on Mediasite usage, the DELTA Mediasite team cleared at least two weeks of their schedule to complete the task.
There was no holistic way to see the amount of new content created or the number of views the Mediasite presentations were receiving. Now the semesterly report process and day-to-day management of Mediasite is more efficient and convenient with the Mediasite Enterprise Dashboard. The tool allows DELTA Mediasite administrators to see what is going on across all Mediasite instances at one time.
Mediasite instances are individual servers where specific content is stored. Each college has its own instance as well as an NCSU Libraries instance and McKimmon Center instance.
According to Director of Media Production Services Leisa Bolles, managing each of the 16 instances individually created obstacles and challenges. For semesterly reports, the Mediasite team would have to log into each instance and run separate reports to then consolidate the data into one place.
Bolles and the Mediasite team noticed problems when they were unable to answer immediate questions related to Mediasite such as the average number of live streams in a day or when the peak viewing times were. The process of finding this information took time and created chances for human error with manually entered data.
The Mediasite team knew they needed to be able to answer these questions and see how many connections were taking place across all Mediasite instances without the time-consuming process. They also experienced issues with storage and were unable to project trends to see when all the storage would be used.
After working with Sonic Foundry, the owners of Mediasite, to create the Mediasite Enterprise Dashboard, the new tool has come to fruition with many benefits for DELTA Mediasite staff.
The tool gives access to a view of Mediasite that was not available previously. “We now have the ability to monitor and see a snapshot of the performance across all the instances in one place,” said Bolles.
In addition to the new holistic view, the Dashboard saves time and resources on semesterly reports. “We can sit down today and set aside half an hour to set up the reports once, and it will automatically aggregate and consolidate the data,” said Bolles. It reduces the chance of human error by taking out the manual reporting of data into spreadsheets.
The Mediasite Enterprise Dashboard also allows the Mediasite team to see current patterns of storage usage to better predict how the system will grow in the future. It allows for better fiscal resource allocation and helps the team to be proactive to changes rather than reactive.
When problems arise from Mediasite users, the DELTA Mediasite team can open the Dashboard to aid in troubleshooting. “If Mediasite is moving slow, we can see if it’s because of user demand or if it’s another issue,” Bolles said. It gives the team a starting point before analyzing other variables.
The new tool gives the DELTA Mediasite team a new way to approach their daily work. “We can really get a view of what’s going on individually and overall,” Bolles said.
