Silicon Graphics has released version 3.0 of its WebForce MediaBase server, with what it claims is expanded support for multicasting and networking, more playback options and better asset management. SGI software is generally designed to show off the power of its workstations, and MediaBase 3.0 is no exception. The company’s Mark Jeffrey points out that the server takes maximum advantage of the high input/output rates available on SGI machines. The software comes bundled with Informix Dynamic Server and Real Networks’s latest streaming media server, version 5.0. At first glance that last bundling might come as a bit of a shock. Aren’t Real and SGI competing in streaming media? Not so, says Jeffrey, pointing out that it’s much more economical for SGI to take advantage of Real’s low bit rate optimization than it would be to try to replicate it. Real’s server maintains quality by dropping frames rather than audio when connections start losing packets. One thing MediaBase can do that it’s not in Real’s interests even to attempt yet is asset management, hence the Informix server, also included in the standard package. Developers can use it to store metadata and search on any of the information thus stored. When Oracle shops baulked at the mandatory inclusion of Informix in earlier releases, SGI came up with an unbundled version. MediaBase 3.0 can now interoperate with legacy Oracle databases. Another thing MediaBase can do which Real hasn’t even tried yet is run on IP over ATM and, new in version 3.0, on raw ATM as well. That’s important, because the software is not just for internet use. Instead, the server is aimed at the computer-based training market, video on demand (VOD) and intranet applications, where it’s just as likely to end up running on very high-end corporate LANs. For VOD in particular, certain new tweaks to MediaBase’s multicasting make a lot of sense. Now, anyone watching a multicast can pause the video and restart it where they left off. The server will split their part off into a unicast, while maintaining the multicast to other watchers. A similar feature permits a series of unicasts over networks that don’t support multicast. With Real co-opted, MediaBase still faces competition from Microsoft’s NetShow Server. Jeffrey says he’s not about to lose any sleep over that. NetShow’s a good product, but it’s NT-based and that’s really its downfall. Maybe as NT becomes more scalable it won’t be such an issue, but right now their idea of scalability is linking fifteen NT servers together, he says. That’s a networking nightmare in itself.
