Thoughts on Enterprise Video 2016
Organizations have been working hard to implement and encourage the use of video for their internal communications and collaborations. While consumer technologies for streaming have improved exponentially over the past 5 years, enterprise video platforms have had to face much more challenging environment and realities.
Last week, enterprise video veteran Zip Zieper – our vice president of product management – participated in a Streaming Media roundtable discussion with other enterprise video platform developers. The State of Enterprise Video was a great panel and we thought we’d share a few key takeaways from the event for those who missed it:
The importance of image quality
Influenced by their consumer experience, today’s employees are used to seeing high-quality HD (and 4K) streams. How big of a factor is quality for enterprise video? We think it’s an important consideration, but the higher the bitrate, the more likely the stream is to flood the corporate network. Enterprises have to strike a careful balance between quality and bandwidth realities.
Security is important to everyone
Security has never been more top of mind for CIOs, and video is no exception. It’s important to offer authentication for video streams, either with active directory or SSO. But, it’s more than just “who can access what” that’s important. The message also needs to be encrypted because you never know who is trying to listen in. Whether your executive is delivering an address from a hotel conference, or a manager is watching that same address at a coffee shop, it’s important that your enterprise video platform offers end-to-end encryption so you can keep your company’s content and information secure.
Quality of enterprise video experience
Touching again on the consumer side of streaming video, the expectation for a high quality, easy experience has never been higher. Most people don’t differentiate the playback experience they get at home to that of work. Hulu, Netflix and YouTube make it seem very easy to have a high-quality experience at a small price, and employees expect the same experience. It will be hard to get employees’ attention during your CEO all hands if the video is choppy, pixelated or difficult to playback.
On-prem vs. hybrid vs. cloud
Although we’re hearing about the cloud and SaaS from almost every tech company on the planet, the webinar polling revealed that a majority of enterprise video is inherently on-prem. What we’re seeing at Haivision is a strong push towards the hybrid cloud, where a part of the system is in the cloud, and servers are being used on site to help facilitate distribution.
OPEX v CAPEX
The cloud discussion also becomes one of cost. Budgeting considerations can play a major role in the type of enterprise solution you’ll end up with. If your department or company approves a new OPEX budget line, you’ll be more inclined towards a cloud solution, and vice-versa for CAPEX and on-prem.
One size does not fit all. But for large enterprises, what it comes down to is flexibility to offer both. Requirements for data security (some companies aren’t interested in their content ever crossing the internet), OPEX v CAPEX, networking requirements and how involved the organization wants to be managing their enterprise video platform. These all play a role in which type of solution will be chosen.
Overall, there’s a lot of choice in enterprise video platforms, quality of experience is on the rise, and deployment options remain flexible. Organizations should keep their eye out for vendors who can offer end-to-end solutions and security, have flexible hybrid deployments, support multicast and offer their users a great experience.
Get in touch with the enterprise video team at Haivision to learn more about our Haivision Video Platform and schedule a demo.
