Edgeware adds Akamai and Level3 support to TV CDN architecture

Edgeware has added third-party support to its CDN Selector to make it easier for its customers to deliver content to wider audiences. It now allows operators to deliver the same content from a single NAS over Akamai and Level3 services.

Edgeware supports both CDN selection and publishing functions – which means that an operator only needs to store, repackage and encrypt its TV assets in one place, using a single NAS, as opposed to having one for each CDN service provider. Cache misses from the other CDNs can also be repackaged and encrypted on the fly to maximise reach. Control of the delivery quality remains with the operator as distribution policy and business rules, such as ensuring premium content is delivered at high quality, and can be enforced centrally.

A recent research paper by leading analysts Frost & Sullivan found that content owners benefit from building their own TV CDN when they have more than about 100,000 subscribers located within a single geographical area. The additional support of third party CDN services lets those operators extend their TV services to more users where it’s uneconomical to deploy their own infrastructure.

“There’s a growing trend for operators to build their own TV CDNs,” said Edgeware CTO Göran Appelquist, “but extending your own dedicated CDN with third party services is a good way to reach off-net viewers or meet peaks in demand.”

Edgeware’s CDN Selector and publishing software is managed centrally and supports video streaming through multiple third party CDN providers as well as its own, which ensures the TV CDN remains a single platform to manage routing requests for all delivery networks. The system is already in live deployments with operators and broadcasters who are using it to publish content to both their own and third party CDN services. The CDN Selector can be deployed in a virtualised IT or cloud environment and on standard computing platforms. It also comes pre-integrated with Edgeware’s plug-and-play TV Servers and its software-based Virtualized TV Server.