Streaming Media East: Cloud Video Services in the Enterprise

A panel gathered to discuss "Using Cloud-Based Video Services for the Enterprise" at Streaming Media East, and attendees likely walked away wondering why anyone would choose to host their own video content. "With video in particular, it's so bandwidth-intensive" that it's hard to deny the benefits of cloud-based video services, says David Gibbons, VP of product marketing at UStream.

With issues such as the high bandwidth required to deliver video, security, and cost to be considered, it seems hard to make the case for a company to build and maintain the infrastructure to deploy video content themselves. Video may not be central to an enterprise's mission, but companies started using video for internal communications and then realized how effective it would be to reach potential customers.  As Gibbons put it, "all organizations are in this transition as they become media companies."

But the fact remains, most enterprises are not media companies, and have no first-hand knowledge of what it really means to maintain and deliver their own video repositories. With that in mind, the speakers were careful to point out that there's a difference between a public cloud (think Amazon or Rackspace) and a private cloud—and a whole range of options in between.

Of course when you talk about the difference between public and private clouds, security isses arise. When it comes to security, the most important thing is to choose the right partner, according to David Boyll, director of digital media technology at Oracle.

"Every type of broadcast has it's own security requirements," says Gibbons. So you'll want to find a vendor that has a scalable security offering. You'll want to have everything from password-protected content to completely open content, and your vendor should be able to meet those requirements. Many vendors will even be able to build a custom solution.

But if you find yourself making the business case for cloud-based video services to your company any time soon, Gibbons has one piece of advice that stands out: "There are few investments [your company] can make that would be more leveraged."

Watch the full panel discussion and download Andy Howard's presentation:

Into the Cloud: Exploring the Next Generation of Video Services

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12 Aug 2013