facebookpixel

Introducing the World’s Only Smart ECDN

analytics

Introducing the World’s Only Smart ECDN

Machine learning is revolutionizing modern business, improving efficiency while decreasing costs and increasing profits. According to a 2021 McKinsey survey , 56% of organizations today are using machine learning in at least one business function. In the same study, 27% of respondents attributed at least 5% of their earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to AI and machine learning.

At Kollective, we understand the power machine learning offers businesses, which is why we developed the world’s first and only Smart ECDN. In this article, we explore the specifics of our new intelligent solution and detail how simple managing your network has become.

What is Kollective’s Smart ECDN?

Kollective’s Smart ECDN was developed for one purpose – to radically simplify ECDN onboarding and management so that your network – consistently achieves peak performance. There’s not just one feature that makes this possible, but instead, a suite of intelligent solutions that work harmoniously to make the world’s first and only Smart ECDN. Five core features define Kollective’s Smart ECDN:

  1. Easy Activation
  2. Self-Service Network Topology Management
  3. Network Modeling
  4. Anomaly Detection
  5. Suggestive Analytics

Stress-Free Onboarding

Abstracting difficulty out of complex situations is a core function of a “smart” system. Kollective’s new onboarding wizard achieves this in spades, providing a fast and stress-free process for clients to configure their setup in five simple steps:

  1. Create an Account – Log in and authenticate with your Microsoft or G-Suite account.
  2. Configure Integrations – Select your integrations from an extensive list of the world’s leading front-end video applications and Kollective’s tool will walk you through how to quickly configure each to work with our ECDN.
  3. Define Network Configurations – While Kollective has terrific out-of-the-box settings that work well for most networks, our wizard allows users to customize their network settings quickly.
  4. Manage Privacy Settings – Enable custom privacy settings to control what data is collected.
  5. Invite Users & Complete Setup

Self-Service Network Topology Management

Whether your business is large or small, you understand that networks are complex. That is why Kollective has revolutionized how clients view and manage global network settings. Users can import all their network locations into our system to create self-service delivery parameters and unique network policies and behaviors for each.

With Kollective’s Smart ECDN, controlling your network has never been easier. Have offices in the DACH region that require different security settings than your offices in the Americas? Navigate to the “Network Locations” tab in the “Network Settings and Configuration” dashboard and create a unique policy for those locations.

Network Modeling

With any investment your business makes, it is crucial to understand the value you receive in return. That is why Kollective developed the Rapid Network Test (RNT) – to allow businesses to simulate how Kollective performs when networks experience a high volume of concurrent video streams.

While the RNT reveals if your network is ready to peer, Kollective’s Smart ECDN ensures that your network performs at its peak efficiency by running silent tests that construct a detailed model of your optimal network, providing the data it needs e to improve continuously. With Kollective’s Smart ECDN, you don’t need to be an IT expert to configure your network to stream flawless live videos. Model your network before running your first event and stream with confidence.

Smart Diagnostics

While Kollective’s network modeling optimizes your network before an event, our diagnostic dashboards provide ongoing support to identify and resolve issues as they arise. Our smart ECDN achieves this by using anomaly detection and machine learning to surface insights from past events to make future ones perform better.

Kollective’s solution delivers excellent results out-of-the-box, but we do not settle anything but the best. Our intelligent diagnostics stems from our broader philosophy to constantly refine and improve our processes to deliver the best product on the market. By detecting anomalies in your network through our diagnostics dashboard, Kollective’s Smart ECDN ensures that your network will be ready to meet the challenges as your business continues to evolve and grow.

What is Anomaly Detection?

One of the most powerful factors of Kollective’s smart diagnostics is its ability to recognize anomalies in your network. Our machine-learning protocols examine patterns of data playback that meet certain expectations. When something unexpected happens on your network, our anomaly detection algorithms recognize aberrant behavior based on indicators versus normal behavior and flag the event. These reports are the final pillar of our Smart ECDN, suggestive analytics.

Suggestive Analytics

When an event is flagged for aberrant behavior in Kollective’s smart diagnostics dashboard, our system analyzes the precise cause. It then alerts you to where the problem occurred in your network, what users were affected, and how to solve it so it does not happen again. Below are a few examples of problems that might occur and how quickly Kollective’s Smart ECDN will identify and solve them through the power of automation.

  1. Bitrate Thrash – One locality is having a poor event because too many bitrates were requested (e.g. 10). Kollective’s system would flag the event in the diagnostics dashboard, identifying that location with the recommendation that bitrate is pinned on that area of your network.
  2. Excessive Stalling – One locality is experiencing lengthy buffering during an event because peering nodes are stalling. Kollective would flag this event, and our suggestive analytics would recommend adjusting the performance settings in that location to “peering,” so more segments of a stream are built up before the video is peered to others on the node.

Experience the World’s Only Smart ECDN

Machine learning and AI adoption continue to climb as businesses steadily uncover their potential. Kollective’s Smart ECDN is our first step into this realm as we continue to seek new and innovative ways to create the best possible experience for our customers. Try Kollective today and experience the power of the only ECDN that constantly optimizes your network for peak performance.

The post Introducing the World’s Only Smart ECDN appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Enterprise Content Delivery Network Adoption is on the Rise

CMMA Blog

Enterprise Content Delivery Network Adoption is on the Rise

A recent white paper from research firm Metrigy, Enterprise Content Delivery Networks: For Video, and Beyond , found that enterprise content delivery network (ECDN) adoption has more than doubled since 2020 amongst the 900 organizations they surveyed. ECDNs are being used more than ever to deliver live video and are an essential tool for driving modern work. In this post we will highlight the key findings from the white paper, the reasons leading to the rise in ECDN adoption and factors enterprises need to consider when selecting an ECDN.

The Modern Workplace

Spurred by the pandemic, live video use has grown dramatically across organizations in all verticals. Nearly half of companies (45%) surveyed by Metrigy continued to increase video use through the end of Q3 of 2021, with no signs of slowing down. While at times challenging, the adoption of modern tools like live video has fueled a revolution in how and where we work. The office walls have been torn down and the modern workplace is now more digital than physical.

With the rise of hybrid and remote work, dispersed teams require a digital-first approach to effectively communicate and collaborate with one another. The simplest way to efficiently accomplish this is through live video. Metrigy’s study reinforces this reality, with 85% of respondents saying that video is either critical or important to their business’ operations.
video importance to business operations
From company-wide town halls to less formal announcements and daily meetings, video is the way information is shared. Ensuring messages are received is imperative for every business. With over 80% of Metrigy’s study participants using cloud-based meetings, webinars, and virtual event platforms, a network that is not optimized for delivering video is a liability.

New Network Architecture

The increase in demand for live video has caused the architecture of enterprise networks to be reimagined. In the past, poor network performance was often solved by “throwing bandwidth at the problem”– an inefficient, costly, and temporary solution. Video and other cloud-based applications require a more forward-thinking approach to solve performance issues economically and efficiently. By solving these issues on both fronts, it’s no surprise that ECDN adoption has consistently grown.

Metrigy found that successful businesses invest in expanded network services to support video with success being defined as those experiencing a higher return from their video investments.
network investment to support video
As with “throwing bandwidth at the problem”, blindly tossing money at network problems is not the answer. By investing in network technologies that work smarter, like ECDNs, companies not only improve network performance but also find significant cost savings. Metrigy’s research showed that participants using an ECDN to optimize video delivery saved an average of 22% annually on WAN costs.

While the cost savings and high ROI make ECDNs an attractive choice, their ability to meet the needs of enterprise networks plays a strong role in their growing popularity. Metrigy outlined eight requirements network services must meet to support the modern workplace:

  1. Improve network performance no matter the location, network access ability, or available bandwidth
  2. Optimize networks in a simple and intelligent manner that does not put added strain on network operators
  3. Reduced upfront and ongoing costs
  4. Provide analytics with insights into viewer experience, network performance, and engagement
  5. Securely distribute content with end-to-end encryption and access management
  6. Deploy quickly and easily to support ongoing digital initiatives
  7. Integration with existing network management platforms
  8. Ability to scale to keep pace with emerging and future collaboration technologies

Unlike traditional solutions, ECDNs can meet all these requirements–another reason adoption is growing Therefore, it’s no surprise that the majority of companies (60%) surveyed by Metrigy are using or plan to use an ECDN. Out of the companies with ECDNs in place, nearly half (44%) are planning to increase their use.
ECDN adoption plans

Critical Considerations

While there are many ECDNs on the market, not all are created equal. Metrigy recommends looking for these features when selecting an ECDN:

  • Flexible deployment models
  • Deep performance and engagement analytics
  • Native integration with video streaming platforms

Kollective’s ECDN, Edge Accelerator meets all these features and more. It is the only ECDN platform that offers complete coverage, ensuring high quality live video in simple and complex environments. From Zero Trust to traversing the Great Firewall of China, as your business’ needs grow, Kollective’s ECDN delivers. Kollective’s easy-to-use integration portal allows businesses to use their favorite streaming platform and our powerful analytics and intelligence platform supplies real-time, actionable event insights.

Kollective seamlessly integrates with front-end video applications like Microsoft Teams and Stream, Notified, NTT Studio, Qumu, Vimeo and more, to reliably deliver flawless live and on-demand video without affecting other business critical applications.

Kollective IQ/Edge IQ is the most advanced ECDN intelligence platform. Intuitive and customizable dashboards give insights into employee engagement, congestion levels across locations, and real-time event and network performance allowing quicker decision-making to address issues.

Optimize with an ECDN

The unique ability of ECDNs to optimize video delivery in a cost-effective, scalable, and easy to implement manner paired with the increasing use of video across the enterprise will continue to drive their adoption and make them an essential part of the modern business’s technology stack.

Choosing the right ECDN to meet the unique needs of your network is vital to ensuring a quality employee experience across locations, devices, and connections. Kollective’s Edge Accelerator offers the flexibility to cover even the most complex enterprise networks. Begin a free 30-day trial of Kollective ECDN Browser-Based peering to start scaling live video today.

The post Enterprise Content Delivery Network Adoption is on the Rise appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Webinar Recap: Employee Connectivity in Healthcare and Beyond

CMMA Blog

Webinar Recap: Employee Connectivity in Healthcare and Beyond

During our recent webinar Employee Connectivity in Healthcare and Beyond: Scaling Live Events to a Hybrid Workforce , a panel of experts from Microsoft, Kollective, and Children’s Mercy Hospital, had a roundtable discussion about how the pandemic and now hybrid work has transformed communications and collaboration. They reviewed the challenges faced by communications teams and network administrators when connecting a hybrid workplace with live events and covered strategies to build more inclusive communications. Learn how Kollective and Microsoft are working together to provide Healthcare companies with innovative solutions that address the needs of the modern workplace.

Panelists:

  • Host – Carson Heady – Microsoft, Director, Health Solutions – U.S. Health & Life Sciences
  • Matt Sims – Microsoft, Senior Customer Success Manager, Modern Communications – U.S. Health and Life Sciences
  • PJ Hartzell – Multi-media Content Producer at Children’s Mercy Hospital
  • Garrett Gladden – Kollective, V.P. of Product
  • Neal Lauther – Kollective, V.P. Global Technical Solutions

The Evolving Modern Workplace

The modern workplace has been reimagined. Hybrid and flexible work models have brought video to the forefront, making it the primary medium that businesses use to communicate and collaborate. Video’s growth in the enterprise has been significant. In July 2022 alone, Kollective delivered Teams Live Events to over 1.7 million viewers – a 15x increase in one year!
Microsoft Teams Growth

New Challenges

Since the pandemic, businesses have been confronted with new challenges when using live events to connect their distributed workforce. Neal Lauther, V.P. Global Technical Solutions at Kollective, identified three areas where they occur:

Running Events – Equipping yourself with the right tools is key to running successful live events.  Event producers and network administrators need to be laser focused on their objectives and properly prepared for events, regardless of their size. A few of the questions that need to be addressed before running an event include: Where are presenters connecting from? What kind of equipment do they have? What kind of content are they presenting? Are they familiar with the technology so they can run the event? These are just a few of the questions that need to be addressed prior to an event.

Delivering Events – Live events are now a preferred medium businesses use to deliver critical messaging. If an event fails and the messages don’t land, that is a problem for leadership and employees. Understanding where viewers are connecting from, if they are connecting remotely through a VPN, and if your network has the capacity to deliver content to those accessing it from the office, are a few of the considerations that need to be considered before running a live event.

Analyzing Events – Robust live event analytics are key to understanding how well an event performed. Having the data to prove whether employees were engaged, whether the event reached all necessary parties, and whether the quality was high, helps teams understand if there are issues that need to be addressed to ensure a better run during the next event.

Modern Collaboration Tools

To tackle these new communications challenges, modern tools are needed. Matt Sims, Senior Customer Success Manager, Modern Communications – U.S. Health and Life Sciences at Microsoft, described how Teams Live Events address these issues:

  • An advanced yet familiar producer experience to manage content and speakers
  • Scalability to support up to 10,000 attendees with options to support up to 100,000 view-only participants with the help of an ECDN
  • Support for asynchronous collaboration and consumption with VoD via Yammer and Stream
  • Built-in event analytics and the ability to integrate with an ECDN like Kollective for expanded insights to understand how people are connecting, where they are connecting from, and the quality of their experience

“The very clear design intent with Teams Live Events is to commoditize the toolkit for content creation, delivery and then consumption.”
– Matt Sims – Microsoft, Senior Customer Success Manager, Modern Communications – U.S. Health and Life Sciences

Emerging Content Delivery Challenges

The increased use of live events and hybrid work has led to delivery challenges and creative network solutions that have risen in response.

Network Complexity

In the modern hospital, there is a vast array of devices connecting to networks delivering critical and sensitive information. Oftentimes, sophisticated networks like these present hurdles when trying to deliver live events. There are numerous concerns to consider to understand how network complexity may impact deliverability:

  • Wireless networks – their design can be complex like tunneled or bridge connections
  • Devices can connect but where does that traffic go? Does it connect to a data center?
  • Users connecting from their workstation – is it wired or wireless, what kind of device are they using, and how is traffic being routed?
  • Remote users – are they using a company device or their own, are they secure, can they directly access cloud services, or do they need a VPN?

These challenges need to be understood and addressed before running live events. Many organizations are modernizing their network topology to embrace cloud services and allow users to connect from any location.

Security Standards

Matt Sims has found that security comes into every conversation he has with customers. To address these concerns, Microsoft Teams has security built-in from the ground layer. Taking a Zero Trust approach to security, Microsoft uses an identity-based security model with Azure Active Directory. This lends itself well to hybrid work, ensuring that one’s data and device are secure no matter where or how they connect. Explore Security and Microsoft Teams to understand how Teams follows security best practices and procedures.

SASE Environments

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is an emerging way of modernizing networks to support the hybrid workplace. Neal Lauther explained that the old way of setting up corporate networks does not consider the needs of modern workplace (e.g. addressing network complexity and security postures). Security is front and center with SASE and it meets high-security needs in a manner that is easy to turn on. It also provides networking policy and governance to cover the multiple ways hybrid and remote workers access content.
Kollective SASE

Kollective ECDN, as part of a SASE environment, delivers in the face of these network challenges by adapting to where the user is whether that is a VPN or a cluster location.

“Flawless live events, clear messages delivered, no impact to other critical services. That’s the goal.”
– Neal Lauther – Kollective, V.P. Global Technical Solutions

Inclusive Communications

Ensuring that every employee has equal access to high-quality live video is one of the primary concerns in the hybrid office. Whether employees are viewing a live event from the office, home, or a coffee shop, the event’s success depends on whether each attendee experienced a flawless, uninterrupted stream.

Reaching Every Employee

PJ Hartzell knows that reaching every employee in a hospital setting with live events has never been more important. At Children’s Mercy Hospital, the production team works with internal communications to execute a plan for upcoming events to ensure high in-person attendance for the event. For those unable to attend the event in-person, the production team immediately uploads the video to Microsoft Stream and notifies the organization that the event is available to view on-demand. Offering synchronous and asynchronous communications ensures that messaging gets to those who need it when and where they can access it.

Return to Office & Hybrid Work Planning

The modern workplace is continuously flexing to meet the needs of employees and businesses alike. To support companies shifting to hybrid work, Microsoft’s Work Lab has developed a series of guides called How to Hybrid that focus on the non-technological considerations of the return to office and hybrid work planning.

“We’re still working through all of these new challenges which are pretty exciting because it feels like we’re reengineering what we want work to be like for this new era.” – Matt Sims – Microsoft, Senior Customer Success Manager, Modern Communications – U.S. Health and Life Sciences

Collaborating With Stakeholders

Leadership is utilizing live events due to the simplicity and effectiveness of getting a message to land across a large group. Neal Lauther has noticed, “The ease has created the need.” Events are so easy to set up when the right systems are in place that they are shortening in duration and increasing in frequency.”

Children’s Mercy Hospital has seen a strong adoption of live events for one-to-many communications from the highest levels. Their CEO began a series during the pandemic called Live Connects to present information from high-level meetings to a broader audience to keep leadership in touch with the workforce.

Resources

Scaling Live Events Checklist – Download this checklist to develop an effective and measurable plan to scale live events to a hybrid workforce.

Microsoft Live Events Assistance Program – A free service offered to Enterprise customers that provides basic training as well as technical and non-technical consideration of how to run successful Teams Live Events

Microsoft Workshops – Microsoft Teams training to help employees connect in a hybrid workplace.

Kollective Free Trial – Start a 30-day free trial of Kollective ECDN in just six clicks to begin scaling Teams Live Events.

The post Webinar Recap: Employee Connectivity in Healthcare and Beyond appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Network Volatility in the Modern Workplace

CMMA Blog

Network Volatility in the Modern Workplace

Enterprise communications and IT teams that previously had success delivering events to fully remote audiences during the pandemic are facing challenges as employees return to the office. In flexible work models, employees do not come to the office as frequently as they did before pandemic. However, when they do come, it is often en masse and unpredictable, creating peak demand problems for networks. Network volatility like this is becoming a common phenomenon that enterprises across all verticals are experiencing.

What is Network Volatility?

Network volatility occurs when there is a shifting number of concurrent streams running across a corporate network. In the hybrid work model, the number of employees working in an office on a given day is in constant flux. On low-demand days when fewer people are on-site, networks may perform well enough to deliver video to employees without trouble. However, on high-demand days when in-person attendance is greater, networks not equipped with an ECDN are pushed beyond their limits. When this occurs, live events fail and business-critical cloud applications crash, leaving leadership and employees frustrated.

Network Volatility Case Study

To better illustrate network volatility in the hybrid world, we’ll explore typical Teams Live Event consumption for a Fortune 500 Kollective customer during July 2022. This company has a strong global presence, with offices spread throughout EMEA, APAC, and the Americas.

The graph below presents the day-to-day variance of Teams Live Event viewership for one office in the Americas. For most days in July, fewer than one hundred employees consumed live video on-site. However, on six separate days in July, several hundred employees streamed live events from the office, including one day in which on-site viewership nearly crested three thousand. If this office had not been equipped with Kollective’s ECDN, their network would have faced complications on each day when on-site viewership topped one hundred and would have suffered a complete failure when it nearly exceeded three thousand.

Network Volatility in the Americas

Our next example within this company takes us halfway around the world to an office in APAC. For most days in July, several hundred-person live events were streamed on-site. There were nine days where on-site viewership surpassed five hundred, including two days where it topped eight hundred and one thousand three hundred, respectively. Notice that while the average in-person attendance and the days of highest attendance vary between this office and the one in the Americas, both offices experience highly varied on-site video consumption and a high level of network volatility over a short timeframe.

Network Volatility in APAC

Network Volatility is Inevitable in the Modern Workplace

In hybrid work models, network volatility is unavoidable – it’s not a question of if, but when. For businesses with a lower baseline of in-person attendees, it’s easy for leaders to develop false faith in their network’s ability to successfully deliver live video. Take the three offices in the graph below as an example. For four days during the week, a relatively low number of employees stream video at each office. However, each office also experiences one day in which in-person viewership spikes well above their day-to-day norm.

This phenomenon represents the reality that businesses are confronted with in the modern workplace. While these offices may have been able to successfully deliver video without an ECDN on the days when fewer streams were consumed in-office, their networks would have collapsed on the days when consumption spiked. With an ECDN, however, this is not a problem. ECDNs are not only a cost-effective and secure solution, but one that businesses can rapidly deploy across the enterprise to ensure that when their network experiences volatility, they can still depend on it to reliably deliver video to all employees.

Network volatility in multiple offices over one week

Small Offices are Not Immune

In the examples above, we explored network volatility in large offices. While network spikes in large offices may seem more significant, volatility in small offices can be equally problematic. In the graph below, one of this company’s smaller offices in EMEA experiences two days in July when in-person viewership crests one hundred and six days above fifty. These spikes are not as dramatic as the ones we presented above but can have a similar impact on an office of this size. Whether an office is large or small, its infrastructure is very rarely built to natively supply the bandwidth required to deliver concurrent video to all potential on-site employees during company wide live events. A cost-effective solution like an ECDN can alleviate bandwidth issues for offices of all sizes.

Small office teams live events in EMEA

No Matter How Volatile the Network, Kollective Delivers

These examples are not unique – offices throughout this organization and others experience network volatility on a regular basis. Without Kollective’s ECDN, the network would have failed to deliver live events on the days when on-site viewership spiked. It’s also important to note that this is not a company that has fully returned to the office, but one that is embracing the flexibility of hybrid work.

Network volatility is an unavoidable reality in the modern workplace. It can create frustration and roadblocks for organizations which can easily be avoided by putting an ECDN in place. ECDNs ensure that as people return to the office, the network is empowered and able to successfully deliver live video to all employees, regardless of their location. Ease the transition to hybrid work and provide your business with the confidence that your network will always work.

The post Network Volatility in the Modern Workplace appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Video Consumption Continues to Rise. Is Your Network Prepared?

CMMA Blog

Video Consumption Continues to Rise. Is Your Network Prepared?

With 270 million monthly active users , usage of Microsoft Teams and its live video capabilities has risen dramatically in the past two years. While return to office movements have made in-person meetings more frequent, the prevalence of hybrid working has continued to propel the growth of live video as companies seek better ways to connect their dispersed teams. As 74% of U.S. businesses currently have or are planning permanent hybrid options, video will remain a central part of the modern workplace and pivotal to the digital experience of all employees. The ongoing boom in virtual communications makes it more important than ever to ensure enterprise networks can meet the increase in demand for digital collaboration tools.

Teams and Live Video Usage Continues to Climb

How many Teams meetings do you have on your calendar right now? Chances are it is significantly greater than the number of meetings you had two years ago. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index 2022 found that Teams users have experienced a 252% increase in weekly meeting time and a 153% increase in the number of weekly meetings since February of 2020.

Kollective’s usage statistics for live video mirror Microsoft’s findings. Between Q2 and Q4 of 2020, live events delivered by Kollective increased by 187%. During that same timeframe in 2021, growth continued at a similar rate with a 170% increase in live video and a 92% increase in Teams Live Events.

Over the past two years, Kollective observed that the rise in live video usage is global – a trend that can be seen across all regions:

  • Americas – 130% increase (2.1x growth)
  • EMEA – 156% increase (2.6x growth)
  • APAC – 264% increase (3.6x growth)

Live Video Enables the Hybrid Office

The return to office has been reimagined and hybrid work models are being widely adopted to meet the needs of both businesses and employees. A July 2022 study by McKinsey found that 58% of U.S. workers currently have the option to work remotely or on-site. The prevalence of flexible working has placed more pressure on businesses to facilitate effective communications between employees at different physical locations. Whether it is day-to-day team meetings or large-scale corporate communications, live video has become integral to connecting employees and fostering collaboration and communication in the modern workplace.

Hybrid Networks at Risk

While Teams and live video offer businesses the opportunity to enable hybrid work, its success depends on the quality of each user’s experience. As a bandwidth-intensive medium, video can overtax unprepared networks and cause excessive buffering, jittery streams, or event failures. During larger events like All-Hands, viewers in locations with insufficient bandwidth may not experience the same event quality as those working remotely. These poor experiences lower engagement, reduce productivity and derail communication efforts.

Exacerbating this problem is a phenomenon known as network volatility. Network volatility is caused by the ever-shifting number of concurrent streams running across corporate networks. In a hybrid scenario, the number of people working in the office on a given day is in constant flux. While networks may perform well on days with low employee attendance, high-demand days push the limits of a network’s capacity and cause live event failures and business-critical cloud applications to perform poorly or, in the worst-case scenario, total network failure. However, even a relatively small number of employees streaming live video in an office can cause problems for networks that are not equipped with an ECDN.

ECDNs Prevent Network Failures

Adding an enterprise content delivery network (ECDN) to your technology infrastructure is a simple and cost-effective way to optimize networks for live video. An ECDN reduces the bandwidth needed to deliver high-quality video, allowing you to securely scale communications across the enterprise.

As flexible workplaces often bring added network complexities, not all ECDNs can meet the needs of the hybrid office. Kollective’s ECDN, Edge Accelerator, offers the complete coverage necessary to meet the needs of modern networks. With three content delivery methods built under the same architecture, Kollective offers the flexibility to handle even the most complex network environments and ensures that every employee receives flawless video.

Preparing for a return to the office, Michelin, the world’s largest tire manufacturer, added Kollective to optimize their network for Teams video distribution. Since implementing Kollective in 2021, they have run over 1,300 Teams Live Events reaching over 50,000 people globally with a total bandwidth savings of 60% in every region. Their employees rely on high-quality video communications with no impact on their network.

As the numbers show, Microsoft Teams and Teams Live Events are being utilized on a massive scale to connect people and organizations across the globe. The hybrid office’s dependence on video will continue to fuel that growth, putting unprepared networks at risk. Investing in an ECDN like Kollective’s Edge Accelerator will ensure your network can support your hybrid workforce and deliver a flawless digital experience to all employees.

The post Video Consumption Continues to Rise. Is Your Network Prepared? appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Preventing Live Event Failures

CMMA Blog

Preventing Live Event Failures

During the COVID-19 pandemic, live video usage skyrocketed as organizations shifted from in-person to remote work. As companies return to the office full-time or in a hybrid capacity, video communications remain an integral tool to inform and engage the workforce. However, as employees return to in-person work, businesses have experienced live event failures. Many networks are not prepared for employees simultaneously streaming bandwidth-intensive content on-site. In hybrid models, employees are not coming to the office as regularly as they were pre-pandemic. However, when they do come, it is often en masse and unpredictable, creating peak demand problems for corporate networks that are challenging to anticipate and manage effectively.

These failures occur on networks that are not optimized for distributing the increased consumption of on-site video due to return to office plans and the rise of hybrid work. Luckily, these failures are preventable. With the right technology in place, effective testing, and live analytics, you can confidently deliver flawless live video across the enterprise.

Live Event Failures are on the Rise

Enterprise communications and IT teams that successfully delivered live events to a fully remote audience are now struggling as employees return to the office. Companies rely on live video to connect and engage with employees more than they did prior to the pandemic. Since February 2020, the time spent in Teams meetings has increased by 252% for the average user. This is problematic for many businesses as most pre-pandemic networks are not prepared for the increase in live video and the amount of bandwidth it requires. Streaming live events over networks that aren’t prepared to deliver video at scale risks event failures and can impact business-critical applications running on the same network.

Network Volatility Causes Live Event Failures in Hybrid Workplaces

In a hybrid work scenario, the number of employees on-site is in constant flux, giving businesses a false impression of their network’s capacity. We’ve seen companies with even a small fraction of their employees exceed the capacity of their corporate network while streaming video. However, the most common cause for network failures in the hybrid workplace is network volatility.

Network volatility refers to the change in demand that is placed on a network over time. Networks for businesses operating a hybrid work model may perform well during days of the week when the number of on-site employees is low. However, many businesses have coordinated in-person days in which a large percentage of the workforce comes to the office. Suddenly the network that performed well is at risk of failing when met with the increase in demand.

The Cost of Failed Live Events

Businesses invest time, money, and resources into live events. When live events fail, those efforts are wasted. The financial costs are reason enough to invest in systems to avoid event failures, but the communications repercussions can leave a lasting impact.

Live events deliver essential messaging, connect employees to leadership, promote company visions and values, and create organizational transparency and inclusivity. When employees can’t access these communications or are faced with a poor user experience, it is a lost opportunity to connect them to the company, leadership, and their peers. This lack of connection leads to lower engagement which, according to a recent Gallup report , costs $7.8 trillion in lost productivity across the globe.

Prevent Event Failures with Kollective

To prevent failed events, networks need to be prepared to accommodate live video with an enterprise content delivery network (ECDN), properly tested, and monitored during events. Kollective provides the tools you need to quickly and easily ensure your next event is a success.

Kollective Edge Accelerator

The modern business has unique network requirements that can be affected by a variety of circumstances like office locations and bandwidth availability. Kollective’s ECDN, Edge Accelerator , can optimize your network for live video delivery no matter how complex your environment. Edge Accelerator can flex to meet any network’s needs with three intelligent delivery solutions:

  • Browser-Based Peering – A WebRTC based solution that solves the most common live video delivery needs.
  • Agent-Based Peering – An agented solution that excels at delivering on-demand video and contains advanced security controls
  • Edgecache – A caching solution that brings video closer to the viewer that is useful for businesses that need to reach remote locations or connect with viewers in China

Network Readiness Testing

Once your network is prepared to deliver live events with an ECDN, Kollective’s Network Readiness Test can give you the peace of mind that your next event won’t exceed network capacity. Simulating a high-quality live event that replicates your event’s specific conditions gives you the opportunity to fine-tune prior to the live event. The Network Readiness Test provides detailed data on event performance:

  • Quality of Experience (QOE)
  • Bandwidth Savings
  • Peering Efficiency
  • Reach
  • Duration

Live Event Analytics

When you are ready to go live you can rest assured that you will have the information you need to make adjustments in real-time with Kollective’s Edge IQ Analytics. With an intuitively designed dashboard, Kollective Edge IQ Analytics allows you to quickly find the data you need to:

  • Track employee engagement
  • Monitor stream quality
  • Identify buffering by location
  • Track bandwidth usage

Live event failures can derail your efforts to connect the people in your organization. By incorporating an ECDN, preparing for events with network testing, and using real-time analytics to monitor performance, you can quickly and easily prevent event failures from plaguing your communications. If you are struggling to deliver a successful live video, start a free trial of Kollective’s Browser-Based Peering solution before your next event.

The post Preventing Live Event Failures appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here