ARMONK, N.Y., Sept.
8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced
that PERFORM, a leading digital sports content company, has
deployed Aspera software to create a highly scalable and automated
workflow to manage more than 20,000 diverse media files per day for
its customers worldwide. By using Aspera Orchestrator to automate
one of the largest transcoding systems in the industry, PERFORM can
seamlessly control the flow of data through its Content Management
System (CMS) in a single view and scale out to the cloud when
workloads spike, ensuring the on-demand delivery of sports video
under even the most demanding conditions.
Video ranks as the most popular way for fans to consume sports
content online according the Global Sports Media Consumption Report
2014. PERFORM fills this growing demand by creating, transcoding
and distributing sports news media clips and full match content to
television broadcasters and digital media services in a variety of
resolutions, bitrates and formats for any device. But to manage
these highly complex workflows, it relied on a collection of
disparate tools to manage across third party applications, handling
a range of processes from watermarking to file format validation.
PERFORM also faced large and unpredictable spikes in data volume
and workloads at any given time, putting a strain on compute
resources during critical times.
PERFORM chose Aspera Orchestrator to improve its workflow
management, increase efficiency and enhance its file delivery
capacity with a single, platform-agnostic interface, enabling it to
serve sports media content to its customers with even greater speed
and efficiency. Aspera Orchestrator automates the process with
little human intervention by directing the right content to the
correct transcoding workflow, ensuring the platform processes and
delivers content where it is needed and fills the increasing
customer appetite for online sports content. Specifically,
Orchestrator is helping PERFORM with:
- Automation of complex workflows –
Aspera helps PERFORM eliminate human error by automating key
decisions and setting business rules in a variety of configurations
to reduce time cycles and guarantee delivery to its customers.
Orchestrator works behind the scenes to automatically invoke the
right application, manage the processing and handle conditional
decision making as dictated by the customers' service level
agreements.
- Scale out to the cloud – Aspera
Orchestrator helps PERFORM to intelligently move workloads to the
cloud using Aspera On Demand when its on-premise systems reach
specific user-defined processing thresholds. This ensures that even
when processing demands spike to their highest levels, PERFORM can
always meet obligations to its customers on time.
- Extensible and flexible architecture –
PERFORM can choose from more than 50 pre-packed plug-ins supporting
third-party applications and can easily add support for new
software or hardware from any vendor, which enables PERFORM to
deploy specialized solutions for specific applications as required
by customers.
- Priority management – Aspera
Orchestrator prioritizes workflows based on customer-defined
characteristics, pushing the most important projects to the front
of the completion queue so that high priority work is completed
first.
- Integrated monitoring and performance
management – Aspera Orchestrator provides full tracking and
reporting, which allows PERFORM to monitor the entire lifecycle of
the content at any time or point in the workflow.
- Faster problem resolution with reduced
support costs – Aspera Orchestrator monitors overall system
health and the job status of every single workflow. If one of the
supporting applications becomes unavailable, Orchestrator
quarantines the application, notifies the team, and re-routes the
workflow to alternate systems. Processing errors are automatically
reported and users are notified and provided with a recommended
resolution.
"With Aspera Orchestrator, PERFORM now has an automation and
management layer that controls all aspects of the workflow and
operates seamlessly with our existing Content Management System,"
said Ed Silvester, head of video
platform at PERFORM. "This allows us to ingest and transcode more
than 20,000 media files every day, with more than 1,000 different
transcode combinations, making a significant improvement to the
orchestration of our business model. It means our customers receive
delivery of their files intact and on time, enabling our business
to operate more cost efficiently and with far greater flexibility
than before."
"This breakthrough project sets a precedent in a fast-moving
environment where complex workflows and file formats now prevail,"
said Andrea Di Muzio, director of
professional services, EMEA, Aspera. "By helping PERFORM gain
control over one of the industry's most complex workflows, we have
shown how any media company can deploy intelligent automation
capabilities to satisfy any customer demands and handle the
dramatic increase in data volumes, file sizes and video formats
that they continue to face."
At IBC 2014 in Amsterdam,
PERFORM will showcase the joint Aspera-PERFORM project as the first
known heterogeneous 'transcoding farm' for fully automated
workflows. The presentation, titled 'A breakthrough in digital
content management and workflow automation,' will take place in the
IBC Content Everywhere Workflow Solutions theatre in Hall 9 on
Saturday 13 September at 11:00 a.m.
local time.
About Aspera
Aspera, an IBM company, is the creator of
next-generation transport technologies that move the world's data
at maximum speed regardless of file size, transfer distance and
network conditions. Based on its patented, Emmy® award-winning
FASP™ protocol, Aspera software fully utilizes existing
infrastructures to deliver the fastest, most predictable
file-transfer experience. Aspera's core technology delivers
unprecedented control over bandwidth, complete security and
uncompromising reliability. Organizations across a variety of
industries on six continents rely on Aspera software for the
business-critical transport of their digital assets. Please visit
http://www.asperasoft.com and follow us on Twitter @asperasoft for
more information.
About PERFORM
PERFORM Group PLC is a FTSE 250 listed
business and the world's leading digital sports content
group. Through unrivalled global content collection,
production and distribution capabilities PERFORM creates digital
products that drive traffic, engagement and revenues for over 2,600
of the world's leading media and betting companies and enable
brands to engage with over 180 million sports fans every month.
Contact information:
Sean
Audet
IBM Media Relations
spaudet@us.ibm.com
781.665.5213
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SOURCE IBM