20 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS Elemental
TV STEPS UP TO THE CLOUD
Arqiva is turning to the cloud to offer new services for a multi- platform, multi-device world
or years, Arqiva has been the network underpinning a notable portion of UK broadcast delivery. But last month the company
Virtualisation enables Arqiva to quickly ramp up services without having to invest in capital-intensive infrastructure and to offer customers access to the new, flexible commercial opportunities the cloud can provide. At present, these new virtualised media management services are primarily focused on an OTT cloud head end for IP streaming and on non-linear/VOD services. “We have seen the market evolving for many years,” adds Alex Pannell, Managing Director, Satellite & Media, “so we have worked very closely with a number of our customers to really understand their challenges, opportunities and future business model needs.” Arqiva’s first goal was to reduce the cost of distribution for their customers in new markets, primarily with the delivery of linear TV channels, combined with the ability to deliver associated non-linear/VOD content as needed. “As a consequence of these
are increasingly watching away from the television – watching on tablets and smartphones – and our customers are in the business of wanting to ensure that they reach their audience in the right way and the most cost-effective way,” says Chris Alner, Arqiva’s Commercial Director for Media & Satellite. “What we’re hearing from our customers on the legacy broadcast side is ‘How do we ensure that we can reach all of these audiences and not just quadruple our cost base?’. I think they’re doing a huge amount of head scratching because a lot of them come from a fairly traditional linear broadcasting environment where they run in multiple channels across multiple territories around the world, and they can see that there is a slow shift of eyeballs into different forms of consumption.” CONSEQUENTIAL CONVERSATIONS Arqiva’s first step has been to virtualise some of its services by placing them in the cloud.
launched a new, cloud-based service – a suite of virtualised media management tools aiming to expand Arqiva’s already far-reaching broadcast services to include cloud-based playout, OTT managed head end and video on demand. The new offering is built on Amazon Web Services, with a serverless architecture that employs AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB and the Amazon API Gateway. Arqiva plans to leverage AWS Elemental Media Services for dynamic ad insertion and live-to-VOD in the next few months, as well as for video processing in live and VOD workflows. In establishing a new branch of services, Arqiva isn’t just reaching into the future, but is responding to feedback from its long- standing broadcast customers. “People
feedzine feed.zine feedmagazine.tv
Powered by FlippingBook