1. What do I need to install VASRE?

You need one or more computers on which a Windows operating system is installed, and a network connection is available. For a small speech application with a limited number of ports, one computer would be enough for your speech recognition needs. You should install the VASRE packages, and purchase the licenses to launch the system.

2. What is the VASRE Resource Manager?

The Resource Manager (RM) is the control tower of the VASRE system. It manages license information, monitors server status, and assigns a new client session to the least busy server.

3. What is the VASRE Server?

The server is a software unit dedicated to speech or DTMF recognition. As one server process may handle multiple client sessions, you must launch one server process per computer. If you wish to set up a distributed VASRE system over multiple computers, make sure their hardware specifications are identical or comparable at least. The RM decides the least busy server process based on the number of client sessions handled by server processes, regardless of the specifications of the computer hosting the server processes.

4. What are the centralized and distributed VASRE systems?

The centralized VASRE system comprises one computer hosting a pair of resource manager and server processes, while the distributed VASRE system has two or more computers each of which hosts a separate server process. For the distributed VASRE system, you should decide on which computer the RM process resides. You may start multiple RM processes over the same number of computers for higher reliability.

5. What are the computer specifications required for VASRE?

To launch a server process, you should install the server package on a computer with

• Intel Celeron 430 @ 1.80GHz, AMD Sempron 140, or better processor,
• 1GB or more RAM,
• and 1GB or more of free hard disk space for installation and verification.

See the Hardware Requirement section in the Installation Guide for further details.

6. What Windows operating systems VASRE supports?

VASRE supports Windows XP SP3, Vista, 7, and 2003 server both 32- and 64-bit.

7. What are the components of the installation package?

The VASRE package comprises five components:

• Resource Manager: Select this component to install the RM.
• Server: Select this component to install the server.
• Mrcp Server: Select this component to install the MRCP server.
• Tools & API: Select this component to install the pronunciation generator, grammar compiler, batch-recognizer, sample client applications, and client API.
• Languages: Select this component to install language-specific dictionaries and acoustic models.

8. Is there any component dependency?

The server component has a dependency to the language components. That is, you should install the language components required by the recognition server.

9. What components should I install?

If you are not sure, install all the components. However, by installing the components you really need, you can save system resources and make VASRE easy to maintain,

On a computer hosting the centralized VASRE system, install the RM, Server, Tools & API, and Languages components. For the distributed VASRE system, install the Server and Language components on all the computers. Install the RM component on the computers that will launch the RM process.

Install the MRCP server component if necessary.

10. What do the names of installation files represent?

The installation file is named:

vasre_version_arch.exe

where version and arch represent the VASRE version and platform architecture, respectively. For example, the installer of VASRE 2.3.0 for x86 platform is named:

vasre_2.3.0_x86-32.exe

11. Is there any prerequisite software that should be installed before the VASRE installation?

You should install either Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable or the latest version of Microsoft .Net Framework (3.5 as of January 2011).

12. Where should I copy the license files to?

You should copy the license files to install_root\License\ of the computer in which the RM is installed. install_root represents the root directory of Window installation.

13. I started the RM, but an error message shows up. What should I do?

The RM did not start for some reason. To track the reason for the error, check the content of the RM log file, install_root\Vasre\Log\vasre-rm.log. Most RM errors are related to the license files. Make sure valid license files exist under the install_root\License\ directory.

14. I started the server, but an error message shows up. What should I do?

The server did not start for some reason. To track the reason for the error, check the content of the server log file, install_root\Vasre\Log\vasre-server.log. This error occurs when the IP address and port of the RM are wrongly specified in the server configuration file, install_root\Vasre\Conf\vasre-server-config.xml. If you have installed Language components other than US English, and have not modified the language element in the RM configuration file accordingly, the server will fail to start. The path name of the RM configuration file is install_root\Vasre\Conf\vasre-rm-config.xml.

15. I ran the RM, but an error message shows up saying “There is no instance running!!” What does this mean?

You may not run the RM directly. Use the Windows Service GUI to start or stop the RM. The same rule is applied to the server.

16. I started the RM and server. Is there any way to check whether they are actually running?

Open the Windows Task Manager to see the following processes are running:

vasre-rm.exe
vasre-server.exe

You can also check the contents of the RM and server log files, or try the sample client applications: ConsoleApp and SAP. See the Installation Guide for details.