Video is fueling the burning necessity for service providers to transform their networks by depending less on legacy purpose-built proprietary infrastructure and more on a generic set of standard-built COTS (commercial off the shelf) equipment. To stay competitive, reduce costs and possess more service agility, video operators progressively seek to deliver video over IP using virtualized cloud processing in datacenter environments. This is this ‘the’ global network transformation that is well on its way towards the “Simplified Network” of virtualized media processing cloud resources to respond to the worldwide – and mind-boggling – consumption of video on whatever device at any time and place.
Video event of the year: the IBC 2015
This is why right now we are gearing up for the video event of the year: the IBC 2015 show in Amsterdam, September 11-15. While its focus touches all aspects of video – creation, management and delivery – it is the aforementioned network transformation that plays an underlining and vital role in its success. Ever since video content became such a crucial revenue creator the question and ultimate challenge has always been: “How can the network infrastructure be maintained and transformed to ensure greater availability and scalability of compute resources?” Cloud and virtualization are changing this and stimulating growth in new areas such as OTT delivery, mobile TV, cloud production, and Ultra HD/4K.
This is our third time around at IBC. What’s interesting about that is ever since we first showed our game changing x86 COTS converged modular platform – optimized for multiple network video compute workloads for telco, broadcast and OTT service providers – we’ve seen firsthand the explosion of new players, solutions and partners in these three short years. At the crux of this story was the introduction of using Intel graphics (GPU) acceleration for media processing as part of an overall strategy to better provision resources with respect to increased demand of video content, and likewise, launch new services in a much shorter time period.
Let’s contribute to the network transformation
With Intel’s long-term strategy to leverage the Iris Pro graphics technology for media processing via the Intel software development kit (Media Server) to ensure video quality for content delivery networks (CDN), adoption of this implementation is now going mainstream. Another exciting aspect to this acceleration is the fact that it can be virtualized as virtual GPU resources, and, therefore, be managed as an actual workload in the network. This makes video one of the more significant new use case elements for operators in their transition to Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN).
At the recent Light Reading Big Telecom Event in Chicago earlier this year, we had the chance to demonstrate the platform (aka SYMKLOUD) capabilities and also elaborate on how this can be used in today’s network transformation towards the ‘Simplified Network’. For more details on how Kontron contributing to this network transformation, feel free to listen to the recent Intel Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/intelchipchat-networkinsights/kontron.
But now back to the IBC: At the moment, we are in full preparation for the September 10th to 15th International Broadcasting Conference event in Amsterdam. With the 5th generation of Intel’s architecture in hand, we will show how to address HEVC transcoding for Ultra HD and 4K video workloads, with even more improved bitrates and video quality. Come check out the Kontron demo at the Intel booth in Hall 4, Booth B72, where all the right folks from Intel will also be available to help guide you regarding the Intel Media Server SDK and your next project to move media processing into the cloud.
Hope to see you there.
What sort of hardware and software solutions are you currently using for video workloads? What sort of densities of streams per RU are you achieving? What sort of challenges do you face to virtualize video in the cloud?
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