With Kubernetes, Entertainment and Media Companies are Keeping Up with the Times
As we slowly enter a post-pandemic world, industries of all kinds have their eyes on digital transformation. Leaders in retail, healthcare, insurance, and finance, for instance, are all looking for IT solutions for keeping up with evolving consumer demand.
The entertainment and media sector (M&E) is no exception. But this is hardly news—since well before 2019, this industry has been one of the most visible faces of digital change. From streaming providers like YouTube to audio-streaming platforms such as Spotify to social-media giants Instagram and Twitter, M&E companies have long realized the value of offering their customers a tailored online experience.
As demand for quick access to entertainment and media continues to rise, companies need innovative technologies that will help them unlock the value of digital transformation. One such tool is Kubernetes (K8s), an open-source container orchestrator first launched by Google in 2015. Let’s take a closer look at how K8s can support entertainment and media organizations as they speed up on-demand services, make media shoppable, and leverage consumer data to grow at scale.
Keeping on-demand services online with K8s
While the pandemic has driven many sectors to develop new strategies that incorporate online services, the health of the M&E industry depends almost entirely on smart digital choices. While a retailer might choose to supplement in-person shopping with ecommerce options, for example, OTT (over-the-top) content media providers like Netflix and Hulu are digital natives who simply wouldn’t survive offline.
Companies in this space have realized that their content needs to be high-quality, on-demand, and reliable—if it’s not, they’ll quickly lose customers to a different provider. While many first turned to virtual machines to stay ahead of the competition, others have discovered that containerization will allow them to become category leaders.
Kubernetes can help M&E companies reach this goal thanks to two of its core features. First, it empowers users to deploy cloud-native applications that keep content flowing directly to customers. More specifically, Kubernetes’ unique approach to container management offers self-healing capabilities, so the applications that support live streaming, on-demand video, or social media platforms won’t go down if there’s a need
for back-end updates.
Second, K8s makes it possible to automate container deployment to match demand.For instance, with Diamanti’s Kubernetes platform, providers are given a straight-forward means of setting more containers to spin-up during periods of high traffic (such as after the release of a popular OTT show’s season finale) and fewer to activate during slower ones. In addition to keeping latency high and customers satisfied, this saves M&E companies money on computing costs.
Making media shoppable on the hybrid cloud
M&E companies can use Kubernetes to do more than simply stay on top of current trends; it also grants them the agility necessary for innovating for the future.
Imagine, for example, that a customer scrolling through Instagram could click through a product placement and make a purchase in seconds, or that a Spotify listener could buy concert tickets for their favorite band on the same platform that they’re listening to that group’s latest album. These possibilities are what M&E trend-setters are calling “shoppable media,” which is seen by many as the future of the industry.
But how can companies go about creating integrated systems like these? Thankfully, with Kubernetes, application and API integration is simple. This is first and foremost because containers operate virtually on the hybrid cloud, allowing them to sidestep front- and back-end user issues related to authentication and hardware compatibility. Second, with Diamanti, integration can be streamlined thanks to its platform’s centralized approach to container management. Last but not least, Diamanti provides dedicated support teams that know the ins and outs of K8s for M&E, so leaders can rest assured knowing that their systems will be set up to win.
Leveraging consumer data to grow at scale
Another piece of the M&E digital transformation puzzle is data. However, given the countless consumers that engage with media on their devices, it’s often difficult for companies to know how to go about developing and acting on insights.
With Diamanti and Kubernetes, M&E businesses are given clear onramps for accessing this data. The platform provides leaders with built-in analytics pipelines that can be customized to track and synthesize subscriber behavior. Further, Diamanti’s K8s platform also includes multi-level security and back-up, so sensitive customer data and IP are always protected.
Finally, because K8s runs across the hybrid cloud, M&E managers can give team members across their organizations segmented access to these analytics. With this kind of insight-rich vision, teams can collaborate with ease, make data-driven decisions, and get exciting products and services to market faster.
