A cloudification roadmap for operators with on-premise video delivery technology
Most midsized and smaller operators already have a video delivery infrastructure in place, and to them, the challenge is to offer a great experience, without massive investments in technology and/or resources. And they want to do this while remaining flexible, without vendor-locking themselves in the process. This obviously is easier said than done.
In this blog, we will provide you with a condensed summary of how to cloudify, the smart way: step by step, maximizing previous investments and adding cloud components to improve the overall platform performance along the way.
Step 1
Generate insights into your business and your operations
First, you need to know the technical requirements for your platform and the needed features and functions to execute your market strategy. Also, you need to identify the key performance indicators with which you will measure success and determine the total cost of ownership. Once you have these business insights, you can go one step further and determine how workflows will need to be organized, the topology and the different data sources. You need to investigate the tools that are currently available to you and the ones that you are missing (gap analysis). Lastly, you need to take inventory of the technical implications and their impacts. This summary of business and operations insights is the basis for your success and make up your platform design.
Step 2
Plan migration step by step, with the right tools
Then you need to decide what changes you will make today, tomorrow and further along. You can not do everything at once; you need to optimize your existing technology in the process and only replace it, once you have gotten your investment back. When adding or replacing a component with a new cloud one, you will need to get advice on which one to use. This is not a simple decision that you can make overnight. There is an explosion of new technology out there, so how do you know if the technology that you have selected will actually work well with the rest of the software and hardware that make up your whole platform? Here you will want to get independent advice, since what you don’t want is to get locked-in.
Step 3
Make it all work with a 360 degrees data strategy
In order to ensure optimal platform performance, you will need to unify all components through a consistent data strategy, from content acquisition all the way to the client, whether on prem or cloud. In this way, it becomes possible to gain insights across silos from different services and systems and you will be able to align what matters most. What this strategy also enables, is the clustering of events and the reduction of noise, because you will be leveraging the right data that determine root cause analysis and solving problems faster than ever. The idea is to optimize your platform performance to the maximum, so your people can spend less time on fighting fires and more on marketing, customer retention and monetization initiatives.