April 16, 2012
Volume XXXIX, Issue 2
Scayl Delivers HD & 3D Video at NAB Using "E-Mail without Limits"
Scayl will introduce the alpha release of its next-generation software at the 2012 NAB Show on Monday April 16th in Las Vegas, NV.
Scayl President/CEO Bill Kallman will announce details during his keynote address The Latest Advances in Cloud Computing Storage and Delivery Solutions for the Audio/Video (A/V) Ecosystem, which opens the DCIA's CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE within the NAB Show at 10:30 AM in N232 of the Las Vegas Convention Center North Hall.
Scayl is the first e-mail software to combine client and server functionality in one application that forms a distributed cloud service. It is one of the fastest, easiest ways to securely and quickly deliver large files such as high-definition (HD) or three-dimensional (3D) videos at the lowest possible cost.
"Our distributed cloud approach enabled us to cure e-mail's core problems in delivering large video files securely - one-to-one or one-to-many. While uploading, downloading, and streaming services are popular and useful, Scayl provides a new and intuitive way to distribute content more easily and inexpensively," said Bill Kallman, CEO of Scayl.
Scayl's "E-Mail without Limits" is a free unlimited social e-mail platform that compliments and interoperates with legacy e-mail services. Scayl isn't a full-feature replacement for its user's e-mail service, but rather a high performance low-cost digital parcel service that interoperates with legacy services.
"When we learned about Scayl's launch plans, and considered the potential benefits of its latest release to high-value content distribution - especially high-definition and three-dimensional video - there was no question about it; we wanted Bill to do the opening keynote of our inaugural CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE at NAB, said Marty Lafferty, CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA).
Media are invited to attend a Scayl demo sending large HD & 3D videos quickly between laptops, and displaying the high quality on a 55" Samsung 3DTV at Booth N3222G in the NAB Cloud Computing Pavilion Monday through Wednesday, April 16th-18th, from 9 AM to 6 PM, and on Thursday, April 19th, from 9 AM to 2 PM.
Scayl supports digital rights management (DRM) for the secure and trusted e-mail delivery of the highest studio-quality digital media content. Creators, marketers, and publishers can distribute high-value content suitable for Web TV with e-mail ease-of-use, rights holders' DRM-defined business-model rules, and user feedback analytics.
With Scayl, users can play video files as they arrive in a new low-cost approach to quality video delivery. This pseudo-streaming file delivery behavior isn't available in comparable upload-download style centralized file transfer cloud services. It brings quality, security, off-peak delivery, and a low-cost option to the over-the-top (OTT) mix.
"DANCING ON A CLOUD" Book Signing at NAB
The DCIA cordially invites NAB attendees to a book-signing and Q&A session with DANCING ON A CLOUD - A Framework for Increasing Business Agility co-authors David Sterling and Prabhat Kumar in DCIA Exhibit Booth N3222M at the CLOUD COMPUTING PAVILION on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 17th and 18th, from 12 to 2 PM at the 2012 NAB Show.
Join participants in gaining a better understanding of cloud benefits for your media business, monetization of IT investments, and successful use of new business models. How can you enhance your A/V ecosystem with cloud platform and application enablers? How can your media planning activities use cloud-enabled business models to generate new revenue? How can cloud help reduce your TCO and simplify your daily IT operations?
DANCING ON A CLOUD co-authors will answer your questions. Get your signed copy of the latest cloud planning resource!
Public and private sector decision makers and practitioners need advice to get past the "cloud hype" and leverage cloud-enabled solutions. This book offers a sound planning framework and practical implementation approaches that lead to business strategy realization and balanced ecosystems.
"Working in an industry that is just starting to touch the surface of cloud computing and what it can do, this book provides a practical approach to helping understand cloud computing and how it might impact businesses. I would highly recommend it to those who want to understand better cloud computing and how it might impact them and their business," said Chuck Carroll, International Cable Telecommunications Executive and Consultant, and ex-CEO of Telenet.
"This is an important book that provides great insights and pragmatic advice on how to tackle the cloud revolution," added Marco Iansiti, Head, Technology and Operations Management Unit, and Co- Chair, Digital Initiative, Harvard Business School.
David Sterling is a results-oriented executive with global experience leading business planning and delivery of broadband data, web, IT, mobile, and managed solutions. He combines the management of multi-stakeholder and supplier environments with the benefits of virtualization and cloud platforms to uncover new revenue sources and cost efficiencies. He is adept at enabling concepts that integrate technologies to crystallize new markets, product offerings, and service platforms. David received an MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University and Bachelor of Science from Purdue University.
Prabhat Kumar is an accomplished executive with experience in leading global business initiatives in IT and cloud data centers. His strengths include managing multi-vendor environments in leveraging virtualization and cloud platforms. This combination fosters new sources of revenue and cost efficiencies for enterprises and service providers. Prabhat is adept at aligning vision and strategic solutions through building synergy across people, process and technology. Prabhat received an MBA from the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago and an M. Tech from IIT Kharagpur, India.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We hope to see you at the DCIA's inaugural CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE within the 2012 NAB Show on Monday April 16th in N232 of the Las Vegas Convention Center North Hall.
Don't miss this full-day conference that will demonstrate how software developers are addressing two major concerns with respect to cloud-based solutions for video delivery - reliability and security.
Experts will provide a senior management overview of how cloud-based solutions positively impact each stage of the content distribution chain. From collaboration and post-production to storage, delivery, and analytics, decision makers responsible for accomplishing their content-related missions will find this a must-attend event.
For your convenience, here is the full agenda.
10:30 KEYNOTE 1 - The Latest Trends in Cloud Computing Solutions for the Audio/Video (A/V) Ecosystem
How are innovative cloud-based technology developers impacting A/V content creation and distribution with a host of new strategies, products, and services?
10:50 PANEL 1 - Advanced Capabilities, New Features, Cost Advantages of Cloud Computing Solutions
What are the very latest ways that cloud computing is being applied throughout the creation and distribution chain for television and radio programming, motion pictures, corporate A/V production, and user-generated content (UGC)?
- Mike Alexenko, Sr. Dir. Mkt. Dev., Cloud & Mobility, G-Technology
- Scott Campbell, Principal, Media, Entertainment, and Telecoms, SAP
- David Frerichs, Strategic Consultant, Pioneer Corporation
- David Hassoun, Founder, RealEyes Media
- Samir Mittal, CTO, Rimage
- Michelle Munson, CEO, President, and Co-founder, Aspera
- Robert Stevenson, EVP, Interactive Entertainment, Gaikai
11:40 KEYNOTE 2 - The Key Pitfalls Associated with Cloud Computing in High-Value Content Implementations
How are safety and predictability considerations as well as related liability factors affecting cloud adoption for A/V by content creators, rights-holders, and distributors?
12:00 PANEL 2 - Privacy Issues, Reliability Questions, Security Concerns in the Cloud Computing Space
What are the different but inter-related hurdles to overcome for consumers, content companies, software providers, broadband network operators, and related cloud services vendors in migrating to the cloud, and what steps is the distributed computing industry taking to address these problems?
- Dave Asprey, VP, Cloud Security, Trend Micro
- Tom Mulally, Consultant, Numagic Consulting
- Graham Oakes, Chairman, Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA)
- Rajan Samtani, SVP, Sales & Marketing, Peer Media Technologies
- Dan Schnapp, Prtnr. & Ch. of New Media, Ent. & Tech., Hughes, Hubbard & Reed
- Yangbin Wang, CEO, Vobile
- Marvin Wheeler, Chairman, Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA)
- Vic Winkler, Author, "Securing the Cloud"
12:50 KEYNOTE 3 - Various Ways that Cloud Computing Is Being Applied to the Content Creation Process - from Pre- to Post-Production
How are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and even Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions strategically being brought to bear to improve key aspects of file-based workflow for A/V content?
1:10 PANEL 3 - Audio/Video Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production Clouds
What are leading examples and key case studies of ways that cloud-computing solutions are accelerating processes, improving quality, and/or reducing costs of such functions as collaboration, editing, animation, applying metadata, formatting, and transcoding?
- Tony Cahill, Chief Engineer, CET Universe
- Guillermo Chialvo, Gerente de Tecnologia, Radio Mitre
- Gerald Hensley, VP, Worldwide Entertainment Sales, Rovi Corporation
- Chris Kantrowitz, CEO, Gobbler
- Ajay Malhotra, EVP, North America, Prime Focus Technologies
- Todd Martin, SVP, Strategic Solutions Group. Chyron
- Kirk Punches, VP, Business Development, Sorenson Media
- Jostein Svendsen, CEO, WeVideo
2:00 KEYNOTE 4 - Alternative Approaches for Implementing Cloud Storage of Content Catalogs and Libraries and Leveraging Cloud-Based Distribution
How is this most publicized area in the implementation of cloud computing for A/V - storage and delivery - progressing? What are the technology policy/rights considerations and economics behind such concepts as "cloud media lockers" and the newest peer-assisted hybrid solutions in "quantum computing?"
2:20 PANEL 4 - Cloud Media Storage & Delivery
What are leading examples and key case studies of ways that cloud-computing solutions are accelerating processes, improving quality, and/or reducing costs of such functions as managing fungible inventories of high-value A/V content, including at the edge of the Internet, and delivering it to listeners and viewers?
- Bang Chang, VP, Server and Storage, SeaChange International
- Stephen Condon, VP, Global Marketing Communications, Limelight Networks
- Thomas Coughlin, President, Coughlin Associates
- Gianluca Ferremi, VP Sales & Marketing, Motive Television
- Corey Halverson, Product Director, Media Business Solutions, Akamai
- Kshitij Kumar, SVP, Mobile Video, Concurrent
- Kyle Okamoto, Sr. Mgr., Product & Portfolio Mgt., Verizon Digital Media Services
- Mark Taylor, VP, Media and IP Services, Level 3
- Moderator: Brian Campanotti, CTO, Front Porch Digital
3:10 KEYNOTE 5 - New Levels of Media Performance Data Enabled by Cloud Computing -- and Impact on Other Sectors
How will marketers, sponsors, and advertisers respond to the ability to access "dashboards" that provide anonymized listener and viewer behavior in an unprecedented level of detail in real-time? How will this affect programming, scheduling, and sell-through services, as well as related industries?
- Scott Brown, GM & SVP Strategic Partnerships, Octoshape
3:30 PANEL 5 - Cloud Measurement, Analytics, Implications
What are leading examples and key case studies of ways that cloud-computing solutions are accelerating processes, improving quality, and/or reducing costs of such functions as aggregating demographic and psychographic data, audience flow trends, and additional behavior information? What are the implications of cloud computing deployments in the A/V ecosystem on the consumer electronics (CE) and telecommunications industries?
- Sean Barger, CEO, Equilibrium/EQNetwork
- Steve Hawley, Principal Analyst & Consultant, TVStrategies
- Jonathan Hurd, Director, Altman Vilandrie & Co.
- Monica Ricci, Dir. of Product Marketing, CSG International
- John Schiela, President, Phoenix Marketing International (PMI)
- Nick Strauss, Director of Sales, Verizon Digital Media Services
- Mike West, CTO, GenosTV
4:20 KEYNOTE 6 - Navigating the Current Cloud Environment and Planning for What's Next
What are the proven opportunities for broadcasters and A/V distributors to adapt cloud computing technology now and what changes and new service offerings are imminent?
4:40 PANEL 6 - Years Ahead for Cloud Computing
What do the most credible forecasts and projections indicate about the ways that cloud-computing solutions will continue to impact the A/V ecosystem over the long term, and what will this mean for the underlying businesses that are based on content production and distribution?
- Saul Berman, Lead Partner, IBM Global Business Services
- Ian Donahue, President, American Standard Television
- Chris Haddad, VP, Technology Evangelism, WSO2
- Wayne Josel, Counsel, Media & Entertainment, Hughes, Hubbard & Reed
- Steve Mannel, Sr. Dir., Media & Comm., Salesforce.com
- James Mitchell, CEO & Founder, Strategic Blue
- David Sterling, Partner, i3m3 Solutions
- Chuck Stormon, CEO, Attend
5:30 KEYNOTE 7 - Disruptive Effects of Cloud Computing Will Continue
How will cloud computing technology continue to disrupt the A/V ecosystem, and where and when will we see the most profound changes to current business models and operations?
- James Hughes, VP & Cloud Storage Architect, Huawei
6:00 CLOSING
Sponsoring companies include Aspera, Avid, Chyron, Front Porch Digital, and Rackspace. For more information or to register, please click here. In addition, the DCIA will exhibit in N3222M at the CLOUD COMPUTING PAVILION, a first-ever special section of the NAB Exhibit Floor totally dedicated to cloud computing. Share wisely, and take care.
DFT Introduces Cloud-Based Dailies System
Excerpted from Studio Daily Report by Bryant Frazer
Stressing affordability in the year of the cloud, DFT Digital Film Technology is integrating its FLEXXITY dailies software for the Mac with online content distribution through cloud video provider 1o1Media. The new system, FLEXXITY + 1o1, will be available from the beginning of NAB next week through July 31st at a special price of $2,599 that includes 100 hours of usage of 1o1media's management and distribution services along with a full FLEXXITY software license.
Introduced last year, FLEXXITY Dailies supports ProRes, QuickTime, MXF and DPX along with a variety of digital camera formats (including ARRIRAW and R3D) and handles sync, timeline editing, color-correction, scaling, and other functions including transcoding footage to different file formats.
Dailies deliverables that are generated by FLEXXITY are shared and reviewed through 1o1's private cloud platform. 1o1 says its system includes DRM, rights management, file encryption, and watermarking. The company's founder and CEO, Rainer Knebel, is a veteran of Ascent Media and Thomson Grass Valley. Look for it at DFT's NAB booth: C11145.
TV Stations Tap Cloud Technology to Deliver Mobile Content
Excerpted from Fierce Online Video Report by Jim O'Neill
More than two dozen Hearst-owned TV stations are using a cloud service from Yospace to deliver news and short-form content to mobile devices, including the iPad, iPhone, and Android devices.
The service also links into the broadcaster's advertising response server to ensure pre-roll advertising is targeted to the user, which Yospace said helps strengthen the revenue-earning opportunities for the stations.
The technology is hosted in a Yospace cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) application, which makes it easy to scale, said the company. The service went live in 25 Hearst markets in January.
The process is straightforward: the broadcaster selects news stories and clips to upload to the Yospace service. They're presented using apps across Hearst Television's key smart-phone platforms and via their corresponding mobile Internet sites. A content request prompts Yospace to detect the type of device, set the video format and wrapper accordingly, splice in the tailored pre-roll commercial as defined by the broadcaster's advertising system, and stream it out.
Yospace said the consumer notices no latency in delivery.
"We wanted a system that would allow us to throw any sort of video clip and get mobile-optimized delivery for all platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android and mobile Internet," said Michael Rosellini, Director, Digital Product Development of Hearst Television. "We wanted something that was self-service, and with Yospace's web portal we can manage the whole service ourselves."
And, he said, the company wanted to be able to manage pre-roll advertising, which it can do either through the Yospace content management system or through Google DFP.
"We can easily get much more video available to our mobile users, with more advanced targeting of pre-roll advertising and easier workflow, which should result in monetization growing too," he said.
Yospace's will be demoing the technology at Booth SU 8503 during NAB.
Streaming Video Is Taking over Rural Broadband Networks
Excerpted from SmartPlanet Report by Mari Silbey
In its first ever US Rural Broadband Report, Calix announced the results of a study analyzing data from 45 Internet service providers (ISPs) in rural areas of the country. Among the findings, streaming video accounts for more than two thirds of rural downstream traffic. Also, the top 5% of rural Internet subscribers use more than 100 gigabits of data per month.
After years of crediting file sharing for the bulk of Internet traffic, the reality of the web today is that video streaming demands far more bandwidth across broadband networks than BitTorrent-like applications. Users of Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming sites are accelerating traffic growth and changing the way ISPs have to provision and maintain their networks. And as more video moves online, that trend is only going to continue.
So what does it all mean?
For consumers it means keeping track of Internet usage to avoid running afoul of broadband caps and overage charges. In rural areas in particular, there is greater reliance on mobile and satellite broadband to provide connectivity. Both of these Internet access types, unfortunately, tend to cap users below 10 GB of data per month.
For ISPs, the growth of video streaming means operators have to look at building networks differently, and at instituting policies that keep usage down. The old network model had ISPs assuming an average concurrency rate of 1%. In other words, the assumption was that only 1% of users would be using the maximum amount of bandwidth available at any given time. In the era of streaming video, that model no longer works.
Calix is careful to note that its data can be used by ISPs to promote alternative Internet applications that use less bandwidth. However, skeptics will note that the data also provides fuel for arguments that operators should throttle heavy Internet users more frequently, and charge higher fees when subscribers exceed their usage caps.
The Calix report has plenty of other juicy tidbits as well. In rural areas, large content delivery (or distribution) networks (CDNs) account for 80% of streaming video traffic. This supports mounting evidence suggesting that the Internet is consolidating around a handful of major infrastructure providers.
Also from the report: Service providers that offer Internet services exclusively over fiber access networks saw subscribers generate over 2.67 times more traffic than service providers that offered Internet services over copper-based networks.
The top five percent of subscribers in the rural US networks studied used more than 100 GB of downstream traffic a month, and accounted for approximately 50 percent of Internet traffic.
Application use varied across different regions of the US in Q4: The West: Streamed video more heavily than other regions. The Southeast: Played the most online video games. The Northeast: Shopped online more heavily than other regions. The Midwest: Used business-oriented services in the home most frequently.
The full rural broadband report is available for free download. Calix plans to issue further reports on a quarterly basis.
Convergence Goes Mainstream: More Homes Connect TV to Internet
Excerpted from Media Daily News Report by David Goetzl
Convergence may be going mainstream. New research shows that 38% of US homes have at least one TV set connected to the Internet through a gaming console, Blu-ray player, newfangled TV model, or other mode, according to the Leichtman Research Group.
The figure is up from 30% last year and 24% two years prior.
Gaming consoles such as the Xbox, where Microsoft would like it to be a full entertainment hub, seem to be propelling much of the connectivity, as 28% of homes have a video game system with an online connection.
Internet-connected TV sets seem to be moving slowly on the adoption curve with 4% of homes connected solely to the Web by them.
The findings are from a survey of 1,251 homes, part of an "Emerging Video Services" study from Leichtman.
Online video viewing via connected devices is on the rise, with 13% of all adults doing so at least once a week -- up from 10% a year ago.
Netflix is a particular beneficiary, as subscribers enjoy it on a TV screen. Leichtman says 35% of Netflix subscribers watch streaming video via a connected device at least once a week.
Leichtman research drilled down further into Netflix's role in the media landscape. The firm found that half of Netflix subscribers are "satisfied" with the online streaming service. There is some countervailing evidence that Netflix contributes to cord-cutting, as just 7% are "likely" to switch from their multichannel provider in the next six months versus 12% of non-Netflix homes.
Furthermore, 13% said they would consider spending cuts on their provider video package because of Netflix, compared to 21% a year ago.
The Cloud Brings Advertisers into Music Market
Excerpted from eMarketer Report
A battery of disruptions have roiled the US recording industry and shrunk it in half in just over a decade. The industry's past experiments with digital media seemed promising at first but have not generated enough revenue to stem losses from sagging sales of compact discs. Against this backdrop, can a new generation of cloud-based streaming models revive the industry?
"The short answer is maybe," said Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, "Cloud-Based Music Streaming: Emerging Opportunities for Brands." "Key trends are pointing in the right direction, including positive technology adoption forecasts, a profusion of social sharing activity connected to music, video channels that are generating revenue and expanded marketing opportunities around music content."
In a sign of how important online streaming and subscription music services have become to the recording industry, trade publication Billboard recently updated its weekly Hot 100 song chart to include data from Spotify, Slacker, Rhapsody, Cricket/Muve, Rdio and MOG. The revamped methodology went live in March 2012, after several months of testing that showed a rising curve for audio streams, from 320.5 million in the first week of 2012 to 494 million during the week of March 4, 2012. By comparison, digital track sales during that period decreased from 46.4 million to 27.1 million, according to Nielsen.
Another indicator of the popularity of cloud-based streaming was a 50.5% increase in online music listening hours in 2011. According to a February 2012 report from AccuStream Research, US consumers spent 1.3 billion hours listening to music through Internet radio and other streaming services in 2011, up from 865 million hours in 2010.
The media spend associated with US Internet radio and on-demand streaming services amounted to $293.7 million in 2011, according to AccuStream Research. This compares with $171.7 million spent on subscriptions to those services. AccuStream forecast that the total market would grow by 78% in 2012.
Ad monetization is expected to grow at a healthy clip on the mobile side as well. eMarketer expects US mobile music advertising revenues to hit $591.5 million in 2015, more than doubling 2012's total of $264.5 million. According to eMarketer estimates, the advertising component of mobile revenue is much higher with music than with gaming or video, largely because of the popularity of Pandora and Spotify on mobile devices.
The full report, "Cloud-Based Music Streaming: Emerging Opportunities for Brands," also answers these key questions: What business models are emerging around cloud-based streaming of music content? What opportunities exist for marketers to capture revenue associated with this content? What role will social media play in the music streaming ecosystem?
This report is available to eMarketer corporate subscription clients only. Total Access clients, log in and view the report now.
Sion Internet Selects Octoshape for Streaming Video in Argentina
Sion Internet, a leading residential and corporate broadband and Internet service provider in Argentina, announced today that it will use Octoshape's InfiniteHD technology for streaming high quality video to its customers.
As a leading provider of Internet services in the region, Sion Internet regularly broadcasts live and on demand content for large-scale events and OTT initiatives in the region.
"Delivering an uninterrupted and high quality video experience can be quite challenging in the Latin American region," said Luis Quinelli, Founder and CEO of Sion Internet. "Octoshape InfiniteHD enables us not only to deliver the highest quality video, it also facilitates the scale required to deliver an uninterrupted live concert to audiences across our country."
While in some parts of the world Internet connectivity and reliable connections are widely available, many large emerging key markets simply do not have the robust infrastructure necessary to offer an uninterrupted viewing experiences over the public Internet. Octoshape's technologies are engineered with patented resiliency algorithms and transport mechanisms to deliver sustained and high quality viewing experiences in all regions of the world. This stands out particularly in challenging Internet environments across regions such as Latin America, Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Octoshape's patented technologies change the model for high quality streaming by removing the requirement to place edge servers close to the consumer.
"We are excited to work with Sion Internet to raise the bar for streaming media experiences to their customers," said Michael Koehn Milland, CEO of Octoshape. "The technology Sion has adopted will enable them to increase their customer satisfaction and will lead to increased viewing engagements times by providing a quality they were previously unable to offer."
"As a premier Rock Event organizer and broadcaster, satisfaction of our fan base is critical. We are excited to collaborate with Sion and to adopt the Octoshape technologies to deliver our concerts to a large scale online audience," said Mario Pergolini, CEO of Vorterix.
Cloudant Data Layer as a Service Adds Support for Joyent Cloud
Excerpted from Sys-Con Media Report
Joyent Cloud, the public cloud designed for real-time, high-performance applications, and Cloudant, provider of a scalable Data Layer as a Service for data-driven web and mobile applications, today announced a partnership to provide developers with the ability to store, analyze, and distribute application data across a global network of secure, high-performance data centers.
Joyent Cloud provides public and private cloud computing software and services to popular web applications including LinkedIn, Voxer, Gilt Groupe, and TaskRabbit. Aside from Cloudant, Joyent Cloud also powers a growing number of cloud platform and software services providers including Nodejitsu, StackMob, and GameSalad.
By using Cloudant, Joyent customers can scale their application data layer up or down on demand through a simple management interface. "Making the Cloudant data layer available on Joyent Cloud helps ensure that our customers' applications run flawlessly at any scale," said Cloudant CEO Derek Schoettle. "This is particularly important for the data-intensive, real-time applications that many Cloudant and Joyent Cloud customers run."
The Cloudant Data Layer is a collection of multi-tenant and single-tenant (private) database clusters that are hosted and scaled across multiple top-tier data centers around the globe. Built on the Apache CouchDB document database, a RESTful JSON API, and built-in full-text search and incremental MapReduce, Cloudant delivers low-latency, highly-available data layer performance and pushes dynamic data closer to the edge.
"Running on Joyent Cloud enables Cloudant to take advantage of specific caching and data backup features in the ZFS file system and delivers outstanding data layer performance and reliability," says Cloudant CTO Adam Kocoloski.
"This partnership creates a superior customer offering that leverages our high-performance cloud infrastructure and Cloudant's innovative data layer service to deliver a truly scalable big data store in the cloud to end customers," said Steve Tuck, General Manager of Joyent Cloud. "Having Cloudant offer their service on Joyent Cloud further validates our premise - that for companies seeking to deliver high-performance cloud services, building on a better, differentiated cloud infrastructure matters more than ever."
Watch Out, Aereo: Skitter Brings Live TV to Roku
Excerpted from GigaOM Report by Janko Roettgers
New York, NY's Aereo is getting some competition in its quest to bring live TV online: Atlanta, GA based Skitter is launching a new service that streams TV stations like NBC, ABC, and CBS straight to a Roku or WD Live set-top box. But unlike Aereo, which is currently duking it out with broadcasters in court, Skitter is launching its service with all necessary licenses.
Skitter quietly launched in Portland, OR in March, and has plans to expand its service to five additional markets by the end of this quarter. The company's VP of Engineering Alex Emmermann told me during a phone conversation today that Skitter eventually wants to offer live TV access on the Roku and other connected devices across the US, and charge customers $12 to $15 for the service. The company is also working on DVR functionality for WD TV devices.
Customers in Portland can access the service through a private Roku channel or an app for the WD platform. Roku users are presented with a simple channel grid as well as an option to search for individual shows, while the WD TV app offers a more comprehensive programming guide.
I had a chance to take a look at some test feeds on both devices, and was impressed: Channels launch with relatively little buffering, and additional program information is easily accessible. I could even pause the live feed at any given time and restart it a few minutes later without missing a thing. The video quality was more like SD than HD, but acceptable, and Emmermann said that adaptive bit-rate streaming should improve the quality even further.
Skitter users in Portland currently have access to 10 live channels, including CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX as well as the local PBS affiliate. The company plans to add an additional 10 channels next week, including more PBS sub-channels and other local offerings. This summer, it also wants to launch ten channels that aren't available with an antenna. This will likely be niche content, but Emmermann said that the tier will also be available to users in markets that aren't served by Skitter's local offerings yet.
Skitter started out by offering its technology to second- and third-tier telco operators that are looking to offer TV services to their subscribers but don't want to settle for just reselling satellite TV subscriptions. The company has been offering its over-the-top (OTT) solution to a few of these providers, which required it to get retransmission licenses from the affected broadcasters.
Skitter is now using these retrans licenses to kickstart its own consumer business. That means that the company can only offer its subscriptions in markets where it is partnering with a telco provider - but it's also a pretty ingenious business move that could help Skitter to avoid the legal pressure Aereo and others have been facing.
A number of companies have tried in the past to stream live TV online, in part to provide access to live programming for TV viewers who have canceled their traditional pay TV subscription.
However, the broadcasters have cracked down on most of these offerings in an effort to protect their increasingly lucrative retransmission business. Ivi.tv had to shut down following an injunction a year ago, and FilmOn had to significantly alter its service after broadcasters obtained a restraining order in late 2010.
The latest company raising the ire of broadcasters is the Barry Diller-backed TV startup Aereo, which currently offers New Yorkers an Internet-based live TV subscription for $12 per month. Aereo rents individual TV tuners complete with dime-sized antennas capable of receiving over-the-air programming to each of its customers, which the company says is legal. Broadcasters aren't sharing that point of view and have fired off two separate lawsuits against the company in March.
Skitter believes it can steer clear of these kinds of conflicts because it actually has the retrans rights and pays the required retrans fees for the content it offers. "We are a local cable provider," Emmermann told me. "We have a wireline presence."
There's been a lot of chatter within the online video industry about the possibility of a so-called virtual operator - a company that offers you a TV subscription that is entirely delivered over the Internet, and at a much smaller price than your typical cable package. It's an interesting proposition to cord cutters who don't want to bother with an antenna to receive over-the-air programming, or can't get any signal with an antenna.
But this is about more than just convenience: A virtual operator that has access to basic broadcast channels also has a huge potential for disruption, because it could become a launchpad for new live television networks that aren't exclusively tied to cable.
Skitter's roll-out will likely be slow, as the company has to advance market by market. But having access to those top-tier broadcasters could prove to be a recipe for success.
IBM Offers Companies Their Own Cloud
Excerpted from Minneapolis Star Tribune Report by Steve Alexander
IBM thinks it's possible to have your head in the clouds and still have your feet on the ground.
On Wednesday, IBM introduced its new PureSystems line of computer systems designed to bring the benefits of cloud computing technology - while avoiding some of the risks - to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
The new computers were partly designed and tested at the company's Rochester, MN, plant, and will be manufactured there until other production lines are set up. IBM says it spent $2 billion to develop the new computer systems, which start at $100,000. It said a typical system probably will cost $250,000 to $500,000.
Cloud computing is a technology in which tasks are shared by a large group of networked computers and data storage units accessed over the Internet from remote locations. The technology holds the promise of lower costs, simplified management and the ability to quickly scale up computing power for peak loads.
In theory, it doesn't matter whether cloud computing equipment is in the data center next door or in another data center half a continent away. But some critics point out that sensitive personal information, such as medical records, shouldn't be handled by a remote data center where data security can't be guaranteed.
As a result, Internet-based cloud computing - offered by such big names as Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM - isn't widely used by corporations.
IBM's strategy with the new computers avoids that security controversy. The PureSystems don't use remote data centers (the "public cloud"), and instead keep everything within a local data center (a "private cloud").
"From a big-corporation standpoint, the biggest concern with the public cloud is security," said Eyal Ofir, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity in Toronto. IBM's PureSystems "is a way to go after a market that has stayed away from the cloud."
Tim Alpers, a product manager in the systems and technology group at IBM's Rochester plant, agrees.
"One of the key concerns of businesses is the security associated with cloud computing," Alpers said. "They may want to bring cloud computing in-house and manage it themselves to ensure security."
But Paul Burns, an analyst with Neovise, a Fort Collins, CO, research firm specializing in cloud computing, says there's more to the appeal of IBM's new computers. He says IBM, like cloud computing competitor Hewlett-Packard (HP), is trying to appeal to customers who want a cloud computing system that works right out of the box.
"Corporate data centers are definitely going to cloud technology, but corporations also want the benefits of not having to mix and match computer servers, data storage and networks from different suppliers," Burns said. "They'd rather buy something like the IBM PureSystems that are all packaged together and ready to go."
Added Alpers, "We put a private cloud in a box, and focused on expert integration of the pieces of the computer system."
One company interested in private cloud computing says the IBM strategy makes sense.
"The ability to quickly deploy a highly scalable and secure infrastructure is very desirable," said Keith Swingle, Director of Information Technology at Array Services Group of Sartell, MN, which handles credit card and patient health record information as part of its billing and collection operations for hospitals and businesses. "It's sort of like buying a cake and then putting on your own homemade frosting."
But Bil MacLeslie, President of ipHouse, a Minneapolis data center company that offers cloud computing in a local setting, argues that IBM is selling an expensive product.
"An entry-level system for $100,000?" MacLeslie asked, noting that his firm will provide similar service for $2,750 per month - with skilled technicians on-site.
Analyst Burns said IBM may be trying to have it both ways: It is selling cloud computing systems that can function locally but that also can connect to IBM's own public cloud data centers, called the IBM SmartCloud.
"PureSystems is a 'private-cloud-in-box' that mirrors the capabilities of IBM's public cloud," Burns said. "That makes it easy for customers to move back and forth between the two."
HP Offers Its View of Cloud's Future
Excerpted from ComputerWorld Report by Patrick Thibodeau
Hewlett-Packard (HP) says cloud computing's Big Bang, which started with the launch of Google Apps and Amazon EC2, is coming to an end and the cloud ecosystem of the future is taking shape.
Instead of turning into an expanding universe of hundreds of diffuse clouds, the cloud market will eventually settle down and we'll have 10 to 20 global cloud providers whose offerings can be counted on to be interoperable and meet certain quality-of-service benchmarks.
HP expects to be one of those major cloud providers. Below that level will be industry-focused and geographically-distributed clouds.
Business users of the next-generation global services will want hybrid cloud models that operate in complete concert with their back-end systems, said Biri Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager for HP Cloud Services.
The users of these services will want access via the cloud to systems as complex as business analytics and as simple as an app development widget, he said.
The incentives to contribute to a cloud marketplace that HP plans to build will be a little different than Apple's app store model, Singh said. When a developer puts a widget in the cloud that can, say, help build a better Ruby application, he or she could get paid for each API call, said Singh.
"We think just standing up virtual machines is so 2009," said Singh. Developers will want tools and services from the cloud. "They need a marketplace," he said.
Users will also want an open environment, said Singh.
Though HP has signed on only to the open-source OpenStack cloud standards effort, Sing nonetheless believes that federation across other clouds is important.
"We're investing our time not in trying to nail the one technology stack that will own it all, but in planning for a heterogeneous environment," said Singh.
The marketplace will arrive later, perhaps this year.
HP's unveiling of a public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering that's due next month is just part of a broader set of cloud offerings.
The marketplace will be a place where everyone in the ecosystem "can actually run and build their services," said Singh.
James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research, sees service providers as the major users of HP's services, in part because of changes to the outsourcing market.
Companies moved away from three-to-five-year IT outsourcing contracts where they turn everything over to an outsourcer.
Users have grown more particular and are more likely to keep some applications in-house or acquire them as services through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider, said Staten.
"We see selective sourcing," he said.
The HP cloud will be different from Amazon's offering, say analysts. Amazon relies on an ecosystem of third-party support to offer everything from infrastructure support to services.
Where Amazon only takes responsibility for providing basic cloud services, HP will have the ability to maintain an operating system or monitor a network for users, said Staten.
Part of HP's cloud outlook is based on a view that IT will shift to an operating expense model as users turn more to services and away from capital expenses.
Sing sees the shift unfolding over the next decade.
Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT, said a shift to operating expense models has been long debated, and that approach could be - and has been - effective in good times. But as soon as the economy hits a rough spot, users tend to pull back on the operating expense goals.
Amazon Rolls-Out CloudSearch for Developers
Excerpted from MediaPost Report by Laurie Sullivan
Amazon rolled out CloudSearch Thursday, a beta service for cloud computing and app developers that capitalizes on its core technology. The tool, a "search service in the cloud," supports scaling for data and search traffic.
A post on the company's Web Services Blog explains how it makes the need to write indexing, query parsing, query processing, and results handling obsolete. It's the same underlying technology running Amazon.com, according to Jeff Barr, Amazon's Web services evangelist.
Barr tell us the technology processes queries in less than an hour at a service cost to the website owner or developer of less than $100 monthly.
At least a handful of Amazon Web services clients are testing the technology. SmugMug, which supports cloud services for photographers, is using CloudSearch on their website for more than a billion photos. Ex.fm continues to test the platform to power its social music website, and CarDomain, its social network for car lovers.
The three-step process begins with creating and configuring a search domain, moves to uploading documents, and ends with performing searches. There are a few technical steps in between, but Barr explains that Amazon made it simple to help developers build out services. The index is stored in RAM to keep throughput high and speed document updates, he writes.
Barr also lists several advanced search features like faceting, allowing developers to categorize results into subgroups - as well as fielded, which gives the ability to search on a particular attribute of a document.
When search traffic expands beyond the capacity of a single instance, CloudSearch will automatically add instances and replicate the data to the new instance. If you have a lot of data and a high request rate, the platform will automatically scale in both dimensions, according to Barr.
Those who want to build their own search engine can find a free class online at Udacity, founded by three roboticists who believed much of the educational value of their university classes could be offered online for a low cost. The instructors believe the class will teach even those without programming background the ability to build their own search engine in seven weeks.
Facebook Allows File Sharing With Roll-Out of "Groups For Schools"
Excerpted from TechCrunch Report by Josh Constine
With today's roll-out of college collaboration tool Groups For Schools, Facebook gets nostalgic for Zuck's Wirehog and lets students share un-copyrighted files up to 25mb. Soon all US colleges and then those around the world will be able to create groups for dorms, classes, and clubs that can only be joined by people with that school's ".edu" e-mail address. The idea is that you'll share more nerdy or racy content if it'll only reach your classmates.
We broke the news in December of Facebook first testing Groups For Schools at Brown and Vanderbilt, but it's made several tweaks, including easier messaging between classmates and a better-converting onboarding flow that shows your friends who are already signed up and auto-creates groups for your dorm, clubs and more. If Facebook gets serious about file sharing it could become a dangerous competitor to Dropbox.
A few details on the new file sharing capability. Groups For Schools users can click an "Upload File" button above the news feed. It accepts files up to 25mb in size, but no .exe files are permitted to prevent malicious programs from going viral. Other students can download the files straight from the news feed. To avoid legal issues, Facebook monitors for and disallows copyrighted files, so this won't become your new source for MP3s and pirated movies, and leaves a somewhat sketchy gap for Dropbox to fill.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pre-Facebook project was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing service called Wirehog, but it didn't have such protections. It was part of Facebook until early 2006 when Sean Parker "put a bullet in that thing" to prevent Facebook from getting shut down for copyright infringement the way his previous company Napster did.
Now Facebook will surely be watching to see if file sharing is a hit, and could roll it out to all users or look to acquire someone in the space if people love it. Dropbox might be a bit big, but a small tech + talent acquisition could go down. Facebook already has what it needs, though, as it bought file sharing service Drop.io in 2010, along with its founder Sam Lessin who went on to create Timeline.
Facebook has saturated much of the market for college students. So if it can't get more users in this key demographic, it wants them to engage more. Back when I joined Facebook at Stanford in early 2004, people felt like they could share anything because it would only be seen by others at our school or the few others allowed on the service. You could also list your specific courses on your profile, which was a great way to find and friend people you met in class. With time, though, Facebook opened to all schools, and then everyone, students got worried about discussing parties or nerdy physics homework, and Facebook lost some of this engagement.
Groups For Schools could emulate this now-lost safe haven. Anything you post within the Groups For Schools section for your college can only be seen by other students who've authenticated through their .edu e-mail address. That means no worries about parents, young siblings, or potential recruiters seeing your drunken frat party photos. It will also spare your friends back home from geeky news feed stories about you looking for people to study with. Students who want access when Groups For Schools reaches their university can sign up here.
This all follows a trend Facebook has been trying to foster: share more with fewer people. That's why it created Smart Friend lists, put privacy controls into the news feed publisher, and launched the standard Groups feature for everyone. The same way that Facebook started by rolling out to colleges, then companies, Groups For Businesses could be on the way. That means companies like Yammer and products like Google Docs better study up, because Facebook's social graph-equipped Groups could put them to the test.
In the Cloud Era, Let's Start Calling IT What It Is: "Innovation Team"
Excepted from ZDNet Report by Joe McKendrick
Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, credited with helping to transform Big Blue IBM from legacy systems vendor into Internet systems giant, recently posted a thought-provoking piece on the new mantle IT managers and teams are assuming in the age of the cloud.
He says cloud is only the "third model" of computing to emerge in the 50-plus years IT has been in existence, following the first model, centralized computing, and the second model, client/server computing. Cloud computing is real, he says, and is needed now to integrate and manage the huge numbers of end-users and devices proliferating all over the globe. There's no getting away from cloud.
This may well prove to be information technology managers' and professionals' finest hour as well. Wladawsky-Berger sees an impending massive shift as companies work to cloud-enable their legacy IT infrastructures and applications, the same way many of these systems were web-enabled in the 1990s.
However, unlike the 1990s, the process will not be as simple as slapping a web front-end in front of 3270 green-screen legacy applications. Major organizational changes will be required, Wladawsky-Berger says - especially within IT departments themselves. "Many companies have not exercised the needed discipline in their IT operations," he says. "They have allowed different departments in their organization to architect their own systems and applications. As a result, these disparate systems do not work well with each other, application take a long time from development to deployment, and systems management costs are quite high."
It will be up to IT to get out in front and lead this next shift in the computing age. "IT organizations must embrace a more standardized, process oriented, industrialized management approach," Wladawsky-Berger says. "Ad-hoc, custom IT infrastructures will not be able to achieve the kinds of volumes, costs and quality needed to successfully compete in the emerging cloud computing marketplace."
The shift to cloud may be elevating the role of IT-savvy managers within enterprises. Many line-of-business people are not qualified for - or really interested in - sifting through and evaluating all the cloud options out there, at least for technical merits. They just want to get things done, and are turning to IT executives to assist in the process. IT is no longer just a department full of people who code, build and maintain systems. IT is the business partner that plans and strategizes what types of technology solutions the business needs to move forward.
The solutions IT executives identify may be cloud services from somewhere else; or they may be from the company's own on-premises solution (or private cloud). Cloud may be significantly increasing their visibility within organizations.
On many occasions, I have had the opportunity to speak with end-user companies executives about the somewhat elusive notion of innovation, and how information technology can make it more of a reality. One thing came through from the discussions: to be the enabler of innovation, IT needs to be able to turn things around faster than ever, and at the same time, let the business guide the process. Gone are the days where IT would spend six to nine months working on an application, then present it to business users to digest and figure out.
Bahija Noell, VP for IT business partnership management at Aflac, put it this way to me in an interview a couple of years back: "We have to figure how how is it that we can provide the most value to the business in a shorter timeframe, without compromising quality and not compromising expense."
A survey released by CA Technologies at the end of last year found that a majority of CIOs, 54%, agree that cloud computing has enabled them to spend more time on business strategy and innovation. The CA survey also found that CIOs who have adopted cloud computing seem to be more driven to advance in their companies than their non-cloud-adopting peers. Approximately 71% who have adopted cloud computing see their position as a viable path to pursue other management roles, compared to only 44% of non-cloud adopting CIOs. Also, 39% of cloud-adopting CIOs see their current jobs as a stepping stone to the CEO position, versus 24% of non-cloud- adopting CIOs.
With the rise of cloud as the core of many businesses - and ability of IT managers to deliver capabilities - we may even see tech executives assuming leadership positions within companies as well. As the CA study's authors point out, "a business leader who is fully in tune with emerging technologies and with the ability to navigate possible pitfalls will prove an invaluable asset for many firms. With nurturing and targeted learning, there are a lot of talented people in the CIO position who are well positioned to take the top job directly, or make the journey via COO to become CEO."
Despite all the hand-wringing about lack of "business-IT alignment," there seems to be some measure of alignment taking place. But it's not because business executives are enamored by the gee-whiz effects of computers (though some may be). Rather, it reflects the importance of technology in helping businesses to run faster, smarter, and more agile. And it's hard work to maintain a foundation that will keep springing new innovation year to year, month to month, and even day to day. As Noell put it: "We have to learn as IT professionals to see how we can drive that cycle. We need to keep up with the business."
In a hyper-competitive and unforgiving global economy, innovation is needed, every day in every way. IT can be the innovator.
Coming Events of Interest
2012 NAB Show - April 14th-19th in Las Vegas, NV. From Broadcasting to Broader-casting, the NAB Show has evolved over the last eight decades to continually lead this ever-changing industry. From creation to consumption, the NAB Show has proudly served as the incubator for excellence - helping to breathe life into content everywhere.
CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE at NAB - April 16th in Las Vegas, NV. Don't miss this full-day conference focusing on the impact of cloud computing solutions on all aspects of production, storage, and delivery of television programming and video.
Cloud Computing World Forum - May 8th in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Cloud Computing World Forum Africa is the only place to discuss the latest topics in cloud, including security, mobile, applications, communications, virtualization, CRM and much, much more.
Data Center + Network: The Converged Cloud - May 17th Webinar. By making data centers more agile, increasing provisioning speed, and reducing capital expenditures, cloud is forever altering the way enterprises deploy technology.
Cloud Expo - June 11th-14th in New York, NY. Two unstoppable enterprise IT trends, Cloud Computing and Big Data, will converge in New York at the tenth annual Cloud Expo being held at the Javits Convention Center. A vast selection of technical and strategic General Sessions, Industry Keynotes, Power Panels, Breakout Sessions, and a bustling Expo Floor.
IEEE 32nd International Conference on Distributed Computing - June 18th-21st in Taipa, Macao. ICDCS brings together scientists and engineers in industry, academia, and government: Cloud Computing Systems, Algorithms and Theory, Distributed OS and Middleware, Data Management and Data Centers, Network/Web/P2P Protocols and Applications, Fault Tolerance and Dependability, Wireless, Mobile, Sensor, and Ubiquitous Computing, Security and Privacy.
Cloud Management Summit - June 19th in Mountain View, CA. A forum for corporate decision-makers to learn about how to manage today's public, private, and hybrid clouds using the latest cloud solutions and strategies aimed at addressing their application management, access control, performance management, helpdesk, security, storage, and service management requirements on-premise and in the cloud.
2012 Creative Storage Conference - June 26th in Culver City. CA. In association with key industry sponsors, CS2012 is finalizing a series of technology, application, and trend sessions that will feature distinguished experts from the professional media and entertainment industries. |
