For most publishers who desire to deliver content under Digital Rights Management control, requirements review generally drives them to an Adobe ACS4 DRM server.  In general, the requirement that guides this decision is the desire to deliver DRM encrypted content to the largest possible number of platforms.  As the majority of devices support Adobe ACS4, that is usually the decision.

EVN has managed the deployment and integration of several Adobe ACS4 servers into eContent systems.  We provide here a brief overview of the ACS4 server deployment and its general integration into suc a system.

The sequence of operation for the ACS4 is

• eContent system delivers the unencrypted PDF or ePub to the media server for public key encryption
• Components of same (description, cover image, etc) are sent to the website to facilitate display for sale
• When an ebook is purchased or loaned, the information about the eBook and the target user device are sent to the Adobe license server, which creates a unique (one time) license (private key) for the sale.
• The packaging server wraps the pre-packaged/public key encrypted eBook with the license and makes it available for fulfillment. 
• The website delivers a unique URL to the user to enable download.
  • User receives the URL to the fulfillment server that enables download of the eBook (this can only be fulfilled once and is tied to the book and the user’s device)
  • When a user installs Adobe digital editions, they are given a unique identifier that attaches to each supported device they authenticate (PC, Mac, eReader, etc).
  • Users can move between up to 6 devices with a single ID
  • Settings as each ebook goes out:
    • Print permissions
    • copy permissions
    • expiration permissions

Deployment of the ACS4 server requires a standalone server to install the Content Server with the following system level resources.

• 4GB Ram
• 250GB Disk and RAID 5 is supported
• Windows or Linux (32bit or 64bit) Operating System
• MySQL/ MSSQL/ or Oracle 10g - (MySQL is recommended to minimize complexity)
• Java runtime environment, V1.5 (or later)
• 6 SSL Client to communicate with signing server

Installation of the steps requires setup of the operating system with all system patches and installation of MySQL or selected Database server.  After the system setup is complete the Content Server will be installed as a Java application. The installation process will run as a wizard collecting information for the database setup, certificate server, and basic system name questions. Once the installation has been successfully installed, access to the management page is available. This page provides for management of content from the fulfillment system and selection of various DRM options.

Setup to the fulfillment system is based on sending ePub/PDF content to the Content Server via a URI. The URI will be from the Content Server and will load content to be DRM wrapped from the selected configuration options.