Entone Technologies, a leading provider of personal video content delivery solutions, has introduced and deployed a breakthrough approach to managing Video On Demand (VOD) assets that dramatically improves the economics of VOD service delivery.

Entone’s Armada asset allocation solution goes beyond traditional, static VOD content distribution systems by dynamically and cost-optimally placing video assets in the appropriate location and storage media based on their real-time popularity. The net effect is up to a 60% reduction in operating expenses compared to traditional, manual techniques.

"Over the last couple of years, we have seen VOD server platforms such as Entone’s StreamLiner make enormous strides over first generation servers in terms of performance," says Mark Evensen, VP of Product Development for Entone. "The greatest pain point for operators is no longer about how many streams they can get out of a given rack unit of hardware, but how they are going to manage their massive libraries of video assets across multiple geographies, storage media, and server configurations. Entone sets itself apart from other vendors in its ability to address this problem."

Entone’s Armada asset allocation system anticipates that RAM will be the most appropriate storage medium for the most popular, but few video assets in a library. However, the cost of RAM storage is hundreds of times more expensive than other storage options (such as SATA) that are more appropriate for less popular “long tail” content.

"RAM-based streaming has become a standard feature among video servers but is really only practical for the most popular titles," says Tim Warren, CTO of Entone Technologies. “The challenge that Armada addresses is how to cost-optimally manage the ingest, storage, and delivery of assets across a system that may include thousands of titles. By optimizing network bandwidth and asset storage resources, Armada increases efficiency while decreasing operational cost.”

Entone’s analysis based on its own tests and feedback from field deployments shows that Armada can increase resource efficiency by more than 30%.

Armada distributes assets in real time to the most optimal storage, server, or network based on real-time usage data. This compares to other video server solutions that typically rely on a static, “best guess” approach to asset placement. Since viewer behavior can’t always be predicted, Armada continuously makes adjustments to storage assignments so that every storage device is fully utilized with the right balance of streaming capacity to storage space. The result is an optimal equilibrium of asset supply and demand, thus dramatically improving the business case and total cost of ownership for video on demand service delivery.

Armada is based on Entone’s field-proven and highly scalable StreamLiner video on demand architecture, which leverages commercial off-the-shelf hardware from vendors such as HP and IBM, and transforms them into high-performance, specialized video servers. StreamLiner-enabled servers deliver superior performance, reliability and a cost of ownership that is drastically lower than other video servers.

"Armada was a key part of why we selected Entone," says Eirik Gundergjerde, CTO of IPTV pioneer, Lyse Tele. "It was important to have a distributable system so our servers could be located across the country with assets allocated in the most cost-effective fashion. The Entone StreamLiner and Armada combination provides excellent management tools for a distributed solution with the flexibility to support our evolving needs."

Armada is currently available and is already deployed with some of the world’s leading video service operators, including Hong Kong’s PCCW, Norway’s Lyse Tel, and US telco operators Consolidated Communications and Pioneer Long Distance.