You and your partner have been going over swatches for months, figuring out whether you should go with shiplap or maple, and you can’t quite figure out where that pipe is going. Home improvement projects can be a labor of love and seem to be never-ending. However, once you knock it out, your house feels brand new once completed. I personally cannot wait until we redo my kitchen because my baking counter space could use an upgrade. Rustici Engine 23 was a similar labor of love, building toward better performance, more configurability and greater compatibility.

With the latest release of Rustici Engine 23, some of the biggest changes you’ll notice are new xAPI 2.0 support, streaming video file support and out-of-the-box plugins for reading configuration files from Vault and Consul.

xAPI 2.0 support along with other LRS improvements

Like a rusty pipe that keeps squeaking, “xAPI 2.0 is coming,” we’ve added some grease and now have the Rustici Engine LRS xAPI 2.0 pipe flowing. If you have been on the xAPI train for some time now, or have an interest in exploring xAPI more, this release is for you.

Using Rustici Engine 23, you can now send, receive and make other requests in the xAPI 2.0 standard within its LRS. If working with other applications or prepping your own platform for xAPI, this release will get you on your way to being xAPI 2.0 ready. Engine will continue to support xAPI 1.0.3, which is required for launching cmi5 courses. But once the cmi5 specification is updated, you’ll be ready to transition much more easily.

With these updates, we were also able to tinker with the LRS within Rustici Engine. Our team was able to make significant improvements to xAPl performance, making the collection and sending of statements a more efficient process overall.

Import and launch streaming videos

We are finally getting around to mounting that TV and cutting the cord now that Rustici Engine 23 supports the import and launch of streaming video formats. As with Rustici Engine 20.1 supporting Youtube and Rusitci Engine 21.1 supporting Vimeo, we are continually looking to support new ways of presenting video content. This is a particularly great addition for those wanting more flexibility when learners are accessing video from mobile devices, have poor network conditions and more.

Two of the formats now being supported are HLS and MPEG-DASH. If you’re unfamiliar with these formats, both work by breaking videos up into short segments that may be encoded at different qualities and delivering that video content in the best available quality for the learner’s bandwidth. With the latest update, you can now start delivering these formats with your already transcoded videos.

Streamline security implementations with new Engine plugins

To be more efficient, Engine now comes with Java plugins for HashiCorp’s Vault and Consul out of the box. When handling sensitive and non-sensitive data, Consul and Vault are some of the more popular and turnkey options. So it was only natural that we include these services to help make your life even easier. However, it is important to note you can also build out your own plugins for other configuration providers if you’re not using these services.

When that house project is done, you can finally take a step back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. In this case, you can now enjoy Rustici Engine 23 today! Any questions before diving into Rustici Engine 23? Reach out to our team to ask us anything about the latest release.

If you want to learn more about the release, be sure to check out the full release notes and technical documentation. If you missed some of the Rustici Engine releases beforehand, you can check out the evolution of Engine or dig into the release notes in the knowledge base. Interested in learning more about xAPI and what’s next? Check out our latest webinar on the future of standards.

Josh Darpino is our Product Marketing Manager who brings a love of tech and strategy as well as a creative eye to the marketing team at Rustici Software. When he’s not racing to send important product information out to our customers, he’s running across the finish line in races ranging from 5Ks to half marathons.