It’s challenging for enterprises to deliver internal video because streaming video consumes so much bandwidth. For instance, if a 100-person company site has a 100 megabit-per-second internet connection, and just 34 people watch a live stream of CEO town hall at their desktops at the same time, they can cause a network outage.
Three main approaches solve the problem. One is unicast delivery, where a single video stream is sent from the source to an onsite unicast server, which caches the content and distributes it to hundreds or even thousands of viewers while minimizing the impact on the internet connection and network.
A second approach is multicast delivery, where a single stream from the video source is received by a specially-configured router, which addresses the video packets so that they simultaneously serve multiple viewers at a site. Cable and telecom companies use multicasting because of its bandwidth efficiency.
A third approach is peer-to-peer (P2P) delivery, enabling end-user systems to share fragments of a single stream of video data with each other, in a distributed application architecture. Which is optimal for your network? A new 14-page eBook explains unicast, multicast and P2P video delivery simply and visually.
The best fit to deliver internal video on your network
The problem for IT decision makers is that none of these approaches to deliver internal video is right for every network and use case. Each approach has its strengths and challenges.
The new eBook offers a chart that compares the approaches on 15 critical factors such cost, scalability, security, ease of deployment and management, and mobile device support.
Seeing your choices side-by-side
The eBook provides an objective, side-by-side evaluation to support an informed decision. Streaming video experts at IBM Watson Media work with all three approaches, and often recommend a combination of approaches to achieve optimal results.
Scan the possibilities for yourself by exploring the complimentary eBook.
Curious about what internal streaming video is doing for enterprises? See how it energizes 15,000 employees at SolarCity. And to check out the platform, get started free with IBM video streaming and enterprise video streaming.