By Mark Jeffery, Sr. Director of Product Marketing
More businesses are using hybrid:cloud live video workflows to increase revenue and enhance the reliability and intelligence of their live feeds while reducing OPEX and latency. This is only possible using the Videon Compute Platform, which brings video processing functions from the cloud to the video source. Businesses are now solving some of their biggest challenges, such as creating new ways to monetize their live video, managing large fleets of cameras, and using multi-cloud workflows for mission-critical live sports and events. However, businesses need a solution to create a scale that helps them do more with less.
We’d like you to meet LiveEdge® Cloud, the best way to remotely manage, monitor, and configure 10’s of thousands of connected Videon EdgeCasters at the video source. It provides unparalleled extensibility and convenience when monitoring numerous fleets, allowing live video operations teams to quickly analyze system status and troubleshoot potential issues promptly between the camera and cloud––all from a single pane of glass. We have good news too, LiveEdge® Cloud is available at no additional cost to Videon Compute Platform subscribers. Nice, right?
So, now that you know what LiveEdge® Cloud is, here are four reasons why you need it now:
Reason 1: Live Video becomes Easier to scale
Scaling live video can help businesses grow and monetize more, but the process can be complex. Setting up Videon EdgeCaster, managing them, troubleshooting, and configuring them are all challenging tasks. Fortunately, LiveEdge® Cloud offers three features that make this process much more manageable.
One-click Videon Edge Device Enrollment
First, no matter someone’s technical ability, it is easy to enroll Videon EdgeCaster into a fleet within LiveEdge® Cloud––it’s as easy as one click. Users no longer need to log into a local UI and configure the device, saving onsite technical staff costs and timing. Each device’s configuration can be done remotely from LiveEdge® Cloud from a centralized or decentralized live video operations team.
Fleet and User Permissions Management
As a live video operation grows, it becomes more difficult and expensive to manage remotely. With LiveEdge® Cloud, it is easy for an administrator to assign or reassign any connected Videon EdgeCaster from one fleet to another. This process can be done quickly and with minimal effort.
LiveEdge® Cloud also allows administrators to manage user access and permissions remotely. As users come onboard or offboard, their access to specific devices and fleets can be quickly adjusted and securely from the cloud, making it easy to ensure that only authorized users have access to the necessary resources.
A Real Videon Customer Use Case: Live Events
The SaaS customer had a unique challenge when hosting their high-profile event – they needed to enable remote, non-technical folks to go live with 14+ keynotes from different geographies and language tracks. Finding a technical person to manage such a distributed event was no small task, and the customer needed more time to spare.
Luckily, LiveEdge® Cloud was there to provide the customer with a one-click enrollment system that enabled them to monitor all of the keynotes from any location in real-time and without needing a technical person on site, saving them both money and time, as they no longer had to find someone with the necessary technical abilities. They could reliably scale with a small, distributed team. LiveEdge® Cloud gave the customer the peace of mind that their keynotes would run smoothly and without interruption. In the end, the event was a great success for everyone involved.
Reason 2: Save Time and Further Enhance Reliability
Live video is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses to drive revenue, so live video must have minimal downtime. To ensure this, operations teams need an efficient way to be alerted when something goes wrong and the ability to configure and reconfigure their EdgeCaster remotely easily. With the relevant data, these teams can audit workflows and make improvements for the future. Here are three features that did just that:
Alerts
Alerts is a powerful feature of LiveEdge® Cloud, given its ability to provide real-time notifications and insights into the health of EdgeCaster in a user’s fleet, significantly reducing the time and effort required to maintain and troubleshoot these devices, which can be scattered across multiple sites. Users can also stay on top of their fleet’s status, ensuring efficient operations and a consistent customer experience. The alerts include low disk space, high CPU usage, high temperature, unexpected offline state, reboot notifications, and more. With the help of these real-time notifications, users can quickly take action when something doesn’t seem right with their Videon EdgeCaster.
Update and Reconfigure
You can use LiveEdge® Cloud to make changes to the devices connected to it. For example, you want to start making money from your live videos. You can use LiveEdge® Cloud to enable the Videon Compute Platform’s native SCTE-35 ad marker insertion function without physically touching the device. You can also add or remove any edge apps or functions, giving you control of your Videon EdgeCaster from anywhere.
Reports
LiveEdge® Cloud’s reports feature enables teams to make data-driven decisions, improve their service quality and ensure optimal performance of their devices and fleets, helping them provide the smooth operations of their live video production while maintaining accountability. Teams can also use this feature to analyze usage, performance, and fleet metrics trends to make informed decisions that improve their operations.
A Real Videon Customer Use Case: Live Sports
A live video sports customer urgently needed to simplify their IT operations and improve efficiency. With over 50 stadiums worldwide, they needed a way to manage all of their Videon EdgeCaster from one single pane of glass, no matter where their location was. After researching different options, the customer discovered LiveEdge® Cloud and its powerful capabilities. With LiveEdge® Cloud, they can remotely control all of their Videon EdgeCaster with a few mouse clicks. They can power cycle equipment when needed, update the firmware easily and quickly, monitor device performance in real time, and receive automated email alerts for any issues that may arise.
Reason 3: Interact with LiveEdge® Cloud Programmatically
As the complexity of workflows grows and teams and operations scale, flexibility becomes a crucial component of any technology. We’ve baked flexibility into LiveEdge® Cloud, giving live video operations teams and SaaS providers the ability to take the best of LiveEdge® Cloud and build it directly into their end-to-end management platform or product with our easy-to-use Cloud REST API.
Want to know how? We’ll cover that in a more technical blog post later on.
In the meantime, this is how live video operations teams and SaaS providers can take advantage of the real-time data:
For Live Video Operations Teams
The Cloud REST API lets live video operations teams manage and configure the first mile directly from their preferred end-to-end management platform, reducing the number of platforms team members need to have in front of them.
For SaaS Providers
SaaS providers can use the LiveEdge® Cloud REST API to help them get the data they need into their data analytics platform. They can use this data to improve their customers’ experience and enable them to include the data in their end-to-end workflow audits.
LiveEdge® Cloud is revolutionizing the way businesses are scaling their live video workflows. As a result, they are saving significant amounts of time, and money and improving the reliability of their operations – particularly those that require mission-critical live video. With Videon’s LiveEdge® Cloud and EdgeCaster, companies now have access to the latest technologies and advanced features that allow them to stream their content with minimal effort. As Videon continues to release new capabilities for LiveEdge® Cloud and EdgeCaster, businesses will be able to scale their live video workflows even further and unlock an entirely new efficiency level. LiveEdge® Cloud is changing how companies approach live video workflows and is making it easier and more cost-effective than ever before.
Contact our team here to learn more about LiveEdge® Cloud and the Videon Compute Platform.
