A big part of video in the enterprise is distribution. How do you optimize video traffic behind the firewall and prevent network congestion? It’s always one of the big challenges for network administrators, getting video to your viewers. Whether that video is coming from an on premises streaming platform or from the cloud, and whether it’s going out to 500, 5,000, or 500,000 viewers inside the enterprise, the network is going to be impacted.
The key role of an eCDN (enterprise content delivery network) is to reduce network strain by decreasing the amount of video that traverses the corporate firewall. The enterprise LAN itself has plenty of bandwidth, but the WAN links and the Internet connections are constrained. So, instead of having 10,000 users all requesting a stream and creating all that traffic across the network, you really want to have discrete streams that just hit a few edge devices.
People talk about common enterprise streaming infrastructure (CESI), so let’s understand what CESI is. Common enterprise streaming infrastructure, first and foremost, is network video infrastructure that will support a variety of protocols, particularly with the move toward HTML5 video. Rather than a using a proprietary distribution solution specific to a single streaming platform, you want one that supports multiple platforms.
Other principles of a CESI are resiliency, scalability, manageability, security and affordability.
Ultimately, when it comes to enterprise video, the network should not be the issue. You should choose the streaming application for the use cases you want to support. And with common enterprise streaming infrastructure, the delivery solution at the network layer will be able to support any and all platforms you choose.
For more information about CESI, check out our white paper Five Considerations for Deploying an Enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN).
From the IBM webinar Optimizing Video on Corporate Networks
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