In our paper Video Distribution Behind the Firewall, we talk about the different approaches for deploying enterprise content delivery networks. We typically see three approaches in the enterprise: multicasting, caching and peer-to-peer (P2P). Octoshape, now owned by Akamai, is a multicast option. Across the industry you may find a variety of other enterprise multicast solutions.
The question you want to ask when evaluating solutions is whether Octoshape qualifies as common enterprise streaming infrastructure.
Does Octoshape work with all your streaming platforms, the ones you have deployed today and any you might use in the future? The last thing you want to do is deploy different delivery infrastructure for each of the platforms your company uses.
Is Octoshape integrated into the applications you already have deployed and want to use? How easy is it for administrators, content owners and users to stream video over that delivery infrastructure?
And what about the end users? Is Octoshape seamless to them which delivery infrastructure you are using regardless of where and when they watch? Or do they need to have different methods of connecting to the stream depending on the streaming platform being used or their location on the network?
We believe the delivery infrastructure you choose should be deployed once and support all your streaming video while being transparent to your end users. Our white paper Principles of a Common Enterprise Streaming Infrastructure includes five best practices for deploying an eCDN.
From the IBM webinar Optimizing Video on Corporate Networks
