54
X-PLATFORM
May-June 2016
Getting the quality of service
you need for OTT success
Andy Burnett, Director for Online Technology and Operations,
ITV, and Dave Clark, Director of Service Delivery, Irdeto,
share with APB how operators can deliver high-quality OTT
services that keep customers coming back for more.
Why do OTT and Quality of Service
(QoS) so rarely square up?
Andy Burnett: Over-the-top (OTT)
services are now coming of age —
as they increasingly move into the
mainstream, viewers’ expectations
rise. Today, there is little tolerance for
slow delivery or viewing glitches and
most viewers now expect to enjoy a
“broadcast”-quality experience not only
on the big screen at home, but also on
their personal devices.
This is one of our motivations for
launching ITV Hub — a new streamlined
platform that will better answer our
viewer needs for easy access to our
content from whatever device they like.
David Clark: OTT services are just
as their name indicates — they go
“over-the-top” of traditional managed
networks, and are dependent on a
patchwork of independent IP networks
to reach the end-user. Not only is there
the issue of shared bandwidth and
throughput, but also typically a greater
number of separate systems need to
interact — especially compared to
traditional broadcast.
With any
number of
different data
flows that
the content
can take
depending
on the
overall
architecture,
each OTT
service will
need to be
carefully
monitored
to identify
the capacity
bottlenecks
and potential
failure
points.
How can businesses be impacted by
poor service quality?
Burnett: To put it simply, any shoddy
service will lose customers. We are in
a high-engagement business where
viewers lose interest exponentially
with every second of buffering — this
requires a good level of control over
the end-to-end delivery. We’re not
only talking here about broadband
throughput and speed, but also
understanding the impact of backzend
systems such as content preparation
workflows for live and near-live
distribution.
In the early days of OTT services,
everyone was just focused on getting to
market, getting their content out there,
but today there is so much choice, so
many options, that having appealing
content is not the only factor
influencing our customers. You may be
able to draw in new viewers with a live
sporting event or X-Factor, but they
will not come back to your service if
they find it under par.
Why is it so hard to achieve good
QoS on OTT platforms?
Clark: In order for video content to
get to the end-user, it has to jump
through a number of hoops. Typically
for OTT delivery, the bottlenecks
arise from one or more of the
various integration points between
the multiple systems that process
the content: encoding/transcoding,
packaging, encryption, storage [CDNs],
playout and so on.
With any number of different
data flows that the content can take
depending on the overall architecture,
each OTT service will need to be
carefully monitored to identify the
capacity bottlenecks and potential
failure points.
If there can be no guarantee of
QoS in an IP world, what are the
operator’s options?
Clark: In order to counter some of the
things that can go wrong, Irdeto has
put in place a systematic supervision
of all our OTT deployments through
our Service Operations Centre (SOC).
This SOC provides 24/7 network
supervision for all our customers
worldwide and implements an “early
alert” mechanism that kicks in when
any anomalies are identified, so that
preventative action can be taken
before the end-user is affected.
Over time, the data collected
allows us to understand where the
weak points in any deployment
or workflow are and to adjust
accordingly. Our service dashboards
allow us to establish whether things
are running as normal or if an incident
needs to be escalated.
Content Preparation
VOD Content
Meta Data
Storage
Transcoding
❝ Today, there is little ❝ Typically for OTT
tolerance for slow delivery
or viewing glitches and
most viewers now expect to
enjoy a ‘broadcast’-quality
experience not only on the
big screen at home, but also
on their personal devices. ❞ delivery, the bottlenecks
arise from one or
more of the various
integration points
between the multiple
systems that process the
content. ❞
— Andy Burnett,
Director for Online Technology
and Operations, ITV — Dave Clark,
Director of Service Delivery,
Irdeto
Burnett: Indeed, the combination of
service monitoring and proactive alerts
is so effective; we’ve enjoyed 100%
platform availability for 15 of the
past 16 months — with one month at
99.95%!
What tips can you offer to ensure a
good end-user experience?
Burnett: We want our different
OTT services to be “as good as
telly”, so here are our top three
recommendations for delivering a top
quality service:
n Monitoring for deeper
understanding: As no two network
delivery systems behave similarly, we
need to observe that behaviour in
order to understand the ITV viewer
experience. This is by continually
monitoring and testing our workflows
— why there was latency between
data centres A and B, where the
Content Delivery Network
JIT Packaging & Encryption
EPG
BROWSER
WSER
APP
PP
recurring bottlenecks and potential
weak spots are. Building on this service
delivery data, we can quickly pin-point
any issues by keeping an eye on the
higher-risk areas.
n Pre-defined process for crisis
management: We systematically
go through a number of “controlled
disasters”; we introduce failure to better
understand our systems, processes and
people. We determine with our partners
the escalation points, responsibilities
and course of action required on both
sides for every potential crisis. Trialling
the specific processes for different
situations, when we “break” the services
intentionally, allows us to avoid panic
and wasting time when incidents do
occur.
n Take ownership: We depend on
our partners to communicate proacti–
vely on potential service issues, which
will require having the right level
of expertise and sufficient coverage
available 24/7. Irdeto’s SoC is a good
example of a reliable service monitoring
mechanism to ensure service availability.
With full-time staffing and early-alert
mechanisms, it allows us to act quickly
and remedy issues