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Don’t Let Your Love for Multicast End

CMMA Blog

By: Denise Iverson, VP of Sales & Marketing

The end
is near. In about a year, Adobe, Microsoft and Cisco will retire their beloved
multicast solutions. But don’t let these changes break your heart—or your video
network.

Multicast is easy to love. The one-to-many protocol reduces network traffic by delivering a single stream of video, audio and content to hundreds or thousands of viewers. You might be flirting with a peer-to-peer option, but nothing compares to multicast. It’s the most predictable, efficient and stable way to deliver an internal webcast.

This
Valentine’s Day, Ramp can help you fall in love with multicast all over again.
Our software-based solution delivers the highest quality streaming experience
possible using your existing investments. Like a great Valentine, AltitudeCDN™
Multicast+ is:

  • Friendly: Multicast+ is
    deliberately vendor neutral, runs on any existing multicast-enabled network,
    and is designed to work with H.264, HLS, DASH and HTML5
  • Reliable: Even on wireless
    networks susceptible to heavy loads and channel interference
  • Smart: Patented forward error
    correction, bandwidth smoothing technologies, and the ability to re-route video
    traffic behind the scenes creates a seamless, high-quality viewer experience
  • Flexible: As a software-based
    solution, it’s easy to deploy and adapts over time without requiring costly and
    labor-intensive network upgrades

There’s also something to be said for a Valentine who makes you feel secure, and Multicast+ sits 100 percent inside your firewall, making it as secure as your enterprise IT.

If you’re interested in learning more, join Ramp and MediaPlatform for a webinar on March 6 at 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET to hear when to make the switch and how to leverage your existing technology to deliver pristine, HD-quality webcasts in your organization.

Register for the webinar here >> 

Read more: AltitudeCDN
Multicast+: Next-Generation Multicast in the Age of HTML5 >>

The post Don’t Let Your Love for Multicast End appeared first on Ramp .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Optimizing Video Delivery from Microsoft 365

CMMA Blog

Microsoft recently announced the addition of live events in Stream , a new capability that lets Office 365 users broadcast highly-produced, studio-quality events to viewers on Stream, Teams and Yammer.

Supported Microsoft Platforms
AltitudeCDN optimizes video from all Microsoft streaming platforms.

With the announcement, Microsoft encouraged customers to scale video delivery by exploring SDN/eCDN options to optimize video traffic on the corporate network. AltitudeCDN™ from Ramp has been recognized as the first eCDN solution certified for Stream since Microsoft Ignite 2016. The latest collaboration between Microsoft and Ramp tightly integrates AltitudeCDN with Stream , so distribution via OmniCache™ is now a simple configuration selection in the Stream interface.

OmniCache is an intelligent video caching solution for both live video and video on demand (VOD). It dynamically retrieves video and stores local copies at key locations inside the firewall to alleviate traffic on the internal network by 90% or more. With OmniCache, viewers can expect reliable, smooth video playback on the corporate network without IT investment in expensive WAN upgrades or more hardware.

AltitudeCDN™ is the only publicly referenced eCDN that does not depend on a peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, a networking approach prohibited by the security policies and standards of many enterprises. Unlike P2P counterparts, OmniCache does not require any plugins, client software, or cloud-based controllers, further enhancing the security of the solution and simplifying the effort to deploy and maintain the eCDN.

For companies with multicast-enabled networks, legacy multicast solutions including Adobe Flash, Cisco ECDS and Windows Media Server are now officially end-of-life and end-of-support. Ramp’s AltitudeCDN Multicast+ is a direct replacement and the only next-generation multicast solution that isn’t proprietary to specific video streaming platforms.

Want to learn more? Enter your contact information on the form below and get instant access to the Microsoft Stream & AltitudeCDN OmniCache Solution Brief!

 

The post Optimizing Video Delivery from Microsoft 365 appeared first on Ramp .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Embracing HTML5 in the World of Enterprise Video

Enterprise

Over the past several years, major announcements from industry giants like Microsoft and Adobe have been encouraging a shift to HTML5 as the modern video standard. The long-anticipated demise of Flash, amid a rash of security concerns, means content publishers no longer have a universal mechanism for getting video playable across the many different devices an audience might use. With all the major browsers now supporting some level of HTML5 video markup without the need for plugins, HTML5 has become the logical successor to Flash for ubiquitous video distribution.

But what does HTML5 mean for enterprise video?

Consumer adoption of new technologies outpaces the enterprise’s ability to keep up and widens the gap of unmet expectations in the workplace. But with discontinued browser support and ongoing security concerns, IT departments are forced to evaluate the alternatives. In the latest enterprise streaming survey conducted by Wainhouse Research, 74% of IT executives agreed with the statement their next streaming platform would be based on HTML5.

One of the key advantages of HTML5 is that video content is packaged in a standardized manner, so it plays the same across viewing devices—mobile, desktop, etc. It moves organizations to a model of publish once and view anywhere, on any device. This benefit alone streamlines the process of creating video for business communications.

HTML5 eases video distribution in the enterprise

Another benefit of HTML5 video is the ability to leverage existing network infrastructure for distribution. One of the key advantages of Flash was that organizations could multicast video across the corporate network. Multicasting is a highly efficient, one-to-many protocol for reducing network traffic by simultaneously delivering a single stream of video to hundreds or thousands of users. With Flash falling out of favor, the future of multicast was briefly uncertain. But the emerging standard for HTML5 video paved the way for the next generation of multicast as well.

The premier multicast solution for HTML5, AltitudeCDN™ Multicast+ supports all the classic multicast use cases, which enterprises have long used, but also enables new use cases that were previously impossible. As a next generation solution, Multicast+ is also common enterprise streaming infrastructure. So as streaming video platforms standardize on HTML5, the infrastructure to support the efficient delivery of video across the enterprise can also be standardized. No longer do organizations need to deploy a distinct delivery solution for each streaming platform.

Five Best Practices for Building Enterprise Streaming Infrastructure

Ramp Whitepapers Social VideoSprawlMore information about the state of streaming video in the enterprise is available from Wainhouse Research in the report, Video Sprawl Behind the Corporate Firewall.

The post Embracing HTML5 in the World of Enterprise Video appeared first on Ramp .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Just Released: AltitudeCDN™ 2.1 Available Now

CMMA Blog

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Today we are excited to announce our newest release of AltitudeCDN™. Version 2.1 is the second release of the year for our highly-sought eCDN platform.

Enhancements to our intelligent caching solution, OmniCache™ , and the industry’s only multicast solution for HTML5 video, Multicast+ , are giving network administrators unprecedented control over the way video traffic streams across their corporate network. Highlights from this year’s product releases include:

Predictive Video Delivery with On-Demand Video Pre-Positioning
Large scale on-demand video events, such as pre-recorded executive messages or required training, can cause a temporary spike in bandwidth utilization. Now, instead of waiting for the first viewer requests to populate your OmniCaches, you can schedule videos to be pre-positioned to the caches during windows of low network activity. Not only are you better managing network resources, your viewers get the benefit of faster start times.

Upstream Video Routing Intelligence
This new option to override DNS resolvers adds a layer of upstream routing intelligence to OmniCache. If your organization uses enterprise redirection for steering video requests to video sources and caching servers, this option allows you to specify an alternate set of DNS resolving servers for incoming requests.

Intelligent Sourcing for Even More Optimal Traffic Routing
Our new OmniCache sourcing engine lets you define rules for intelligently retrieving video from the most optimal source depending your network configuration, including from another OmniCache. This capability also improves redundancy by allowing multiple OmniCache nodes to be configured as the primary path to a video source and allowing fallback paths to groups of caches.

Simplified Configuration for Multicast+ High Availability
Provisioning high availability coverage for live events is now easier than ever. By using our centralized management and monitoring interface, Altimeter, a group of Multicast+ senders is easily configured to provide high availability services with improved accuracy for these configuration options.
Existing customers of Ramp are always welcome to upgrade their eCDN solutions at any time. To learn more about these product updates or to request more information about AltitudeCDN, contact us .

The post Just Released: AltitudeCDN™ 2.1 Available Now appeared first on Ramp .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Content Delivery Challenges in a New Era

CMMA Blog

Webinar: Content Delivery Challenges in a New Era

The new era of video delivery

During its prime, Flash led the way for web-based video streaming by working broadly across browsers. Over time though, browser support for Flash has diminished and ongoing security concerns make it unattractive to most enterprises. With the introduction of new standards for HTML5 video, an industry shift to modern delivery protocols is underway. Combined with other technology advances such as higher quality (HD and ultra-HD) and interactive video (augmented reality and 360° video), viewing experiences today have the potential to be better than ever. But that potential doesn’t always translate into reality and all too often audiences are disappointed with their viewing experiences.

An interactive roundtable discussion

Ramp has teamed up with our partner MediaPlatform to sponsor the next Streaming Media webinar, Content Delivery Challenges in a New Era . This webinar is an interactive session dedicated to the topic of content delivery. It will include expert advice for transitioning away from Flash and other plugin-based solutions for live video streaming. We’ll also talk about key considerations for developing an enterprise content delivery strategy, such as support for the myriad of devices and streaming platforms that may be used, security and scalability, and monitoring Quality of Experience (QoE). Registration is open now. Just visit the Streaming Media site to sign up , then mark your calendar for March 22nd to join us for this live session dedicated to answering all your questions.

The post Content Delivery Challenges in a New Era appeared first on Ramp .

To view our Partner blog, click here