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INDUSTRY WATCH
expensive to launch new services, upgrade to
HD, migrate to tapeless workflows or set up
and dismantle pop-up channels quickly.”
LeapCloud solves those challenges by
transforming from a capital-intensive model
involving investment in broadcast hardware
to a scalable, opex-based model. The service
delivers live linear T V and content services as
a platform that broadcasters can access and
use in much the same way as if they owned
A secure, resilient data centre
environment is fundamental
As Stichbury pointed out, however, none
of this would be possible without a reliable
data centre partner whose facilities deliver
the security, resilience, uptime, power and
connectivity that underpin the entire service.
Deluxe has chosen to co-locate its LeapCloud
infrastructure with Interxion. Stichbury
explained why: “When we did our research,
ITS AWARD-WINNING,
ACCREDITED DATA CENTRES
OFFER REDUNDANT POWER
AND COOLING, MULTIPLE
LAYERS OF SECURITY AND THE
SUSTAINABILITY FEATURES
OUR CUSTOMERS EXPECT.
and operated it themselves, but without any
capital investment.
Broadcasters can serve channels – ranging
from simple thematic ones, through to
much more complex ones that require
insertions such as breaking news, live events
or subtitles – at the highest quality, to any
platform. Customers of the service can
manage their TV network from anywhere
in the world using a secure web browser
and a network connection. Alternatively,
they can access the service via a dedicated,
resilient network connection. A simple
live linear channel can be ready to air in a
week and multi-channel and multi-regional
launches are also very quick – accelerating
penetration of new markets and audience
groups, enabling full exploitation of rights
for brands and major events and shortening
the time to revenue.
“LeapCloud enables significant operational
efficiencies and cost savings,” said Stichbury.
“Broadcasters have comprehensive visibility
of their assets and channel outputs, giving
them extensive control over their inventory
and greater playout flexibility.”
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INTELLIGENTCIO
Interxion came out head and shoulders
above everyone else. Its award-winning,
accredited data centres offer redundant
power and cooling, multiple layers of security
and the sustainability features our customers
expect. It also gives us plenty of capacity
to scale our installations or expand to other
European locations.” He continued: “In
addition to operational excellence, Interxion
also has a dedicated digital media team who
understood what we wanted to achieve and
were ready and able to support us.”
The LeapCloud infrastructure is hosted
at Interxion data centres in London and
Amsterdam, connected by diversely routed
fibre supplied by different connectivity
providers for maximum resilience. The
architecture is designed to eliminate outages
by delivering an N+N active/active broadcast
playout model that provides comprehensive
disaster recovery and automated seamless
switching to an alternative path or site in the
event of a problem.
“For most broadcasters operating wholly
owned, proprietary systems, disaster recovery is
something of an unaffordable luxury because
of the cost of duplicating equipment and
skillsets,” said Stichbury. “With LeapCloud,
disaster recovery is an integral part of the
solution, supported by our data centre
partner’s multiple locations.”
Carrier-neutrality helps
optimise cost and
performance
In addition to ensuring the right co-
location environment for the service,
Interxion also provides access to a
wide choice of connectivity partners for
content ingest and distribution, thanks
to its carrier-neutrality. Interxion is
home to all the main fibre-based media
contribution network providers and to a
growing community of satellite service
providers, facilitating content acquisition.
Interxion data centres sit on the main
highways of the Internet, enabling Deluxe
to optimise the cost and performance of
content distribution by selecting from a
broad range of IP carriers, ISPs and CDNs
to deliver content from the LeapCloud
www.intelligentcio.com