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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

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 .

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Pick the Right Bitrate for Your Next Live Video Event

bitrate

If you’ve spent any amount of time watching or participating in a live event over the last year, chances are you’ve noticed a difference in the level of engagement between events with clear video and perfect audio, and events where you can only hear every fifth word of what the presenter is saying.   

While it’s true that top-notch streaming equipment and high-speed Internet can lead to the perfect lag-free Live Event, there’s another factor that could be contributing to the quality of your steam — bitrate. 

WHAT IS BITRATE?  

To keep it simple, bitrate is the quality of the video or audio being streamed during your Live Event. It’s measured in kilobits per second (kbps), which means we’re looking at how many ‘bits’ of data you’re sending, and at what ‘rate’ (speed) they’re being sent. 

Higher bitrates typically use up more Internet bandwidth, so it makes sense that using a higher bitrate can improve video quality. However, selecting the highest bitrate without considering other factors like expected quality and video complexity is not the most efficient plan for your Live Event. Plus, if your network’s bandwidth is insufficient, most video streaming platforms will prioritize audio quality over video quality.  

SO, WHICH BITRATE IS RIGHT FOR MY LIVE EVENT?  

There are many factors that can impact your choice of bitrate. In addition to meeting the requirement dictated by whichever codec (software programs that encode or decode a video stream into a different type of stream) you’ve chosen, your decision will revolve around your organization’s preferred quality for your Live Event – the higher the bitrate, the better quality your Live Event will be. But the actual bandwidth consumption for every Live Event will vary based on video layout, video resolution, video frames per second, and whether you’re utilizing an Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN), like Kollective . When more bandwidth is available, quality and usage will increase to deliver the best experience. 

Assess your organization’s quality expectation for your Live Event. This boils down to how advanced the culture of video is within your organization and will depend on how expectations around video have been set previously. Over the last 12 months with the rise of remote work and increased video communications, most organizations probably have a more robust video strategy, so their employees expect Netflix and Hulu-quality Live Event experiences. In order to hold a high-quality Live Event, you have to choose a high enough bitrate to support the video complexity and motion content of the source you’re pushing to viewers. 

Here’s a breakdown of Kollective’s recommended bitrate based on desired resolution and frame rate:

Screen Shot 2021 03 11 at 10.56.13 AM 300x156 1


WHAT CONTRIBUTES TO LIVE EVENT QUALITY? 

Live Event quality takes both resolution and frame rate into consideration. Resolution is how many horizontal lines a frame of video has from top to bottom. The more lines of video, the “clearer” the picture is. Frame rate is the number of frames in one second of video. The more frames per second (fps), the smoother the video’s motion.  

When you’re selecting the proper frame rate and resolution for your Live Event, think about the content and purpose of the event, specifically related to motion and video complexity. The more motion your video has, the higher frame rate you want. For example, if you watch a basketball game at 10 frames per second, it will look like a cartoon flip book or strobe light. If you have a group of very animated presenters, it’s nice to have a decent frame rate to keep up with their motion, usually around 30 fps or higher.  

Video complexity refers to the level of detail in the video, so if you have multiple speakers in different panels during your event, of if you’re showing a slide presentation with small font or moving pieces, your Live Event is going to require a higher degree of complexity in order to meet your organization’s quality expectation.  

START STREAMING 

Once you’ve selected your bitrate, you’re good to start streaming your Live Video Event. Just remember that choosing the right bitrate can be a bit of a trial-and-error process and can change with each Live Event your organization presents depending on your ECDN capabilities, quality expectation and video complexity.  

If you’d like to learn how an ECDN helps improve the quality of your internal communications, read our Browser-Based Peering Solution Brief.

The post Pick the Right Bitrate for Your Next Live Video Event appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

What the SolarWinds Hack Taught Us About the Need for Endpoint Security Reporting & Software Delivery Analytics

Best Practices

By now, almost everyone has heard of the disastrous SolarWinds hack . To re-cap, in March 2020, hackers stealthily installed malware into SolarWinds Orion, a network-monitoring software used for IT infrastructure management. This allowed the hackers to gain access to highly sensitive data via a covertly inserted backdoor. The attack went undetected for months and was first publicly reported in December 2020 after being spotted by cybersecurity firm FireEye. Over a period of eight months, at least 24 organizations installed the SolarWinds software laced with malicious code, including various federal, state and local governments and private sector companies. 

When Microsoft found out they were among those compromised in the hack, they made quick work to remove the digital certificates that the Trojaned files used, announced that it was updating Microsoft Windows Defender, moved to a sinkhole domain and changed Windows Defender’s default action for Solorigate from “Alert” to “Quarantine.” Microsoft’s quick actions lead to neutralizing and killing the malware while gaining control over the malware’s infrastructure from the attackers. 

The SolarWinds hack highlights the devastating impact of software supply chain attacks and underscores the fact that most organizations are unprepared to prevent and detect such threats. When a security breach happens, speed is a critical factor in remediation, but you also need granular insights into software delivery to understand overall system health. 

Best Practices to Avoid and Respond to a Cyber Security Attack 

According to a Cisco report , “Major incidents and losses can be avoided by proactively refreshing the technology used and by learning from prior incidents, through prompt disaster recovery, sufficient security tech, timely incident response and accurate threat detection.”  

You can help defend your company from a cyber-attack by conducting risk assessments, mitigating against risks that cannot be removed, preparing and implementing a breach response plan and implementing cyber security best practices. In addition to scanning your systems on a continuous basis, Gurpreet Dhillon, Ph.D of Virginia Commonwealth University , recommends organizations to:  

  1. Install sensors or mechanisms to collect potential hazards  
  2. Conduct automatic searches at regular intervals for potential flaws  
  3. Collect results from different divisions and/or stakeholder groups  
  4. Triage and analyze results on an ongoing basis  
  5. Fix the most critical issues first and develop a priority list  
  6. Report progress and continuously improve  

If your organization falls victim to a cyber-attack despite all of the security measures you’ve taken to prevent it, after you discover the breach: 

  1. Survey: Identify the attacker and find out where the attacker entered 
  2. Limit: Filter traffic and isolate system  
  3. Record: Find effects and identify disruptions  
  4. Engage: Connect with District Attorney and engage with FBI Infragard 
  5. Notify: Notify affected persons and seek legal counsel 
  6. Learn: Document learning points and proactively ensure learning moving forward 

Even when taking the upmost security measures, a data breach can happen to any organization. Reduce your risk of a cyber-attack by implementing and following your organization’s best practices, and if a breach does occur, follow your security response plan.  

Managing Network Health via Security Analytics 

Security reporting leverages a combination of software, algorithms and analytics processes to detect potential threats to IT systems, not just sniff out hacks as they occur.    

“Many organizations do not use security analytics to its full capabilities; often the analysis is relegated simply to identifying network attacks. However, this is only one subset of the types of security analytics that should be deployed. Security analytics provides insights into how well security programs are working. It can also help identify problem areas and can warn of imminent or active attacks” says privacy and security expert Rebecca Herold .  

Ian McClarty, President of PhoenixNAP Global IT Services , elaborates, “Analytics are key to security. As the complexity of IT networks has grown, the inventiveness and sophistication of cyber security threats and attacks has grown just as quickly.” 

Endpoint analytics can also give clues to security breakdowns and help identify policies or hardware issues that may be slowing down devices, so you can proactively make changes without disrupting end users.  

Paired together, security reporting and endpoint analytics can help an IT department understand the data flowing in– to and out of its network, detect potential threats and monitor user experience and hardware. The safety of an organization’s data and IT systems increasingly depends on having an effective, real-time monitoring security and endpoint analytics solution. 

Kollective for Software Delivery Accelerates Patching & Provides Insight into System Health with Intelligent Analytics Reporting 

According to IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2020 , the average cost of a corporate data breach is $3,860,000. Extensive cloud migrations are the number one cause of data breach, with 24% occurring at the end point, 19% due to a system misconfiguration and 16% because of a vulnerability in third-party software. To help avoid a costly breach, increase your endpoint security by reducing network risk with Kollective for Software Delivery .  

Kollective helps minimize the risk of data breach by ensuring 100% delivery of software updates and security patches when distributing content via Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). By leveraging the scale and flexibility of the cloud, Kollective optimizes software updates and patch delivery to minimize downloads and vulnerabilities with faster and more reliable patch distribution. 

Kollective’s solution delivers: 

  • 70% faster software deployment 
  • No impact to network bandwidth 
  • Analytics that provide a full view of your network 

Want to make your SCCM more powerful? Kollective IQ is an advanced analytics platform that gives you deeper insight into all your endpoints. It allows you to easily create dashboards and reports, providing the metrics your organization needs to better understand network performance and verify the success of deliveries.  

With Kollective for Software Delivery you can achieve greater than 95% peering efficiency, and significantly reduce your Wide Area Network (WAN) bandwidth utilization. This means faster and more reliable delivery of ConfigMgr content to the edge of your network. Kollective IQ provides the analytics you need to ensure your network environment is secure and fully optimized.  

To learn more about Kollective for Software Delivery, request to speak with an expert today. 

The post What the SolarWinds Hack Taught Us About the Need for Endpoint Security Reporting & Software Delivery Analytics appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

The Pros and Cons of Windows Update Delivery Optimization

CMMA Blog

As we previously discussed , there are many ways to optimize the delivery of software content. Let’s look at the one that’s likely already on your computer: Windows Update Delivery Optimization .

What is Windows Update Delivery Optimization?

Windows Update Delivery Optimization (WUDO) is a native Microsoft tool that’s a part of Windows 10. The tool is designed to reduce bandwidth by having your PCs grab updates from other peers on your network who have already downloaded the content, reducing the amount of traffic generated due to updates.

What Should You Consider?

WUDO was built to take care of lightweight requirements in the form of Windows updates that are readily available on the web, ideal for small networks. However, it lacks support for the heavier application and package distribution/task sequencing needs often found at the enterprise level. In addition, WUDO lacks support for operating system deployment, making it useless for the Windows 7 to Windows 10 migration .

Due to its lack of use cases, strength and functionality, WUDO will likely only add another layer of complexity with minimal return for most enterprise-level networks.

Costs

Because WUDO is included in Windows 10, the upfront costs are non-existent beyond what you’re already paying for Windows 10 anyway. However, operating costs should be considered on the moderate to high end when you consider that you’ll likely need additional solutions to handle your other use cases.

Should You Pick WUDO?

Just want to speed up your software update deliveries? WUDO might work for you. The ideal candidate for WUDO will likely be a small organization that’s unconcerned about SCCM performance and is looking for an inexpensive entrance into the world of software content delivery.

Should You Skip WUDO?

Despite the price tag, you should skip WUDO if your network delivers a large volume of big software files across geographically-distributed locations.


WUDO Pros

  • Leverages peer to peer efficiency for limited use cases
  • Can send and receive update files at the same time
  • Can resume downloads
  • Can perform load balancing
  • Windows 10 Feature and Cumulative Updates enabled
  • No upfront costs

WUDO Cons

  • No SCCM support
  • No control over content
  • No reporting or analytics
  • Requires extensive boundary configuration
  • Requires manual boundaries definition to define scope of peering when crossing subnets
  • Doesn’t support Windows 7 to Windows 10 migration
  • Doesn’t support Packages and Application Deployment
  • Doesn’t have a smart agent to enable Optimal Source Selection

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The State of Software Distribution 2018

The State of Software Distribution 2018

Aug 23, 2018 | Software Distribution

  Over the last five years, we have seen cyberattacks hit some of the world’s largest organizations. From data breaches at Verifone, TalkTalk and Docusign, to ransomware attacks on FedEx, Honda and the UK’s National Health Service; it’s becoming increasingly clear…

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To Become A DevOps Workplace, Communication and Collaboration Are Key

CMMA Blog

DevOps Is On The Rise

Given the rapid rate of change in the digital era, IT-enabled innovation is proving to be critical for organizations of all types and sizes. The ability to deliver agile and seamless IT systems – and to run them reliably, consistently and cost-effectively – can provide a competitive advantage in even the most crowded of marketplaces.

The result of this has been the rise of DevOps culture, with IT-based organizations embracing more agile working methods and faster product development and delivery. As a culture, opposed to a specific technique or technology, DevOps aims to strip away the conflicting priorities that have traditionally existed between development and operations teams.

The Way It Used To Be

Previously, an organization’s development and operations teams would work separately, rather than in unison. With each having their own priorities to manage, such as project spend, application performance and functional requirements.  And this suited the characteristics of their work – with development enjoying the freedom and flexibility to make real-time changes, and operations thriving from consistency and stability, even if that meant crucial updates being held back to preserve uptime. But by bringing them together, organizations are better able to deliver systems into production quicker – with greater reliability and efficiency – and operate and support them more effectively.

This makes a great deal of sense given the lightning-quick nature of modern technology. A trend that only seems to intensify with each new software innovation and product iteration.

But for organizations looking to adapt and restructure their operations in favor of an agile methodology, adopting DevOps is not straightforward. It’s a transition full of potential pitfalls and is just as likely to fail as succeed. So, with that in mind, what do businesses need to consider before moving forward? And what are the key components for crafting a successful DevOps culture?

While there are a number of prerequisites required when putting together a successful DevOps team – mastery of different programming languages, knowledge of mainstream program interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs), and familiarity with big data technologies – it has less to do with change management and IT automation toolkits, and more to do with people and processes. And this is where organizations looking to migrate towards DevOps so often fall down.

The keys to creating a successful DevOps culture: communication and collaboration. 

As we’ve seen, DevOps is itself a product of collaboration. And for it to be successful, emphasis has to be placed on effective communication and relationship building between team members. For small to mid-sized organizations – with a team all working out of the same space – this can be achieved in a number of different ways. But for global organizations, where team members can often be operating out of different offices on different continents on different time zones, enterprise network solutions are essential to help forge relationships, align objectives and prioritize tasks.

This is particularly important when it comes to rolling out software updates or launching a product on-time and within budget. With so many moving parts involved in delivery, a collaborative environment and a spirit of togetherness are crucial to producing high-quality results.

For organizations looking to deploy a DevOps practice, technical proficiency is clearly of great importance. But it shouldn’t be placed above collaboration and communication.  In some cases, teamwork can be of greater importance to the whole than mastery of the technicalities.

While it’s clearly advantageous to identify and acquire people who possess expert knowledge of particular subjects, when building a team, the attributes at its foundation should be a willingness to collaborate and communicate openly. Often, the individuals who best employ these qualities are creative problem solvers with strong communication skills. And while it takes more than just a willingness to collaborate and communicate to create a successful DevOps culture, those organizations that commit to building their teams around these attributes will be better placed to succeed than those that don’t.

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