Live streamed video is increasingly popular and useful for enterprises, but it is bandwidth-intensive. As a result, IT executives face the challenge of serving live video feeds to an increasing number of concurrent viewers without causing a network slowdown or outage.
For almost 20 years, many large enterprises, as well as cable and telecom providers, have solved this challenge by using IP multicast because it’s optimal for delivering live video or linear TV to large audiences. While IP unicast sends separate streams to each viewer, IP multicast distributes a single stream of IP packets and it serves all viewers who request the video, regardless of the number of viewers. Bandwidth consumption is minimized at the internet connection point and on the local network.
New options have become available in IP multicast that makes it even more compelling for organizations with an IP multicast-enabled network—or those that could benefit from one. Read on to learn about them, and also be sure to check out our multicast datasheet on this topic as well.
- IBM integrates with Ramp multicast
- Single platform efficiently delivers secured live and on-demand video
IBM integrates with Ramp multicast
IBM and Ramp, which offers leading next-generation enterprise video delivery solutions, announce the integration of Ramp AltitudeCDN™ Multicast+ as a distribution option for the award-winning IBM enterprise video streaming platform. The new offering is called IBM ECDN and Multicast.
“In enterprises, secure, live-streamed internal video is proving to be increasingly valuable, and demand for it is accelerating,” said Chris Zaloumis, senior offering manager at IBM Watson Media. “By partnering with Ramp, we’re enabling prospective and current Streaming Manager for Enterprise customers to use IP multicast so they can optimize video traffic behind their firewalls. We’re also giving current Ramp customers more flexibility and freedom in the video platform capabilities and options they can choose from. And we’re offering a powerful, Flash-free alternative for enterprises with legacy video platforms, such as end-of-life Windows Media Server, Silverlight, Adobe Flash Player, and Cisco ECDS solutions.”
“Ramp is proud to bring the next generation of multicast support to the IBM [enterprise video streaming] platform,” said Tom Racca, CEO at Ramp. “Customers who deploy a common enterprise streaming infrastructure such as AltitudeCDN Multicast+ drastically improve the delivery of video behind the firewall so employees can enjoy a better viewing experience free of jitter, buffering and latency issues.”
Single platform efficiently delivers secured live and on-demand video
IBM’s enterprise video streaming solution is a cloud-based platform that makes it easy for organizations to deliver town halls, trainings and department communications to employees everywhere. It supports both live and on-demand video and integrates with single sign-on (SSO) solutions, enabling employees to securely collaborate and increase engagement.
Multicast customers also now have the option to deploy IBM Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN) virtualized edge servers, which can optimize on-demand video traffic, cover network segments that are not multicast enabled, and serve viewers on mobile devices.
To get an overview of IBM’s enterprise video streaming offering, see a two-minute video on how SolarCity uses it to bring together 15,000 employees and achieve 100x more attendance at 10x more live events per year. And watch how Roland Corporation aligns its global sales force with the platform, communicating sensitive information securely.
To learn more about IP multicast and other video delivery approaches, download a complimentary eBook: Internal video without bottlenecks: Comparing unicast, multicast and peer-to-peer delivery.