Reduce costs and enhance video performance with Cisco and IBM

*Guest post on behalf of Lucas Hanson*

In almost all of my conversations with customers, two questions continually come up “How does this solution save us money?” and “How does this solution enhance the user experience?”

Using the Cisco® 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000), UCS E-Series server module (UCS E), and IBM Cloud Video’s Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN), customers can achieve scalable enterprise streaming video through

Decreasing the strain on their network across the campus and branch offices

Enabling high-quality streaming video without having to purchase an upgraded connection

Converging branch customer premise equipment (CPE) into one chassis and one hardware support contract

This article covers how the ECDN solution works with the ISR 4000 + UCS E to enable high-quality internal video for the whole organization while minimizing local congestion issues.

What is ECDN?

IBM Cloud Video’s ECDN is a virtual appliance and is delivered as a virtual server, through either VMware® ESXi or Microsoft® Hyper-V. It can be installed on an ISR 4000 router with the UCS-E Series server module.  By installing it on ISR 4000 routers, your branch CPE becomes an extension of the IBM Cloud Video SaaS offerings and scales local delivery of live or on-demand content through caching video assets. As part of the adaptive delivery process, multiple bitrate and resolution combinations of these assets will be cached.

The benefit of ECDN is the immense reduction in bandwidth consumption from the network. For example, ECDN can reduce total consumption of bandwidth by 97% for 100 viewers watching video (1.2 Mbps video quality).  Not only does this prevent the business from purchasing higher bandwidth links, but it also ensures that business-critical-traffic is continues to flow normally so that end-user application experience is sustained.

ECDN and Cisco ISR 4000

ECDN supports instances of its virtual appliance across all branches in the WAN, and in many cases a Cisco ISR 4000 sits at that branch. In some branches, where space is limited and a large server is undesirable, the ISR 4000 and UCS E-Series server module provides network, compute, and storage solutions inside a 1RU or 2RU chassis.  This converged infrastructure simplifies ECDN deployment across all branches and increases the number of offices within an organization that are able to effectively scale internal video.

To learn more please see our solutions here: ISR 4000, UCS E, and ECDN.

Read IBM’s related blog post.

We’d love to show you just how the solution works in-person at IBM Think. Visit Cisco at booth #780 and watch a live demo.

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