For the API service on the Media Server, we have a front-end/proxy application that allows a user to upload (or in our case, record) announcements or MOH. We handle our own authentication within that application and proxy the requests back to our media server. If you have a web developer on your team, the docs on how to do this are at :
https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/101013472We don't have our users directly access our Media Server. Our AMS sits behiend a firewall that only our team has access to. We do, however, allow them to email us the media files and we replace them as a normal part of our process. Some teams change their announcements once a month, and it's not too complicated for our team to do. Essentially, you login to the media server, go to the Media Browser, upload the file, and tell it to replace the existing one. Unlike the media gateways and VAL boards, it's pretty bulletproof when we do it -- the next person who plays the announcement (or activates MOH) gets the new file. That process is only used for people who can't or won't use our web front-end to change the announcements.
For the streaming question, when you setup the streaming options, you can setup a primary or secondary endpoint for the streaming. Our issue has been that the network has gone down, so both primary and secondary endpoints were down for a period of time longer than the buffer. It does not fail well in those conditions, and you can't set a local file as a backup if those fail. We could have setup a Shoutcast server on a local server to act as our backup, but that ended up being too much work.
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Nick Kwiatkowski
Director of Design and Engineering
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2021 10:11 AM
From: James Davis
Subject: Avaya Aura Media Server and Streaming Audio (Music on Hold)
Thanks Nick for your reply -
So a follow up question for you, so in comment about placing the file directly onto the Media Server, and switching out files (Either through a Web API/Rest call or by going into AMS), I am guessing this will allow folks outside of the Telecom group the ability to change those files out? How does that look in your environment?
Do you have a custom built website that has that API, and allow users to login/upload .wav files? Or do you have them log directly into the AMS, with some restricted type login?
We are trying to figure out the best way for us to do this, because we don't want to be responsible all the time for file switch outs (Especially if they are making constant changes due to Covid).
Also one last question, so on the Streaming side of things, I take it Avaya doesn't have a way to have the AMS fail over to another source (i.e. a local file)? Seems to me this should be basic nature, if you lose the stream service, either point to a backup stream, or a file - maybe give multiple choices for points of the audio source.
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James Davis
Voice and Data Senior Engineer
University of Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha NE
Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2021 07:35 AM
From: Nick Kwiatkowski
Subject: Avaya Aura Media Server and Streaming Audio (Music on Hold)
James,
We use the Media Server streaming service for our campus. Pretty much, you setup a music source like you always do, but you point it to the Media Server. Within the Media Server, you setup the streaming source to point to an ICE/Shoutcast server. Shoutcast is a free/open source server that sits on top of Winamp (or other media applications) that they can queue up music, etc. Our PBS station already had an Icecast/Shoutcast stream that we pointed to.
The issue we ran into is every time the network or Shoutcast server went down, the media server would play though its buffer and then just stop (or in a worse case, it would repeat the last second or so of media it had -- causing a lovely "jackhammer" type effect). That would happen a few times a year, but when there was more network work happening, it was becoming a pain.
What we ended up doing was taking about an hour or two loop of music and just storing it on the media server. Our folks could switch out that media file very easily (either through a Web API/REST call or by going into the AMS and replacing the .WAV file). It still acted like a streaming file, but it was just an MP3/WAV file stored on the AMS. We've had no issues with it since.
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Nick Kwiatkowski
Director of Design and Engineering
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI
Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2021 09:44 PM
From: James Davis
Subject: Avaya Aura Media Server and Streaming Audio (Music on Hold)
Hello –
So I just uncovered something new to me and my University/Non-Profit, and I was wondering if anyone on this forum has implemented the new Streaming Audio service for Music on Hold?
I see where you can use a Avaya Aura Media Server, and tie it to either a streaming service OR I would imagine an in-house streaming system, to have the ability to stream music on hold.
This has been a huge ask of our Public Relations department, as they would like to control the image they present to the customers. We have always told them they could have some limited control, but basically we had one standard music on hold source we used. What we would like to end up doing is allow the PR Team the ability to manage the Stream (Both Music AND messages) and we are hoping that someone else might have already done this and wouldn't mind sharing their setup.
If this feature is new to you as well, here is some good documents Avaya has on it:
https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/101013885
Thank you in advance
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James Davis
Voice and Data Senior Engineer
University of Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha NE
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