With the recent global pandemic Ensemble Video Support has received a lot of calls about ways to quickly and easily expand and scale Ensemble Video. This guide was developed to provide some quick and easy ways to optimize and scale Ensemble Video
Update Ensemble
It is highly recommended that you update your Ensemble Video to the latest Version and Hotfix to ensure optimal performance. Please contact Ensemble Video Support to get your system upgraded or get the latest hotfix applied.
SQL Database
Ensemble Video Database runs on Microsoft SQL Server. You can gain some performance by rebuilding Indexes and shrinking the database. This will increase performance for DB queries, thus improving overall Ensemble Video health and performance.
- Backup your Ensemble Video Database before any DB work
- Download the Index Rebuild SQL Script using the link below
- Right Click the ZIP file and choose Properties
- If needed, Unblock the Zip file before you unzip the contents of the file
- Unzip the file and open the following file in SQL Management Studio
Rebuild Indexes on Specific Database.sql - On Line 10, if needed, update the Database name to match your Ensemble Database name (default name is “EnsembleVideo”)
- Execute the script (it maybe takes 5-10 minutes for the script to execute if you have a large database)
- When the script is complete, run a Database Shrink to recover any empty space on the database and log files
- In SQL Management Studio, right click the Ensemble Video database
- Choose Tasks -> Shrink -> Database
- Select the checkmark next to Reorganize files before releasing unused Space
- Set the Maximum Free Space in the Files after Shrinking to: 0%
- Click OK
Hardware
If you are running Ensemble Video on a virtual platform, it is advisable to ensure you are running with a recommended minimum hardware. Please review the Server Recommendations for a Self-Hosted Deployment.
The minimum requirements are just that, minimum. It is advisable to increase resources in anticipation of increased demand.
Network/CDN
Given the anticipated increase in network resources for video you can either increase bandwidth/IO on your Wowza server (For playback and live streaming) or configure your system to use a CDN to offload the majority of the network traffic.
The CDN provides very elastic/on-demand capacity and is an ideal solution for situations just like we are facing today. CDN configuration will require an additional purchase of CDN resources and also a setup fee for reconfiguring your Ensemble Video paths to use the CDN path for playback versus your local Wowza server.
