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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.

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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

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

From My VW to Your Video Campaigns, is DIY the Right Choice?

CMMA Blog

From the “maker movement” to how-to videos, we live in a Do It Yourself (DIY) era. Whether it originates from punk rock or anti-consumerism, the movement today leverages technology to connect people with similar interests and empowers them to fix, build, or hack their way through a whole variety of interesting cool projects.

DIY culture has exploded across the U.S., and there is data to back it up:

  1. There have been over 400 Maker Faires organized around the world since 2012.
  2. There are 1975 hackerspaces around the world.
  3. $529 million was pledged to Kickstarter projects in 2014. That’s more than $1,000 a minute.

The infrastructure is there, crowd-based funding is there, and people are showing up to create!

DIY can benefit the individual or group in a variety of ways; including a sense of accomplishment, uncompromised vision, and the democratization of bringing new products to market. These are all very positive results. But for every successful Kickstarter campaign there are multitudes of “Pinterest Fails”. This asks the question: just because you can do something yourself, does it mean you should?

For each project you need to evaluate the risk, the benefits, the urgency, and the cost.

DIY and my 1990 VW Vanagon

I drive an (almost) vintage VW van. It’s old, but the nice thing is that unlike “modern vehicles” you can update and fix things. I’ve replaced the carpet, added an auxiliary battery, and even installed an aftermarket USB charger. But then one day driving up Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island, I blew my engine. The steam billowing out of my exhaust was a strong indication my engine needed to be replaced, and I had to ask myself:

  1. Do I have the right tools and documentation?
  2. Do I have the time it takes to figure it out?
  3. Will it cost more if I do it myself?
  4. And most importantly – what if I screw this up?

Since I drive the van to work every day, I couldn’t really afford to screw up the job, and because I had no idea what I was doing the risk was, shall we say, high that I would do something wrong. Not to mention all the unknown unknowns.

What if I had a friend who was a mechanic, who could help walk me through it? That significantly changes the outlook on my success. I can leverage their knowledge and expertise, while growing my own and at the same time lowering my risk.

What does my VW have to do with your video strategy?

1. Do you have the right tools and documentation to engage your workforce throughout the enterprise?

With Microsoft’s Teams Live Events and Stream delivered by Kollective, comms teams everywhere now have the capability to reach every worker in the enterprise without harming the network. You have the tools, and you are basically able to do unlimited events without paying additional cost.

2. Do you have the time it takes to figure it out?

Scheduling an event is simplicity itself. But what about producing an event? What about measuring the engagement of the audience over time? How can you tell what content is resonating with which segments of the workforce? Do you have the time for everything that wraps around a video event?

3. Will this end up costing more if you do it yourself?

Do you have internal video production teams? Are you outsourcing? How are you preparing for the event? Is there a communication plan?

4. What if you screw this up?

If your C-suite is in front of the entire company, how tolerant are they of total failures? How high is the pressure?

What about that friend who knows what they’re doing?

The good news is that Kollective doesn’t just empower the delivery of content across your network. We also have an experienced team of seasoned professionals, all former customers, who have been through the digital transformation. The Kollective Enterprise Video Strategy (EVS) Team has helped numerous customers in different ways, in each case tailored to the customer’s specific needs. We’ve seen them provide on-site support for a multi-national all hands meeting, they’ve helped several other customers develop meaningful KPIs around measuring employee engagement, and I’ve even seen them help a customer develop a business case for their video strategy. My point is Kollective’s EVS Team will meet you where you are and get you where you want to go.

So. Is DIY worth it? Is it worth it to swap out your old engine yourself? Yes, it is. If you have success, you will save money, and it’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment IF you can mitigate the risk and stay on top of your learning curve by leveraging the expertise of people who’ve done it before. To my fellow DIYers and makers, best of luck out there.

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No WiFi, No Power, No Problem – Nick’s Notes From The Road

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NICK’S NOTES FROM THE ROAD

Earlier this year, I was called in to assist a prospect customer to do a live event outside of Toronto. From the initial calls, it was fairly obvious that this life insurance company was new to streaming. Getting started in the streaming universe is a fairly big challenge as there are so many odds and ends to think about, but I’m used to and enjoy supporting newbies.  

The first thing I always recommend to any customer, especially a new one, and even more so if an event is offsite from customer offices, is that you NEED a full day to test. To that end, I showed up the day before the event, to begin testing. The first little part that caused me discomfort, was that the testing wasn’t due to start until 3pm, the day before an 8am show. Slight red flag there, for sure. I arrive at 3pm, and the setup has barely begun, and almost all the gear was still packed.  

3PM, The Day Before

After about an hour of sitting around, I inquired on the Wi-Fi and network connections, to ensure they were up and running, and we had plenty of bandwidth. Good thing I did, as it turns out, the customer had purchased a Wi-Fi hotspot from a local wireless carrier. This hotspot was not working at all, nothing, no signal. We spend the next hour or so attempting to get it working. If that wasn’t enough, while troubleshooting the Wi-Fi, the building went dark. The power went out, there was a complete blackout on the entire block. The only thing lighting the entire ballroom was one emergency light. The power outage lasted about another hour.  

6PM, The Night Before

We are now approaching 6pm or so, with no Wi-Fi and nothing setup in respect to audio, cameras, etc. Tech support from the local wireless company is pretty useless. They claim the hotspot is corrupt and that we should use the facility Wi-Fi or go to wireless store and get a new data card for the hotspot. We didn’t trust the spotty and limited facility Wi-Fi, so at 8pm, we decide to go to the wireless store before they close at 9pm. The crew crams into a rented minivan, we get the new card, and then grab a bite to eat. After dinner, I was prepared to return to the venue. We still haven’t tested the new data card, or finished setting up, or tested streaming. I’d rather rest well knowing the new card fixed our connection issues, however, the team was tired and wanted to call it a night.    

Morning Of The Event

I manage to get a little rest and head to the event for a super early call. We get to the ballroom, test the card and nada, nothing… the Wi-Fi still doesn’t work. We get back on with tech support. They can’t figure it out. I encourage the rest of the setup to continue, so at the very least we can record the event and play it back later. We get to about an hour before show time, and the team is still focused on getting the hotspot to work. Being this close to show, I recommend using a hotspot from someone’s phone to stream the event at a much lower bitrate. We shift our focus to that solution, only to find out that their new switcher/encoder does not have Wi-Fi capability.

T-Minus 30 Minutes

With less than 30 minutes before show and the tension in the room building, I keep my cool as in my bag of tricks, I had my Wirecast  encoder with me, as well as a Blackmagic  capture card. We quickly connect one camera directly to my laptop using the Blackmagic capture card, and we use the customer’s iPhone 6 for data. We are able kick out a stream at around 200k. Thankfully, it worked like a charm, and made it through the entire three-hour long webcast.  

You never have too much time and can never be too prepared for a live streaming event. Anything can happen. And next time… I’ll bring a generator. 

Nick Vella

Nick Vella

Event Services Manager

“Nick’s Notes From The Road” is a blog series dedicated to the live event producers, the movers and shakers, the people who just won’t take no WiFi for an answer. In this series we address all things good and bad that might come up during a live event and some tools and tricks for success.

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