Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, part of Bell Labs, says its new AppGlide Video Analytics offering identifies over-the-top (OTT) video quality issues while also providing metrics that give service providers a better understanding of viewing trends and overall network performance.

The cloud-based, hosted solution combines data from video-player plug-ins, quality of experience (QoE) agents, content-delivery network (CDN) devices and routers to deliver a holistic view. According to the company, AppGlide shows the volume and quality of video being delivered, gives visibility into viewer behaviors (what is being watched, for how long, why viewers stopped watching), and helps service providers monitor and isolate CDN performance.

Alcatel-Lucent is touting AppGlide’s ability to cross-correlate between these disparate data sources. For example, being able to see that a viewer stopped watching a video after only a few minutes and knowing this coincided with poor QoE enables a provider to take specific remedial steps.

"Cross-correlation is a key differentiator," says Buck Peterson, general manager of AppGlide for Alcatel-Lucent Ventures. "We need to know why people don’t watch a video or why they stop watching. Is it related to network performance? The content guys don’t want to invest in improving quality of content if it doesn’t increase viewing times."

AppGlide Assists Velocix

In addition to providing QoE and viewing-behavior metrics, AppGlide also may help Alcatel-Lucent sell its CDN product.

About a year ago, Alcatel-Lucent purchased Velocix, which helps service providers implement CDN platforms. Velocix is installed at Verizon, where it delivers HBO and Starz to online subscribers.

AppGlide can help service providers pinpoint the source of OTT video problems, which might originate at three different places: with the original content provider, with a content aggregator or with an off-net CDN service. AppGlide provides insight into the source of the problem.

Once service providers use AppGlide and see that some of their QoE problems originate with off-net CDNs, they may opt to install an on-net CDN like Velocix.

Peterson says Alcatel-Lucent parses data from the Verizon/Velocix data logs, which provide a lot of information on CDN performance. "Our solution (AppGlide) is not tied to Velocix. If a service provider had another CDN, we could parse that data as well. (But) it is part of the marketing strategy going forward to sell AppGuide and Velocix together."

AppGlide is available for trial now.

-Linda Hardesty

The Daily

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