Signiant Managers+Agents integrates seamlessly with existing IT infrastructure, media technology and file-based workflows to enable highly efficient file-based workflows. Unlike custom-scripted FTP jobs that cannot scale with your business, Managers+Agents provides a powerful solution for professionals in broadcast engineering, IT and media infrastructure management seeking more sophisticated enterprise management, automation, security and control of media delivery processes.

Enterprise Scale and Efficiency

With Signiant’s enterprise-class Manager software, media organizations can exchange content and metadata files with other users, systems and applications regardless of geographic location or file size. Agents installed on the sending and receiving ends manage and track content movement to guarantee certified delivery.

Optional features for file-based workflow modeling and administration are designed to orchestrate time-consuming tasks related to preparing material for distribution and playout, including ingest, quality screening, virus scan, update scheduling, transcoding and MAM archiving. No system is more flexible, powerful or reliable.metadata files with other users, systems and applications regardless of geographic location or file size. Agents installed on the sending and receiving ends manage and track content movement to guarantee certified delivery.

Sophisticated Resource Management

Signiant’s Resource Management module is ideal for organizations seeking more sophisticated control of file-based assets, network bandwidth and server resources. Resource Management allows administrators to prioritize delivery of assets between sites based on business needs and content delivery windows. As content priorities change, the queue can be adjusted by moving more critical jobs to the top, while jobs with less stringent timelines remain lower in the queue. Controlled by a single Signiant Manager or multiple Managers operating in an enterprise environment, Resource Management can be used to control bandwidth usage to specific locations or servers to ensure systems or networks are not overloaded.

Core Components

Manager:

Manager software performs all administration, control and reporting of system activity as well as orchestrating the execution of jobs. Users interact with the Manager through a Web-based interface for administration, system configuration, establishing jobs and automating tasks, managing current system activity and reporting.

Agents:

Installed on remote servers, Agent software executes file movement, notifications and interoperability with third-party software and systems. File movement occurs from Agent to Agent, and can be deployed as a single node or load-balanced cluster.

Relay Agents:

Enables firewall traversal and isolation of content from external networks.

Central Management

• Web-based administration interface with single-view for system configuration, task automation, managing current system activity and customized reporting
• Customizable email notifications of job completions
• Automated or manual bandwidth limits for running jobs
• Customizable and scheduled reports, jobs and system activity
• Manager Peering to view jobs running on other systems
• Programmable Web Services/SOAP API for initiating jobs from higher order media applications
• Multi-level user access: Organization administrator, system administrator, component editor, standard user and guest user
• User groups: Users with identical privileges or logical groupings (organization, location, etc.)

Content Security

• Internal or integrated directory services (LDAP & AD) for authentication and authorization
• Encrypted browser sessions and file transfers – up to 256-bit AES encryption
• Built-in certificate authority used to manage Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and establish secure communication between Managers and Agents
• Certified delivery provides digitally signed transfer for non-repudiation and proof of the integrity and origin of the data

Accelerated File Transport

• Patented Acceleration Protocol: Delivers fast, reliable and secure movement of files over IP networks
• High Speed, Network Efficient File Transfer: Up to 200X faster than FTP and TCP with 95+% network efficiency
• Firewall Friendly: UDP and TCP transport options
• Automatic Retry: Check-pointing and resume of partial or failed transfers
• Bandwidth Management Settings: Adjustable WAN accelerator aggressiveness, bandwidth ceiling and floor ranges based on time of day

Workflow Modeling Agent

Signiant’s powerful Workflow Modeling Agent allows manual tasks to be represented in the Manager along with the appropriate business rules. Workflow templates are built and stored in the workflow library for reuse. The Manager uses the templates to execute file transfers based on the inputs supplied from various systems including the Signiant Manager, third-party BPM software using Signiant APIs or from Media Exchange users.

Automation Engine

Automation Engine facilitates the creation of flexible workflow templates that automate the processing of content. A template may be as simple as moving a file from one Agent to another, or as sophisticated as directing a package for transcoding and watermarking before publishing.

Manager Peering

Manager peering enables Signiant Managers to view and control Agents and jobs on other Signiant Managers to facilitate content sharing. Connecting Managers and Agents is established by exchanging security certificates. Agents are trusted by importing their certificates into a ‘foreign’ Manager, driving Agent and job control from more than one Manager.

Common Uses

• Distributing TV content to broadcast, media services, OTT, mobile, electronic sell thru and VOD providers
• Accelerating movement of final-form TV content to geographically dispersed media operations centers
• Transferring material for distributed, creative collaboration such as editing, foreign market localization, special effects, game and promo development
• Moving large media files to and from public cloud environments for rendering, transcoding or archive
• Sending digital intermediaries for feature post production
• Distributing Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs).

Cloud On-Ramp and Off-Ramp Solution

Many organizations use cloud storage or compute services as way to increase capacity or add capabilities without investing in new infrastructure. Moving large content in and out of cloud environments using protocols like FTP can be highly inefficient.

Signiant Managers+Agents can be used accelerate the movement of content in and out of cloud infrastructures, such Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Applications include:

• Accelerated transfers to and from cloud-based transcode and render farms
• Accelerated upload to Amazon for cost-effective cloud content storage
• Accelerated transfers to and from hot folders on cloud-based agents peered

How It Works

• Signiant Agents can be installed on standard cloud instances quickly and easily
• Provides access to virtually limitless cloud storage and compute capacity
• Transfers into, within and out of the cloud: Security with Signiant’s mutual authentication; file transfers using Signiant’s acceleration technology
• Cloud agents can be utilized in Signiant workflows just like on-premises Agents.
• Cloud dynamic IP addressing and hostname resolution issues are mitigated by using Signiant’s built-in relay rule capabilities.
• Cloud agents use standard Signiant licenses – no special licensing required
• No additional costs over and above standard cloud infrastructure and bandwidth charges (billed and payable by cloud service provider).

High Availability Option

Signiant’s Linux High Availability option for Managers provides redundancy to protect against a Manager failure at a given site. Based on a Red Hat cluster, this option is architected for minimal downtime during automatic Signiant Manager failovers.

Disaster Recovery Option

Signiant’s Disaster Recovery service provides a “warm standby” model whereby the Manager on the standby machine assumes the role of the active Manager to protect entire sites in the event of a failure. Remotely located from the active system, the warm standby environment will run a backup job to move data from the active location based on the frequency established by the system administrator.

Signiant Media Exchange™

Media Exchange is a secure, fast and reliable way for individuals to transfer files to other individuals or organize content in a shared workspace for authorized users to browse and download. Media Exchange can operate as a stand-alone solution or integrated with Managers+Agents.

The software features a range of convenient user access interfaces including Web, desktop and mobile, and employs Signiant’s patented acceleration and security protocols. Used together with Managers+Agents and Resource Management, Media Exchange provides capacity expansion and additional support for geographically dispersed teams.

Signiant Media Gateway™

Signiant’s Media Gateway allows Media Exchange and Agents to work together. Using Media Gateway, Media Exchange users can move content into automated workflows running on the Agents. For instance, a Media Exchange user could upload content into a workflow that performs a virus scan and a transcode prior to making it available for use. Media Gateway can also be used to deliver files from Signiant Managers+Agents to Media Exchange users in an automated fashion.

Signiant Media Shuttle™

Media Shuttle is subscription-based software for accelerated file movement. The software delivers powerfully simple user interfaces in the cloud, while maintaining the file cache within the secure control of your internal network. This gives media workgroups of all sizes the convenience and ease of use of consumer cloud file-sharing services without file size limits or the security risks associated with storing high-value assets in the cloud.

Scaling: 300 Agents/Manager

Job Starts:Windows and Linux: 300/minute

Concurrent Jobs (Peak): 300 concurrent jobs for Linux, 100 for Windows

Supported Transfer Protocols: UDP and TCP – configurable Supported Storage: SAN, NAS (NFS or CIFS – UNC Paths)

Download: Managers+Agents 10.0 System Requirements