OREANDA-NEWS. September 19, 2016. Digital disruption is affecting many industries, as new digital technologies and business models impact the value proposition of existing goods and services. In particular, the cloud’s expansive market reach is disrupting how businesses have traditionally produced and delivered goods, making it easier for companies to enter new global markets by purchasing local IT services on an “as needed basis” in the cloud, without having to invest in new IT infrastructure.

No industry is feeling this impact more than media and entertainment (M&E), with 72% of M&E company executives experiencing moderate to massive disruption in their businesses in 2016.

Digital Disruption by Industry

% Executives expect moderate to massive disruption in 2016

01

Source: Digital Pulse 2015, Russell Reynolds Associates

This makes perfect sense given the exploding amount of digital media being created. In fact, the “Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2015–2020” report predicts that by 2020 it would take 5 million years for an individual to watch the amount of video that crosses global IP networks each month. This ever-escalating demand for digital media content is changing the way that content is created, enhanced, transported, stored and distributed. Siloed production and distribution workflow processes are being replaced by more collaborative cloud-based solutions.

Equinix’s Media Cloud Ecosystem for Entertainment

Forward-thinking M&E companies are transforming the digital production and distribution value chain using an interconnection-first strategy that moves their IT approach from siloed and fixed to integrated and dynamic. Built on an Interconnection Oriented Architecture™ (IOA™), the Equinix Media Cloud Ecosystem for Entertainment (EMCEE™) efficiently improves network and application performance as well as security and end-user satisfaction. In tests conducted in Equinix’s global Solution Validation Centers™, video streaming applications that flowed through Equinix data centers experienced 47% lower network latency.

An IOA is a proven and repeatable engagement model that both enterprises and service providers can leverage to directly and securely connect people, locations, clouds and data. Platform Equinix™ provides the critical building blocks and services required to implement an IOA and enable high-performance, secure and reliable cloud access and service delivery for a high-quality user experience.

Platform Equinix enables enterprises and services providers within the EMCEE to interconnect to multiple cloud and network services and access billions of consumers leveraging globally distributed content delivery networks. The cloud-based platform provides cost-effective content storage and distribution for film and television companies, utilizing digital IT infrastructures to meet the demand for growing OTT applications.

02

For example, ContentBridge, a global, media content supply chain automation solution provider to the entertainment industry, harnessed the EMCEE to leverage cloud providers Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform to create the first truly cloud-based, digital content distribution solution to retailers.

“Ultimately, the relationship with Equinix will allow ContentBridge to bring advanced digital supply chain solutions directly to the content, wherever the content owner chooses to maintain the digital library,” said Jason Peterson, ContentBridge CEO.

Hibernia Networks, a leading provider of global, high speed telecommunications solutions, recently announced its collaboration with Equinix to provide a low latency, fiber optic network as the backbone for EMCEE. The expansion enables the fast, unrestricted gathering and distribution of media content to and from Equinix data centers in Asia, Europe and North America. M&E businesses can now leverage simplex and duplex data and video transmission services on demand between Equinix data centers and key customer studios and other facilities, reducing the cost of content storage, management and transport while providing flexibility to transmit data 24/7, year-round.

“This cloud ecosystem is paramount for all forward-thinking film and television companies,” states Wes Hanemayer, VP of Video Services at Hibernia Networks.

EMCEE enables M&E businesses to quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively produce, store and distribute increasing amounts of media content.

Download the Equinix white paper, “IOA™ Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Entertainment Media Cloud Ecosystem,” to see how the EMCEE can streamline your media supply chain and help you bring content to market in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost.