DSM > Digital Signage Manager

Key features include:

• Presents the live status for individual NTBs, or for NTB groups.
• Multi-client operation with individual login credentials.
• NTBs operate in dial-out mode for easy monitoring from behind firewalls.
• Reports on NTB alarm conditions with timestamps.
• Sends email alerts when alarms are raised or lowered.
• Provides at-a-glance progress view of NTB Channel Publish and Subscribe operations.
• Optional Secure Capped Tunnel VPN in option for remote re-configuration.
• Scalable up to networks of 1000 ONELAN NTBs.
• Reporting of media playout.
• Built-in SQL database enables detailed reporting through third-party applications (not supplied)

1. Monitoring – Live and historic status reporting

The DSM is ideal for monitoring Channels of NTBs. The progress of NTB Channel Manager Publish and Subscription operations can be easily monitored using the DSM Standard Report. This can also be customised and sorted Tabular to match operational requirements.

• Alarm Summary Report – outstanding alarm conditions including overheating, loss of time synchronisation, errors in the NTB Publish and Subscription mechanism, low disk capacity, and other physical data.
• Standard Tabular Report – for a Folder of NTBs. Configurable by reported parameter. Includes links to alarm conditions within the NTBs.
• Thumbnail Report – an array of thumbnail images from NTBs showing current status of individual units.
• Summary / Status-board – a simple summary of the status of an Organisation’s NTBs.
• Map view – display of NTB/NTB Folder status over a user defined map – with drill-down facility

NTBs are allocated to administrator defined Organisations and Groups. Each NTB is configured to send regular status Reports to the DSM. The Reports are collated by the DSM and recorded in an internal SQL database. The DSM can present summary information on Groups of NTBs via a Web interface with access controlled by user credentials.

2. Maintenance – Secure, Safe Remote Connection to your NTB’s, even behind firewalls.

The DSM can optionally act a Virtual Private Network (VPN) server allowing groups of NTBs to join a network of Secure Capped VPN tunnels. TLS V1 is used to securely authenticate NTBs into the VPN. This allows an authorised operator of the DSM to make access to remote NTBs even if they are located behind firewall-routers. In this mode, the operator may be on the same site as the DSM or at another location. It is not possible to access another network via a DSM.
Forwarding of IP packets between members of the VPN and other locations is not allowed. The communication between the various members of the VPN is done entirely using AES 128 bit encrypted communications over standard IP links.

When using the VPN-feature, the NTB Players acquire a new virtual Ethernet port. The IP address for the virtual port (and therefore IP sub-net) is allocated by the DSM. The NTBs make an outbound call to the DSM using this new virtual port via the existing Ethernet physical port and therefore do not normally require any changes to the remote firewall. The DSM monitors the status of each VPN connection to remote NTBs and offers the operator the facility to communicate to each active NTB on demand. However, it does not permit NTBs to talk to each other or allow communication between the NTB’s regular IP subnet and the VPN subnet.

This facility significantly reduces the need for onsite maintenance, and therefore reduces on-going operation cost and increases uptime

3. Media Playout Audit – Proof of performance reporting for all scheduled media, for example, Proof of advert play.

The DSM also provides summaries of what media has played at each remote NTB or group of NTBs. The DSM receives notification of each playout instance (with 1 second resolution) for any media item played in any monitor’s Zone from its NTBs. The DSM presents these notifications as summary reports for individual NTB’s or groups of NTBs. Reports with detail down to individual playout instances can be produced using the DSM’s SQL interface – typically from Crystal ReportsTM or similar.

The DSM Platform

The DSM is a secure Linux based appliance installed at a network location accessible by all Reporting NTBs. If the Reporting NTBs are distributed over the Internet, the firewall for the network hosting the DSM must be configured to allow inbound access (known as a firewall pinhole). Reports from the NTBs to the DSM are delivered via HTTP or HTTPS.

Administrators can access the DSM’s SQL database directly using TCP.

Advanced Features

• Access to the DSM’s SQL database over Ethernet through a ONELAN defined schema can be used to provide custom reports using tools such as Crystal Reports™
• RS232 reports. An NTB can be configured to send user defined RS232 messages to an attached Display. The response from the Displays can be reported via the DSM’s Database interface using tools such as Crystal Reports™. The typical application is for monitoring Display status.
• The DSM may be configured to be aware of periods of planned downtime of NTBs and will not generate alarm condition reports during these periods.