FTP ACCELERATION VENDORS
FTP Acceleration is a commonly proprietary software method used by certain vendors to bypass the inherent inefficiencies of the TCP/IP protocol. Using this methodology, up to 200% speed improvement is claimed.
REALITY CHECK: For most content owners, FTP Acceleration solves the localized problem of sending large files among few points of interest. For example, the transfer of content between two production groups separated by high-latency networks can be enhanced using FTP Acceleration, but when there are dozens of distributed users throughout the production workflow FTP Acceleration becomes an exceedingly expensive solution. The costs savings decrease and the management of such transfers gets more difficult as more points of interest are added. Additionally, FTP Acceleration alone does not provide insight into the entire production workflow for reporting purposes, nor do they enhance creative collaboration beyond "getting the file there faster". From an IT manager's perspective, there is no ability to simplify deployment through the use of regularly scheduled jobs or the creation of template-driven workflows.
SIGNIANT VALUE PROPOSITION: The Signiant Digital Media Distribution Management framework enables the seamless integration of the Signiant Media Accelerator functionality which would be technologically competitive with vendors in this subspace, while still offering the higher-level business benefits of centralized management and reporting, job/template creation, and the ability to model workflows.
HW APPLIANCES
Hardware appliances may be used in certain cases to accelerate the delivery of files between points. These are most commonly used among few points of interest. HW Appliances are commonly used in some CDNs. The boxes typically use proprietary algorithms to address the various inefficiencies in the networking communication protocol layers. In this manner, significant speed improvement may be experienced.
REALITY CHECK: Hardware is costly and doesn't scale easily. As with FTP Acceleration, it solves the localized problem of sending large files among few points of interest. The architecture is difficult to scale and rollout, and the cost savings decrease and the management of such transfers gets more difficult as more points of interest are added. They do not provide insight into the entire production workflow for reporting purposes, nor do they enhance creative collaboration beyond "getting the file there faster". Additionally, in some cases, time savings are partially negated since the data must first be moved/stored/copied to local cache.
SIGNIANT VALUE PROPOSITION: The Signiant Digital Media Distribution Management framework enables the Signiant Media Accelerator functionality which would be competitive with vendors in this subspace, while offering centralized management, reporting, job/template creation, and the ability to model workflows, while eliminating the need for intermediate duplication of the data.
SUMMARY
Signiant's Digital Media Distribution Management solution is the most complete offerings on the market, helping media companies of all sizes to Manage, Secure, Accelerate and Automate their production workflows.
Key Signiant Advantages
Signiant offers several key advantages over other solutions:
• Signiant provides a software-only solution and works with any IP-based network.
• Signiant's framework is designed to seamlessly ‘snap-in' new, feature rich modules without interruption to ongoing business activities.
• Signiant provides a flexible, extensible architecture for customized integration and workflow needs.
• Signiant provides central management oversight into all the creative and delivery phases of media production.
• Signiant enables control, transfer speed, adaptive bandwidth management, and priority scheduling.
• Signiant enables the same feature-rich capabilities whether end users are on or off the central backbone.
• Signiant functionality is accessible via dedicated client agents or browser-based agents with both "receive" and "send" capabilities.
• Signiant provides capabilities to support customized workflows and application integration.
• Signiant enables integrated capabilities to backup WIP files, beyond traditional disaster recovery methodologies and does so while storing data in their current immediately-usable format.
• Signiant supports version control of media files.
• Signiant is a scalable solution that can address complex projects and the broader needs of the entire enterprise.
• Signiant is sold via perpetual licenses and there are NO hidden usage charges.
• Signiant technology has been field proven since 2000.
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