The Series
Streaming is such a common pastime by now, you never think about how it actually works. The moment you press play, content has to be prepared, moved, tested, and delivered across an enormous operating environment. In 2015, this global streaming powerhouse set out to change the game in its content delivery capabilities.
To do this, the streamer needed its content libraries to be preloaded onto its systems. Studio teams needed standardized workstations for post-production. And devices had to be tested before they went into service. Asset data had to move cleanly between integration testing and the streamer’s own systems.
Buffering
Content delivery infrastructure had to move faster without becoming harder to manage.
High Speed Content Delivery. It’s hard to understate how impatient the average viewer is. The client wanted to deliver digital content at extraordinarily high speeds around the globe.
Engineering Constraints. The streamer wanted the performance benefits of NVMe solid-state drives while also meeting low-power requirements. That alone took a highly custom configuration.
Operational Complexity. Preloading content libraries involved moving large volumes of data. If the process was slow or inconsistent, lead times and costs could quickly increase.
A Distributed Ecosystem. Devices used to stream content would also have to be tested, configured, and then tracked. Studio teams needed a standardized workstation environment.
Much like its own library, the streamer had, well, an entire stream of technology problems to solve. With internal engineers focused on their own core competencies, the streamer needed some help: a partner that could take on the hardware and integration challenges that would turn its ambitions into business reality.
In Production
This engagement aligned with two areas of AHEAD’s expertise.
- AHEAD Foundry: Engineering custom storage, compute, edge, testing, and integration solutions for the streamer’s content delivery environment.
- IT Lifecycle Management: Standardizing hardware workflows, capturing asset data during integration and testing, and connecting that information to the client’s internal systems through AHEAD Hatch.
The work unfolded across three phases:
Advise
AHEAD began by laying out the end-to-end flow from content library to delivery system. It considered how power consumption, preloading, studio operations, and asset data all affected one another. This made engineering tradeoffs clearer. The streamer needed high performance, but performance couldn’t be separated from power requirements. Faster transfer speeds wouldn’t be enough if content loading and asset records still required manual effort. The streamer needed devices that worked in the field, but that meant testing the devices and standardizing how they were prepared.
Why the Groundwork Mattered: AHEAD developed a roadmap that would improve both the client’s technology and the operating model around it. The streamer was able to optimize its content delivery pipeline as a full system instead of improving one component at a time and risking potential bottlenecks down the line.
Build
AHEAD engineered a custom solution using NVMe solid-state drives and low-power technologies to improve speed while taking the client’s power requirements into account. AHEAD followed this work with an all-flash, high-density storage solution for faster content delivery.
AHEAD also developed custom testing solutions for streaming devices. The testing environment validated device performance before deployment, for consistent performance across the hardware used to deliver content.
For studio operations, AHEAD provided a standardized workstation environment for post-production teams. Instead of asking creators to work across a collection of hardware variations, they could now work in the same uniform environment.
The work extended all the way to the edge, with an edge appliance that could deliver content at speeds far beyond commercially available alternatives.
How It Came to Life: Custom, purpose-built engineering filled the gaps between what the market offered and what a global streaming operation needed to make its vision possible.
Run
Through operational automation, AHEAD helped streamline how content was preloaded, how hardware moved through integration and testing, and how asset data reached the client’s internal systems.
AHEAD Hatch provided visibility into asset integration, testing, and configuration. During the process, AHEAD captured custom data for each asset record and then developed a connector between Hatch and the client’s internal systems for faster data exchange. The streamer could spend less time moving information by hand, and more time using that information to manage the wider environment instead. Standardized hardware simplified lifecycle management, while automation reduced the manual work required to prepare and move large volumes of content.
How It Kept Delivering: The client’s operating model made faster delivery repeatable, instead of dependent on a truly heroic amount of manual effort every time a new system came online.
Now Streaming
The collaboration significantly improved content delivery performance and operational efficiency.
Faster Content. Preloading terabytes of data greatly reduced the time required to transfer content from the cloud.
Automated Operations. Automation saved thousands of hours of manual work, so internal teams could better allocate their time and resources. Plus, automated content loading and asset data transfer reduced delays between integration, testing, and deployment.
Hardware Lifecycle Management. The standardized workstations and hardware workflows meant greater consistency across the systems used by studio and content operations teams.
Tens of Millions of Dollars Saved. Custom engineering, efficient content loading, and improved distribution combined to save the streamer tens of millions of dollars, with savings only continuing to grow.
What’s Next
The partnership with AHEAD is ongoing, with targeted compute solutions for content delivery across multiple areas of the streamer’s business. Each new initiative builds on the same basic principle: find the place where performance, operational effort, and cost collide, then engineer a better way through it.
Streaming isn’t just about what appears on the screen, but about the systems — the storage, appliances, workstations, and testing environments — all working behind the scenes to make the experience possible. AHEAD turns technical constraints into engineering opportunities, so organizations can stay light years ahead.
Top Takeaways
AHEAD:
- Engineered custom solutions using NVMe solid-state drives, low-power technologies, and all-flash high-density storage.
- Developed custom device-testing solutions for systems capable of streaming the client’s content library.
- Standardized studio workstations to simplify post-production operations and hardware lifecycle management.
- Built a custom edge appliance capable of delivering content much faster than commercially available alternatives.
- Automated operational workflows and saved tens of millions of dollars, and counting.
