Frequently Asked Questions - Deployment and Management
| Q. | How does Speech Server integrate into my existing IT infrastructure? |
| A. | Speech-enabled Web applications for Speech Server deploy on your existing ASP.NET Web server and are accessed over the LAN or IP network by Speech Server for telephony-based applications, or via a mobile device over a wireless network for multimodal applications. |
| Q. | What does a Speech Server deployment look like? |
| A. | The basic Speech Server development and deployment topology is as follows: 1) Visual Studio .NET and the Speech Application SDK (SASDK) on a separate development workstation; 2) a Web server for hosting your speech applications; and 3) Microsoft Speech Server which includes Telephony Application Services (TAS) and Speech Engine Services (SES) providing key telephony, audio/media, speech recognition, prompt, and speech synthesis services for SALT-based speech applications. For telephony voice-only applications Speech Server connects to a telephone system via a third-party software interface called a Telephony Interface Manager (TIM) and a telephony card. Mobile devices connect to Speech Server-based multimodal applications over a wireless 802.11b (Wi-Fi) connection. |
| Q. | Does Speech Server function as an application server? |
| A. | Unlike other speech platforms that require the purchase of separate application server software, Microsoft Speech Server-based applications can be hosted on the ASP.NET Web server (IIS) that's already included with Microsoft Windows Server 2003. |
| Q. | Is there any type of system monitoring so I can track and monitor the health and performance of Speech Server? |
| A. | Speech Server runs on the Windows Server 2003 platform and as such has been built to leverage all the familiar and standard operations, systems, and tracing capabilities offered by Windows®. Using tools such as Microsoft Management Console, Event Viewer, and Performance Monitor, systems administrators can monitor and log the health, status, and events of Speech Server operations. Additionally, the telephony hardware and software supported by Speech Server is also monitored and logged using these same tools. |
| Q. | Does Speech Server work with Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM)? |
| A. | Yes. Speech Server's management, monitoring, and logging functionality is seamlessly integrated with standard Windows Server 2003 management and monitoring capabilities, including the event logging APIs used by MOM. A Microsoft created MOM Management Pack for Speech Server is currently not available at this time, but by using the Microsoft Operations Manager Management Pack Development Guide an IT professional can create one without the need for any programming knowledge. Please see the Microsoft Operations Management Web site for more information on creating a custom MOM Management Pack. |
| Q. | What logging and reporting capabilities are included with Speech Server? |
| A. | Microsoft Speech Server 2004 uses the standardized Windows Management Instrumentation and the Enterprise Instrumentation Framework to provide comprehensive logging of system, operations, and application events and processes. Speech Server includes a call log analysis tool, as well as database tools that can be used with Microsoft SQL Server™ (or other database services) to extract, organize, and present the desired information using Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. Additionally, Speech Server includes a set of pre-packaged reports for SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services that are designed to give systems administrators and speech application developers a large number of the Web-based and paper reports they're likely to need. |
