Accordent Introduces Completely New Version of Media Management System

Accordent's Media Management System (AMMS) isn't even three years old—it was launched at Streaming Media West 2006—but it's quickly become one of the leaders in rich media communications management tools in the enterprise, education, and government markets. But even with the success of AMMS, Accordent decided in 2007 to eschew simply building on the existing platform for its next version, and instead redesigned and rebuilt the product from the ground up for version 3, which it previewed at Streaming Media East last month and officially launches tomorrow at InfoComm 2009 in Orlando.

AMMS v3 was build using Microsoft's .NET Framework, which Accordent co-founder and CTO Mike Lorenz says "simply allowed us to do things we couldn't do before in terms of scalability," adding that the system has been benchmarked for up to 50,000 users. The .NET foundation allows companies like Accordent to leverage processing power more effectively, says Brad Becker, Microsoft director of rich client platforms and tools.

The biggest differences from v2 can be seen in the new version's reporting capabilities and multi-tenant flexibility.

"Tracking and reporting is, in some instances, more important than the video itself," says CEO Mike Newman, "particularly in environments where there are testing or regulatory conditions that need to be satisfied." AMMS V3 uses APIs to trigger tests and surveys, and metadata that is collected in the content creation phase is then leveraged for what Accordent calls "performance-based reporting and management." There are more than 50 new content, audience, and network reporting features for monitoring real-time QOS and viewer activity, and reports can be generated from anywhere in the system.

"We wanted to give organizations real, actionable business intelligence that can be used to make informed decisions," says Newman.

The multi-tenant feature means that a single piece of content can reside in multiple departments, schools, or business units, with each of those system administrators having individualized access and usage rules, as opposed to the content needing to be re-deployed in each separate department.

AMMS v3 integrates with Tandberg videoconferencing systems, and new APIs offer direct integration with Cisco, Riverbed, and Blue Coat networks, among others., and can be managed via Microsoft IIS, Windows Media Services, and both Real and Flash servers.