To stay competitive, today’s video content and service providers need to move quickly. Launching a new broadcast or OTT channel can no longer be a months-long process. With this in mind, many operators have started transitioning away from a traditional video infrastructure based on hardware appliances to the cloud. This blog post will examine the key advantages of cloud-based video preparation and delivery workflows.
Cloud makes financial sense
Cloud technology offers significant commercial benefits compared with hardware-based infrastructure, particularly in terms of reducing the financial barriers to launching new channels and services. While hardware-based infrastructure is costly to deploy and maintain, and can be exceedingly complex, the cloud requires no capital investment. With the cloud, operators can pay per use, eliminating the need to spend millions of dollars in equipment costs to introduce a new service or to designate toward an occasional use channel.
Moreover, cloud technology allows operators to create new sources of revenue. Service providers can launch OTT and 4K channels quickly and affordably, as well as better leverage their extensive content library and target new demographics for their platforms and services.
Flexibility and scalability increase with cloud technology
From a technical standpoint the cloud provides operators with a common, flexible platform, which enables rapid integration of multiple solutions. Being software-based, the cloud “future-proofs” video infrastructure, enabling operators to adopt new technologies, as well as support next-generation formats and codecs, with ease.
While hardware-based workflows and device-specific software running on fixed-function appliances, utilizing customized processors and bespoke video technologies, don’t scale well and are locked into discrete workflow applications, the cloud provides ultimate agility and flexibility. With the cloud, it’s possible for operators to launch a service in a matter of minutes, as well as make workflow changes.
Ramp up efficiency with cloud
The most significant advantage of utilizing cloud technology is efficiency and speed. Everything is simplified with the cloud, from ingest through delivery. Operators can launch services much faster and more reliably because they’re basically repurposing existing solutions in the cloud.
In today’s on premise environment, many of the solutions and many services are stacked vertically, meaning operators have to plan for peak capacity, even when it’s not needed. By moving to the common platform of the cloud, these resources can be shared across all vertical parts of the infrastructure, allowing operators to increase efficiencies and load balance available resources, using only what they need when it’s needed.
Harmonic knows cloud technology
At Harmonic, we offer two different VOS™ cloud-native offerings: VOS Cloud, which is media processing platform managed over public or private cloud infrastructure, and VOS 360, a professional cloud media processing service that is hosted in the public cloud and maintained and monitored by Harmonic DevOps. More information.
In the next installment of this blog series, we’ll unveil the differences between virtualized platforms and cloud-native solutions.
– Ludovic Pertuisel, Senior Platform Manager of VOS at Harmonic