facebookpixel

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

The Rise of Zero Trust Networks

CMMA Blog

The Rise of Zero Trust Networks

In the past two years, we have witnessed a rapid evolution in cybersecurity and a rise in Zero Trust security as a top priority for organizations across the globe. With the shift to remote and hybrid work models, businesses must adapt to support employees working in locations beyond the perimeter of the corporate network. Increased prevalence of cloud-based services, the internet of things (IoT), and the growing sophistication of cyberattacks has caused business leaders to adopt more robust security protocols.

In response to these changes, the adoption of Zero Trust security models has skyrocketed across diverse markets and industries. In their report titled, “The State of Zero Trust Security 2021 ,” identity management firm Okta found that Zero Trust has increased in priority for 78% of businesses. Microsoft’s 2021 “Zero Trust Adoption Report ” echoed these sentiments, stating, “Security decision-makers (SDMs) say developing a Zero Trust strategy is their #1 security priority, with 96% saying it’s critical to their organization’s success.”

As more businesses switch to Zero Trust security models, software solutions they rely on must perform and comply with these new security practices. Kollective’s Edge Accelerator was built with Zero Trust security in mind, allowing businesses to scale content delivery in evolving network environments.

This article will review the basics of Zero Trust, the factors leading to the increase in Zero Trust adoption, where adoption is occurring, and how Kollective enables businesses with Zero Trust networks.

What is Zero Trust?

Zero Trust is a security model based on the principle: “never trust, always verify.” In Zero Trust networks, no device is trusted by default. Users must be authenticated, authorized and continually validated before being granted access to applications and data, whether they are inside or outside the organization’s network.

Zero Trust networks redefine the traditional understanding of the network edge. In Zero Trust frameworks, networks can be local, in the cloud, or a combination of the two – supporting workers in any location. With pushes towards digital transformation, Zero Trust allows businesses to ad dress the challenges of the modern office, including securing remote employees and hybrid cloud environments.

Hybrid Work is Driving Zero Trust Adoption

Zero Trust models have been a part of the enterprise for over a decade. Google implemented Zero Trust architecture into their security model as far back as 2009. The growth of Zero Trust strategies in the 2010s was slow, but has accelerated over the past three years. The increase was fueled by the rise of mobile computing, the internet of things (IoT), and cloud-based services, and the pandemic only amplified these problems. Existing challenges and the subsequent shift to remote and hybrid workplaces have driven Zero Trust adoption to record highs as leadership seeks better ways to safeguard systems and data as employees access them off-site and through personal devices.

Business leaders confirmed that the move to hybrid work models accelerated their Zero Trust timelines. In a poll of over 600 global security leaders, Okta found that the challenges of hybrid work caused businesses to become “more security conscious” and forced them to prioritize Zero Trust strategies. As a result, most companies (90%) are actively pursuing Zero Trust initiatives, up from 41% in 2020. While many companies are still determining how to integrate Zero Trust frameworks, Microsoft found that implementation is well underway – “76% of organizations have at least started implementing a Zero Trust strategy with 35% claiming to be fully implemented.”

Zero Trust Adoption Varies by Industry

While Zero Trust initiatives have increased across all industries, Okta discovered that adoption varies among key verticals. Highly regulated industries, like financial services, lead other verticals in their use of Zero Trust, with 94% reporting they already have Zero Trust frameworks in place or “have aggressive goals to get there.” Other industries with notable pushes towards Zero Trust include healthcare and software. Almost one-third (30%) of healthcare organizations stated that Zero Trust is now a top priority compared to 17% globally. While software companies like Microsoft and Google implemented Zero Trust models, only 9% of software organizations have a Zero Trust initiative currently in place. However, the industry is poised for change as nearly 4 in 5 plan to adopt initiatives by the end of next year.

EMEA Experiences the Largest Increase in Zero Trust Initiatives

In Okta’s report, they found that at least 87% of APAC, EMEA, and North American organizations have defined Zero Trust initiatives in place or plan to start them in the next 12-18 months. While all regions saw substantial increases in adoption since 2020, the most significant jump occurred in EMEA where Zero Trust initiatives grew by a factor of five.

Increase in Zero Trust Initiatives by Region

  • APAC: 50% (2020) to 91% (2021)
  • EMEA: 18% (2020) to 90% (2021)
  • North America: 60% (2020) to 87% (2021)

Kollective Supports Zero Trust Networks

Secure by design. Creating an effective security design requires a comprehensive security policy woven into every layer of a solution, addressing present threats and future concerns. That is how Kollective’s Edge Accelerator was architected – with security in mind from conception to release, ensuring the highest degree of protection for your data.

Zero Trust with Kollective. As more businesses adopt Zero Trust frameworks, solutions must adhere to their security standards. Kollective’s Edge Accelerator provides best-in-class content delivery mechanisms and offers advanced security controls to support networks operating in Zero Trust environments. Learn more about Kollective’s security .

Performance without Security Risks. In Microsoft’s study, overall security and the end-user experience were the primary motivators for organizations adopting Zero Trust frameworks. These priorities are directly in line with Kollective’s goals – to flawlessly deliver content to any user in any location securely. Kollective’s Edge Accelerator handles the most diverse network needs, from delivering video to China to supporting hybrid workplaces with complex network environments. Kollective provides businesses with flexibility and the confidence that their network will always work.

Talk to an expert today to see how Kollective’s ECDN solutions excel in Zero Trust network environments.

The post The Rise of Zero Trust Networks appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Virtual Events for Open or Private VIP Only Audiences

CMMA Blog

Virtual events are a requirement for companies big and small in today’s business culture. While IBM Watson Media has been streaming online conferences for many years, we’ve added several new features to our Enterprise Video Streaming platform to help event managers easily spin up new virtual events (or webcasts) at any time, and customize them for specific audiences.  A

Read more

The post Virtual Events for Open or Private VIP Only Audiences appeared first on Streaming Video Blog .

To view our Partner blog, click here

What is Kollective EdgeCache?

CMMA Blog

What is Kollective EdgeCache?

It goes without saying that we have all become more flexible over the last year and a half, especially when it comes to how we work. With the rise of the hybrid workforce, it means that the infrastructure required to support this new working model needs to be flexible as well. Kollective has once again innovated and added new functionality to its platform to ensure you can collaborate anywhere in the world at any time, no matter where you are in the network. Introducing Kollective EdgeCache , a light and scalable addition to the Kollective platform. EdgeCache delivers video to even the hardest-to-reach locations in your network, ensuring that no one in your company is left behind when it comes to collaboration and communication.

Kollective EdgeCache is the newest addition to Kollective’s ECDN Platform . It is a software-defined video caching solution that is placed within your existing edge infrastructure to improve the efficiency of your network, reduce bandwidth usage, and bring content closer to the end user. EdgeCache stores your live and on-demand video (VOD) behind the corporate firewall to deliver content quickly and securely across your network.

In this article, we detail how EdgeCache benefits businesses by reviewing its features and use cases. We will also examine how the addition of EdgeCache to Kollective’s suite of solutions further expands the already extensive list of capabilities of the Kollective Platform. Continue reading to find out how EdgeCache can improve your corporate communications.

What are the Use Cases for Kollective EdgeCache?

The dynamic nature of network topologies requires businesses to be more flexible than ever to ensure that all employees have the same level of coverage regardless of their location. In this way, EdgeCache is a natural extension of our baseline Browser-Based Peering solution. EdgeCache integrates seamlessly with Kollective’s solutions, covering a series additional use cases your network is likely to encounter.

China Offices

Companies with business ties or operations in China understand the inherent difficulties that come with delivering content to the country. There are only three ISPs that control the internet in China, with limited interconnectivity between them. This leads to inconsistent network performance including high latency, packet loss, and frequent congestion spikes.

In addition, their active filtering and monitoring through the Great Firewall of China often creates delays, slowing traffic that originates from other countries. Installing EdgeCache inside your network in China allows users to effectively bypass this firewall. Content is stored within the firewall and end users can source both live and on demand video (VOD) directly from the EdgeCache, reducing the load on your internet gateway and more efficiently delivering content to your employees.

Backhauled Networks

To keep operations secure, many enterprises backhaul 100% of network traffic from all offices to centralized data centers where data can be securely inspected before accessing the internet. Businesses often suffer from reduced network efficiency when backhauling traffic from distant office locations. This can be a significant issue for companies with many remote offices like those in the manufacturing and energy industries. Installing Kollective EdgeCache in these data centers can reduce the amount of duplicate content pulled from the internet while also working in parallel with in-office peering to bring content closer to your network’s edge while dramatically reducing the traffic through your internet gateway.

Remote VPN Users

Split tunnelling can alleviate bandwidth bottlenecks by giving companies control over what data they encrypt and what data they allow to travel faster, unencrypted. Oftentimes, security-conscious organizations do not permit split tunnelling for their remote workers across the virtual private network (VPN). This results in bandwidth constraints at the VPN and regional breakout locations, increasing network congestion. Installing Kollective EdgeCache in strategic locations allows remote workers to access content directly from the EdgeCache. This maintains a high degree of security while reducing bandwidth requirements and end-to-end latency.

What are the Benefits of Kollective EdgeCache?

Flexible

Supplementing your current ECDN solutions with EdgeCache affords your business greater flexibility with content delivery. Deploy EdgeCache to offices in China to effectively bypass the “Great Firewall”. Use EdgeCache to quickly and securely deliver content through backhaul networks.

Scalable

There’s no limit to the number of EdgeCache’s that can be deployed on your network. Each EdgeCache supports up to 1,000 users. Work with our experts to determine how many EdgeCache’s your network needs so that content can be effectively delivered to your workforce.

Efficient

EdgeCache acts as a proxy that focuses streaming traffic to a centralized location. Use EdgeCache to aggregate the flow of content and reduce the strain on your internet gateway.

Secure

EdgeCache has been developed with the strictest security measures in mind to provide your business with privacy and peace of mind. EdgeCache data is fully encrypted for firewalled locations.

Support

Full support for live video and on-demand video (VOD) streams. EdgeCache supplies local access to everything from live events and townhalls to on-demand training videos, providing flawless quality regardless of stream type. EdgeCache also integrates with top video platforms, including Teams, Notified, Touchcast, Kaltura, WTV, Panopto, Intrado, etc.

Analytics

EdgeCache integrates with our advanced analytics platform, Kollective IQ , providing real-time insights needed to keep your employees engaged and your business operating smoothly.

Experience Complete Coverage with EdgeCache

Take the next step on your journey towards complete coverage with Kollective EdgeCache. From quickly serving video to remote workers and remote offices to efficiently delivering content to China, EdgeCache solves for an array of common use cases faced by the world’s largest brands.

The introduction of EdgeCache further expands Kollective’s already extensive list of capabilities. Kollective’s Platform is the only unified ECDN solution with coordinated delivery options that can solve any issues businesses experience with their network. Kollective is also the only ECDN platform with logic connecting peering and caching solutions. This means that EdgeCache can work with our other solutions to dynamically determine the most fast and efficient content delivery mechanism to keep your employees connected and engaged. Our platform provides complete coverage for simple to complex use cases, ensuring that content is quickly and securely delivered without delay.

Kollective’s ECDN Platform Solves Any Network

Kollective’s wide range of solutions and the logic that connects them under a single architecture allows our platform to alleviate the concerns of any network in ways our competition cannot. Kollective provides simple to complex networks with complete coverage, dynamically assessing and adjusting to changes in your network to provide the most optimal delivery path for your content needs.

The post What is Kollective EdgeCache? appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Webinar Recap: What Great Analytics Reveal About Microsoft Teams Live Events

analytics

Microsoft Teams Live Events have become an indispensable tool for enterprise communications. From high production events like company-wide town halls to crisis communications requiring quick turnarounds, Teams Live Events can engage and connect distributed workforces. To ensure these communications are successful, Live Event reporting is crucial.

In a recent webinar, What Great Analytics Reveal About Microsoft Teams Live Events , Garrett Gladden, Director of Product Management at Kollective, outlined the importance of understanding Live Event reporting data, identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) for Live Events and how adding an advanced analytics platform provides those insights where and when you need them.

Let’s Talk Teams

Teams Live Events are an extension of Teams Meetings meant for one-to-many communications. With Live Events you can broadcast to up to 100,000 attendees no matter their location or device.

Garrett was joined by Raphael Barini, Microsoft Modern Workplace Technical Architect at the time of the recording, who ran a quick demo on creating and running a Teams Live Event.  In the demo he covered:

  • How to set-up a Live Event in Teams
  • A breakdown of the different options you have when creating your event
  • Best practices for inviting attendees
  • Starting and managing the event as a Producer

The ease and simplicity of Teams Live Events allows anyone in the organization to set-up an event to relay important messages efficiently and at scale.

Data Needs Meaning

Teams Live Events produce a large amount of data. To be of any value in running a successful event, that data needs meaning. Finding that meaning, Garrett explained, requires two things – recency and relevance. Recency requires accessing the data when you need it which, to be actionable, is during the event. To achieve relevance, that data needs to be surfaced where you need it, in a centralized and easy to use dashboard.

Meaningful (and Easy) KPIs

Teams Live Events provide Attendee Engagement reports you can download after the event but does not provide actionable data in a usable format while the event is in process. To access this data as well as additional insights into video performance and employee engagement in real-time Garrett recommended using an advanced analytics platform like Kollective IQ .

Using a Southeast Asia business strategy planning event as an example, Garrett detailed the metrics you can access from a Teams Live Event with Kollective IQ. The event was held during COVID-19 lockdowns with the majority of attendees joining the event from home. The high-level analytics pictured in the dashboard below show that the event was a success.

Teams Live Events metrics with Kollective IQ analytics

Quality of Experience (QoE) Score shows what the experience was for everybody receiving the event content. The score is a combination of two metrics – the bitrate or quality of the video they received and the time to first frame or how long they waited for the video to arrive.
Average View Duration measures whether viewers stayed for the duration of the broadcast or dropped off letting you know how much of the content was consumed.
Reach indicates the attendance rate for the event and is measured by unique viewers.
Bandwidth Savings is the amount of bandwidth saved by using Kollective’s Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN) to deliver the live event.
Peering Efficiency is another indicator of the ECDN’s performance and in this example shows that high concentration regions were able to share content at the edge, pulling the Live Event from a peer rather than the network.
Geo Explorer shows where the content was consumed.

This data quickly answers the questions:

  • Did attendees have the experience that we wanted?
  • Did people watch for the duration showing that we effectively communicated with them?
  • Did we reach the number of people that we targeted?
  • Did we reduce strain on our network?
  • Did Kollective’s peering do the heavy lifting instead of our network?
  • Where and by whom was the content consumed?

For a deeper understanding of the data or specific users, Kollective IQ allows you to drill down into and explore each of these metrics.

Teams + Kollective IQ

Microsoft Teams lets you produce and distribute live events to your entire workforce no matter their location or device. Adding an advanced analytics platform to the mix lets you visualize your attendee experience and network performance and make real-time adjustments.

Kollective IQ offers you:

  • Persona-based workflows with stellar UX
  • Delivery of ALL data to clients, with data mining, exploration, and custom
  • calculations
  • Custom visualizations and dashboards
  • Data exportability with many formats to many destinations

Test out Kollective IQ’s valuable and actionable insights for Teams Live Events today.

The post Webinar Recap: What Great Analytics Reveal About Microsoft Teams Live Events appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

How Comms and IT Can Work Together to Streamline High-Quality Video Distribution

Best Practices

Leading a Communications team at an enterprise organization means you work cross-functionally with multiple departments, including the IT team. Although your goals may be different, when it comes to corporate communications, you share a common objective: Achieving a high-quality meeting experience for all employees on your network and ensuring delivery of a clear and concise message to your organization. In order to meet those goals, Kollective Technology recommends that both teams work together to make a few important decisions when it comes to your tech stack.  

Using the Right Tools 

With so many innovative workplace communication tools to choose from, it can get overwhelming if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. From applications like Microsoft Teams, built for seamless collaboration and communication, to your basic email or instant messaging program, there’s quite a long list to choose from.  

Sometimes these tools can be more of a burden than a benefit, especially if they’re not streamlined. Your team may primarily communicate big updates with your organization via email platform A, but when it’s time for a company-wide all hands meeting, your team prefers to run communications on Platform B because it has a live video function. When you use multiple communication platforms, it’s easy for employees to miss messages and get frustrated. More than half of workers say they feel overwhelmed by having to use multiple communication platforms , which is something that can be easily avoided.  

Selecting a single tool like Microsoft Teams allows for inter-department collaboration. With a single tool, you can deliver your message in a high-quality format and meet the needs of both the Communications and IT teams. After you’ve done your research, get in touch with your organization’s lead network architect and work together to select the video communications tool that meets your organization’s needs.  

Setting Expectations 

Not all departments “speak the same language” but if you want your company-wide communication to be successful, you’re going to have to find a way to effectively work with your friends in IT. One way to do so is by setting expectations up front. 

Examine what kind of user experience (UX) you want for your employees. UX is critical to the success of video communications because it asks things like:  

  1. Was the viewer able to watch event with limited interruptions? 
  2. How was the video and audio quality of the meeting? 
  3. Did the viewer understand the message that was being communicated?  

When both your Communications and IT teams have to report back to executive sponsors on the success of the event, UX is something you’ll need to include. But level setting UX expectations can be tricky, which is why Kollective has a formula that will help cross-functional teams work together to manage executives’ expectations. Kollective takes variables like time zones, survey response rate, job title, family, and attendance history into consideration when calculating expectations.  

It’s important for the Communications and IT teams to collaborate on expectations for live video events, setting clear roles and responsibilities ensures the best live video event experience for your employees. After you’ve set expectations and executed your first event, it’s time to dive into analytics .  

Diving into Analytics 

Analytics are critical to successful enterprise video strategy because they identify both wins and opportunities for improvement. To get the most detailed look into live event performance, you want a tool that gives you real-time analytics. These are the metrics that will provide the greatest insight: 

  • REACH SCORE: Sum of the number of reported users who viewed the content and the number of anonymous viewing sessions. Reach score provides insight into the total number of unique individuals reached by a live event.  
  • AVERAGE VIEW DURATION: The average amount of time a viewer was reported to have watched the event. Average view duration helps gauge company engagement when compared to baseline metrics.  
  • QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE (QOE) SCORE: Time spent displaying video relative to the total time spent both displaying video and buffering. It quantifies the quality of a live event giving insight into buffering and network bottlenecks.  
  • PEERING EFFECIENCY: Normalized percentage of bytes delivered via peering measures how efficiently network-connected devices transmit live video. 
  • BANDWIDTH SAVINGS: Percentage of bytes delivered via peering highlights ECDN effectiveness and network capacity.  
  • GEOGRAPHIC CONSUMPTION: Country-specific video deliveries displayed as a percent of total deliveries for all content on a scale of 0% to 100%. This figure gives global enterprises the opportunity to see how messaging is received globally.  

For your Communications Team, analytics like reach score, geographic consumption and average view duration are most helpful when breaking down what content employees engaged with and how engaged they were based on location. For the IT team, learnings from QOE score, peering efficiency and bandwidth savings will help quantify how well the meeting tech worked and give insight on what improvements need to be made for next time.   

Set Your Enterprise Video Strategy 

Now that you’ve picked a platform, outlined expectations, and know which analytics are important, you’re ready to finetune your enterprise video strategy. Kollective offers organizations with 1,000+ employees a free one-hour virtual workshop with one of our Event Services Consultants. During this session, you’ll learn: 

  • Live event best practices to ensure success 
  • Advice and links to helpful live event resources 
  • And, if you are a Microsoft O365 customer, a copy of the Kollective Live Event Playbook for Microsoft Teams Live Event 

Streamlining your workplace communication tools and working with your IT team is imperative for curbing burnout and running an efficient business. Let Kollective show you how your Communications and IT teams can strategize and work together to deliver successful, high-quality live events today.  

The post How Comms and IT Can Work Together to Streamline High-Quality Video Distribution appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here