PARIS—Globecast has developed and launched what it is billing as the first video public cloud video headend, powered by AWS, for a major European Telco.
The unnamed telco was a returning Globecast customer. It wanted to optimize its video headend capabilities for its IPTV and OTT services, with an initial scope of 380 channels and 1,400 streams and a key objective to move to an OPEX environment, alongside greatly increased flexibility in terms of adding and removing services, Globecast explained.
“We had extensive discussions with the customer and explained the benefits of moving to the cloud to satisfy its requirements,” Sylvain Merle, CTO and COO, Globecast, said. “With our market-leading understanding of public cloud use, working with AWS, supplying our cloud playout solutions for Hallmark Media and horse racing channel Equidia, who’s using our Managed Cloud Network service, the customer could see the level of our expertise and the benefits. Additionally, we understood that there were some functions it wanted to remain on-premise and Globecast could easily satisfy that requirement as well.”
“This project is an operational and technological paradigm shift, brought about by the combined capabilities of AWS and Globecast MediaHub, enabling the inception and worldwide delivery of new services such as video processing in this case, but also FAST, pop-up, playout channels, and supporting the highest levels of quality,” added Jean-Christophe Perier, CMO, Globecast.
In the new platform, all video processing functions are carried out in the cloud, with redundancy provided using different zones.
Globecast has built a MediaHub allowing the interconnection of its points of presence with the cloud to be able to provide specific add-ons and any type of output for worldwide distribution with the strength of a fully managed network. Connections are secured using innovative Gateways and AWS Direct Connect over a private network. These gateways also provide additional operational and technical functions, including monitoring and the remapping of signals, the company reported.
By using AWS Media Services, and AWS Elemental MediaLive as the core component, to build this video headend, Globecast said it was providing the telco with the capacity to scale resources up and down, as required and the video quality needed in today’s highly competitive market.
