Recently I had the opportunity to visit IBC (The International Broadcaster Convention). This event, described as “the premier annual event for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment and news content worldwide”, attracted over 55,000 attendees and provided the opportunity for suppliers to this industry to showcase their most recent solutions.
Cisco’s key message at the event was how we are helping Service Providers to transform their business through the development of new services which drive new revenues for media companies, satellite, telecoms and cable video operators whilst reducing operational costs. We are achieving this by providing a flexible architecture, based on innovative hardware and software solutions and backed up with industry leading services.
What struck me was how more and more Cisco solutions are combining together to create solutions in the Media sector. Whether it’s our UCS servers underpinning our open software solutions; our 100Gbps DWDM transporting high bandwidth video services; our low-latency / high-bandwidth IP networking solutions supporting the growing trend towards packet-based workflows and all deliverable as on premise, in the Cloud or a combination of both – there’s a lot to look at!
An example of this is how Cisco has expanded its Videoscape TV services delivery platform to include a host of new cloud video capabilities, including Videoscape ‘as-a-service’ and open cloud software technologies based on OpenStack. These new cloud capabilities give our customers have two additional ways to deploy Videoscape, meaning they can get new services to market faster than ever before. Cisco’s unique Fusion strategy allows customers to mix-and-match deployment options to best grow revenue and reduce their overall costs to roll out video services, including exciting second screen, 4K video and IoE based Connected Life services. On the back of this and hundreds of customer visits to the Cisco booth, it’s exciting to see many of these customers now committing to Cisco’s Videoscape architecture for next generation deployments. What also impressed me was the ability of Cisco attendees and customers alike, to work hard all day, then party hard for most of the night and still show up fresh-faced and smiling early the following morning! All part of the IBC experience I supposed – please someone remind me to pack (even more) comfortable shoes and cans of RedBull for next time!
The explosion of video applications, including online video streaming and video communications, is a major contributor to the 3X increase in global IP traffic, as predicted by Cisco’s Visual Networking Index™ Global Forecast and Service Adoption for 2013 to 2018. Another key contributor is the increasing number of fixed and wireless devices that are connecting to IP networks, and the accelerating trend of Machine-to-Machine connectivity (M2M) driven by the Internet of Things (more on how the Internet of Everything (IoE) is impacting the UKI in our UK IoE blog). The fact that the world is suffering a world-wide shortage of IPv4 network addresses is widely accepted, but the migration to the new version of Internet Protocol, IPv6, progresses at a slow pace.
I discussed this with Cisco’s very own Veronika McKillop, who recently took the Chair at the UK IPv6 Council. Veronika emphasizes that major service providers (ISP) in the UK are diligently working in the background preparing their networks to support users on IPv6. She says “The underlying driver is simple – doing nothing will restrict their ability to deliver services to customers. The expectation is that 2015 will be an important year for IPv6 in the UK.”. ISPs that are considering some kind of transition option to delay IPv6 rollout are finding that this is complex and can be expensive too. The only long-term solution is the deployment of IPv6. The slow rumble of thunder that’s been in our industry for a number of years is becoming ever louder and before we know it, the storm will be right over our heads. As more and more of the SPs enable IPv6, it’s time for everyone in the UK to think about assessing their IPv6 readiness and make concrete plans to embrace it. If you’re interested in finding out more – check out the UK IPv6 council for upcoming events & other information.
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