BillS IIS Blog : Windows Media Services

IIS7 Smooth Streaming Announced in Partnership with Akamai

bills — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:00:49 GMT

I am excited to announce an innovative new IIS7 feature called “IIS Smooth Streaming”, which will be available as a free IIS7 extension when released, with a public beta planned for early next year. Read John’s post (IIS Media PM) about Smooth Streaming and feature/benefits you can expect to see. As part of the announcement, we’re pleased to have Smooth Streaming available first through the world’s biggest content delivery network provider – Akamai. Having a world-class partner like Akamai is a huge boost for this feature and ensures it will meet the demands of all customers big and small upon final release. Akamai put up a demo site of Smooth Streaming in action, check it out at http://smoothHD.com and tell us what you think!

Back in April of last year I announced that the IIS team had taken over the charter of the Windows Media Server team, and would be working to build a world-class, fully integrated Web and Media server. This past year we’ve delivered a few IIS modules to enable more efficient media delivery with IIS, including the IIS7 Bitrate Throttling Module and the IIS7 Media Playlists. IIS Smooth Streaming is just the start of many new intelligent streaming media features to come which will catapult IIS7 to be a major player in delivering streaming media content on the Web.

It has been fun to watch IIS grow up over the years, and especially great to see big CDNs like Akamai so excited to deploy IIS7 again. It is a testament to the power and flexibility of the IIS7 platform that many of us spent the past five years building. It is also terrific to see the new IIS Media team stepping up and delivering innovative, new media capabilities to the market. Many thanks to all those involved in working toward this announcement.

In case you’re interested in reading some of the news on this feature, see links below:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-28-2008/0004912585&EDATE

Microsoft is introducing new Web server technology, called Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7.0) Smooth Streaming, that gives consumers instant start-up times and no buffering by adapting the quality of the video stream in real time based upon changing connectivity speed. This enables companies to boost brand awareness and advertising revenues by extending average viewing times. They can also benefit from unprecedented network scalability using distributed HTTP-based Web servers.

"Smooth Streaming is an evolution of proven Silverlight technology that has powered global online events," said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division at Microsoft. "Our objective has always been to provide a platform that enables next-generation media experiences on the Web. Together with Akamai, we will take that a step further by offering a consistently superior adaptive streaming experience on a global scale."

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=10791

In 2006, when the Microsoft Windows Media Services (WMS) charter was picked up by the Internet Information Services (IIS) group, the concept of large-scale HD streaming was still a ways in the future. Today, at the Digital Hollywood show, though, Akamai announced it would be one of Microsoft’s first customers for a new IIS 7.0 Web server technology named Smooth Streaming.

"We've seen firsthand the growing demand for HD online content among our customer base," said Tim Napoleon, chief strategist, digital media at Akamai, as part of the company’s press release announcing its use of the IIS technology for adaptive streaming of HD content

Akamai and Microsoft Attempt to Stream HD Smoothly

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=10791

Microsoft, Akamai team up on high-def video streams

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10076949-93.html

Microsoft, Akamai Partner on “Smooth HD” Video; Alternative to Brightcove

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/10/28/microsoft-akamai-partner-on-smooth-hd-video-alternative-to-brightcove/

Akamai, Microsoft Team on Adaptive Streaming Service

http://www.xchangemag.com/hotnews/akamai-microsoft-adaptive-streaming-service.html

Akamai and Microsoft work to improve online video

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/10/akamai_and_micr.html

Microsoft, Akamai team up for “no buffer” video streaming

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/102808-microsoft-akamai-video.html

Digital Post Production: http://postproduction.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=562295

Microsoft, Akamai Introduce Adaptive HD Web Video

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6608899.html

Microsoft, Akamai Team On Web Video

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6609007.html?industryid=47171

Blog Posts:

Akamai and Microsoft Look to Improve Online Video Experiences Using Silverlight

http://www.tvover.net/2008/10/28/Akamai+And+Microsoft+Look+To+Improve+Online+Video+Experiences+Using+Silverlight.aspx

Microsoft and Akamai join forces for streaming HD

http://www.fierceonlinevideo.com/story/microsoft-and-akamai-join-forces/2008-10-28

Akamai turns on the Silverlight

http://www.contentagenda.com/blog/1500000150/post/450035645.html?nid=3038

Microsoft, Akamai Stream Silverlight

http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=450&doc_id=166623

Microsoft & Akamai Announce “Smooth Streaming”, New HD Video Delivery Via HTTP

http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2008/10/microsoftakami.html

Microsoft Teams up With Akamai for High-def Video Solution

http://www.beet.tv/2008/10/microsoft-teams.html

Where to download and buy IIS7 and Windows 2008

bills — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:14:00 GMT

I've heard several people ask where to buy IIS7 and Windows 2008. First, if you want to download and try before you buy, Microsoft has made Windows 2008 trial editions available, with just a few clicks and a live ID you can download them today.

If you are looking for the lowest cost, fully-featured Web server for the internet, look no further than Windows Web Server 2008, which is the enhanced version of Windows server specifically built for internet Web sites. It supports the full hardware specs of Standard Server (4 proc and 32GB RAM), has the full IIS7 Web Server feature-set, supports SharePoint and Windows Media Services, and even allows for local SQL Server installs to support Web applications. To compare it to other Windows 2008 editions, go here.

If you are ready to buy, Windows Web Server 2008 is available for purchase online and through all of the major OEMs. If you are a do-it-yourself kind of guy, check out NewEgg's listing for an OEM license here for $349, or purchase the full retail copy on Amazon for $429.

Once you've got Windows 2008 Web server installed on your PC/server, be sure to download the Microsoft Web Platform Installer to help you get IIS7, ASP.NET, SQL Server and even Visual Web Developer Express installed quickly!

Download Windows Media Services (WMS) for Windows Server 2008 June CTP

bills — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:44:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce that Windows Media Services (WMS) package for Windows Server 2008 June CTP is now live! With this package, WMS is now supported on Web SKU (Windows Web Server 2008) as well. This package is available for all beta participants who have access to the June CTP.

Download Location

http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1481

Windows Media Server Beta 3 Available for Download

bills — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:11:00 GMT

A few months ago, the IIS team received the charter of taking Media Serving forward, and merged together with the Windows Media server (WMS) team. This exciting new change at Microsoft was spurred by the fact that Video is becoming one of the most popular types of content on the Web, so what better way to ensure Web serving and Media serving work well together than to bring the engineering teams under one roof?

Bringing the teams together was the first step toward creating a more integrated Web and Video server, and today we're excited to announce the second step. I'm pleased to announce that Windows Media server (WMS) Beta 3 for Longhorn Server is now available for download on the Web. WMS is a very feature rich and popular media server, capable of live and on-demand broadcasting of audio and video. It has many cutting edge features that no other media server can touch, which is one of the reasons it is the most popular media server around - in the enterprise and on the internet.

WMS in Beta 3 adds some important new capabilities, including:

Server Core installation option for Windows Media Services to provide an appliance-like streaming server in Web farms and lights-out locations – new for Beta 3
A built-in Cache/Proxy plug-in to drive tens of thousands of server installations at the edges of private networks – new for Beta 3
Remote Server Administration Tools for managing your Windows Media servers from computers running the Windows Vista operating system – new for Beta 3
2x the scalability of WMS 9.0 in Windows Server 2003 RTM on the same hardware

To ensure we're keeping up with the latest in video serving trends, we decided to remove WMS from Windows Server and instead make it available for download, paving the way for more frequent updates, out-of-band from Windows Server releases. Despite the fact that WMS is now a Web download, it still integrates just as seamlessly with Windows Server as ever, making it easy to manage and use. For more information on how to install WMS, see this KB article. For questions, see the Windows Media Server community forum. Expect to see more around Media Serving and IIS in the future!