Executive Summary

In 2015, a major streaming service aimed to enhance its content delivery capabilities and operational efficiencies. By partnering with AHEAD, the company tackled significant technical and operational challenges, resulting in groundbreaking engineered solutions that improved performance and reduced costs. This case study highlights the client’s challenges, innovative solutions implemented, and outcomes achieved, saving tens of millions of dollars, and counting.

Client Challenge

The streaming powerhouse faced several critical challenges:

• High-Speed Content Delivery: The need to deliver digital content at
  ultra-high speeds to meet increasing viewer demand and performance
  expectations.
• Engineering Limitations: Overcoming existing technology
  constraints, particularly with NVMe solid-state drives and low-power
  consumption requirements.
• Operational Complexity: Efficient management of preloading
  content libraries, as improper handling can lead to delays and
  increased costs

AHEAD Solution

To address these challenges, AHEAD implemented a range of innovative
solutions:

• Solution Optimization: Engineered advanced custom solutions with
  NVMe solid-state drives and low-power consumption technologies that
  optimized both speed and operational costs, followed by an all-flash high-
  density storage solution.
  
• Technological Advancements: Offloaded complex engineering tasks to
  AHEAD to develop next-gen solutions while the client’s internal teams
  stayed focused on core competencies. operational costs, followed by an all-flash high-density storage solution.
• Device Testing: Developed custom testing solutions for devices capable
  of streaming their content library that would ensure optimal performance
  and user experience while streaming content on the platform.operational costs, followed by an all-flash high-
  density storage solution.
• Streamlined Studio Workstation: Provided a standardized workstation
  environment for studio content operations, ensuring uniformity across the
  hardware systems creators use for post-production work.
• Custom Edge Appliance: Developed an edge appliance capable of
  delivering content magnitudes faster than commercially available,
  significantly enhancing performance.
• Asset Data Management and Reporting: Utilized AHEAD HatchTM for
  visibility into IT asset integration, testing, and configuration; harvested
  custom data during integration and testing for the asset record; and
  developed a custom connector between Hatch and their internal systems
  to streamline data exchange.

Measurable Results

The collaboration between the client and AHEAD resulted in significant
improvements:

• Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Automation saved thousands of
  hours in manual processes and better resource allocation, while
  standardized hardware simplified asset lifecycle management.
• Decreased Lead Times: Preloading terabytes of data onto systems
  greatly decreased time to transfer data from the cloud, and automating
  asset data transfer sped up internal operations.
• Reduced Ongoing Costs: Skilled engineering for complex hardware
  requirements and efficient content loading and distribution have
  combined for tens of millions of dollars saved.
  

For this content streaming powerhouse, working with AHEAD has continued to advance the delivery of targeted compute solutions and content across multiple areas of the business. Each new initiative has driven efficiency and enhanced performance to significantly reduce costs, paving the way for future collaboration and continuous innovation that will ensure they stay
light years ahead of their competition.