As corporate budgets shrink, here is how an eCDN can help your company cut costs

Introduction

Businesses across the world are experiencing challenges brought on by major shifts in macroeconomic forces, with most departments within an organization feeling the effect. With budgets shrinking, it’s mission-critical that businesses make smart, measured investments — committing only to essential technology that generates ROI and demonstrates longevity. The good news is that there are such investments available, particularly in the world of enterprise networks and video streaming. In this post, our team explores how an Enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN) can help businesses like yours do more with a reduced budget, make the most of existing network resources and achieve optimal eCDN cost savings.

Contents

• A brief introduction to eCDNs
  • What is an Enterprise Content Delivery Network?
  • Who are eCDNS for?
  • How do you measure cost and ROI?
• How an eCDN can help your organization cut IT and infrastructure costs
  • Lower bandwidth consumption = reduced network investments
  • Faster implementation
  • More effective live events
  • Fewer follow-ups
  • Stronger security and reliability
• Other areas for cost savings
  • Increased productivity and stronger output
  • Higher Quality of Experience and inclusivity for employees
  • Carbon footprint reduction
• How Hive’s analytics can help optimize your investments
  • So, what is Hive?
  • Optimize investments with Hive’s advanced analytics

What is an Enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN)?

An eCDN is a subtype of a traditional CDN that leverages private networks to help enterprises optimize the distribution of video content. Because live video delivered to large audiences requires significant bandwidth, this can negatively impact corporate network performance (and any other activities running simultaneously). eCDN solutions significantly reduce this network strain. More on that here.

Who are eCDNs for?

Truth be told, companies of all sizes can benefit from eCDNs — from startups to scaleups and, of course, enterprises. eCDNs have become increasingly popular for businesses adopting hybrid work models, with video streaming and virtual events taking on greater importance in remote environments.

How do you measure eCDN cost savings and ROI?

This is subjective, and very much dependent on an organization’s unique needs. But, broadly speaking, there’s a couple of benchmarks commonly used to measure the cost-effectiveness of eCDNs. We’ll go into these in more detail further in the article.

• Quantitative. In monetary terms, eCDNs can save businesses large amounts of money, simply by improving network reliability and quality. If you wanted to translate this into a solid figure, calculate the difference between bandwidth costs and infrastructure investments you would need to make without an eCDN (including ISP contracts, routers, firewalls, and other equipment) and bandwidth costs with an eCDN. Add the cost of your eCDN vendor (like Hive) and you have a ROI calculation.

• Qualitative. Measuring return on investment also extends beyond finances. Improvements in employee experiences, productivity, and inclusivity are all examples of ‘soft’ cost-savings. Again, more on that below.

How an eCDN can help your organization cut IT and infrastructure costs

Starting with the quantitative cost-savings, our team has put together a list of the areas in which businesses can boost their bottom line, specifically with regard to IT and infrastructure departments:

Lower bandwidth consumption = reduced network investments

• A peer-to-peer (P2P) eCDN can handle large volumes of traffic and reduce bandwidth consumption — lowering cost by removing the need for high capacity internet connections at individual locations, and the amount you’ll be paying to your internet service provider.
• Software-based eCDN solutions also eliminate the need for additional network/infrastructure investments or expensive hardware upgrades — they’re built for scale, and applicable to a variety of use cases, extendable over time.

Faster implementation

• eCDNs work synchronously with existing enterprise video platforms, with no need for time-consuming configuration.
• Through speedy implementation, businesses can get set up in no time — thus saving time and money (and achieving ROI faster).

More effective live events

• eCDN solutions significantly reduce network strain and prevent live events from failing, mitigating subsequent financial losses.
• Likewise, eCDNs ensure reliable corporate network performance. As a result, business-critical applications running simultaneously aren’t impacted.

Fewer follow-ups

• Getting corporate video streaming right the first time mitigates the need for endless follow-ups with employees.
• Not only does this ensure critical business communications aren’t compromised, it also means resources can be allocated elsewhere, rather than on repeated events

Stronger security and reliability

• eCDNs are deployed behind corporate firewalls, rather than on publicly accessible servers — improving security tenfold and reducing financial losses from bad actors or malicious activity.
• Moreover, they are famously reliable (with close to 100% uptime in the case of Hive eCDN)

Other areas for eCDN cost savings

In this next chapter, we turn our attention to the ‘soft’, qualitative cost savings unlocked by eCDNs:

Increased productivity and stronger output

• Through seamless corporate video streaming, businesses with hybrid or fully remote models can expect to see massive improvements in productivity.
• Whether for virtual events, internal comms, HR, or any digital workplace functions, eCDNs provide the infrastructure for employees to work more efficiently — without barriers or buffering.

Higher quality of experience (QoE) and inclusivity for employees

• The role of eCDNs in shaping effective employee experiences cannot be underestimated, specifically when it comes to engaging one’s workforce.
• By unlocking seamless ways for people to connect — and emulating UHD direct-to-consumer applications used at home (like Netflix and YouTube) — improvements in QoE pave the way for increases in employee engagement and retention.
• eCDNs also have the power to increase accessibility to premium video streaming, thus enhancing inclusivity and transparency across the organization — connecting C-suite, frontline workers, and everyone in between.

Carbon footprint reduction

•  With an eCDN fully integrated into your business, critical operations typically carried out in physical locations — training, live events, meetups, kickoffs, etc. — can become virtual.
• Eliminating the need to meet up in-person has massive implications for the environmental aims of a company, empowering people to connect across geographies and time zones. All without a single air mile or car journey.
• Assuming bandwidth savings of 90%, meaning that only 10% of the original data needs to be transmitted over the internet, a company can significantly reduce its carbon footprint by implementing an eCDN. Depending on a number of factors, it can save millions of kWh of electricity per year and prevent hundreds of metric tons of CO2 emissions.

How Hive’s analytics can help optimize your investments

So, what is Hive?

Hive offers one of the industry’s most advanced eCDN solutions — purpose-built for businesses of different shapes and sizes. Used by Fortune 500 companies like adidas, our solution offers easy activation in less than 5 mins, with no software installation needed. The best bit? While other solutions offer surface-level insights, Hive’s performance analytics empower businesses to truly understand impact.

Optimize investments with Hive’s advanced analytics

• Access in-depth video insights, identify opportunities to improve your virtual experiences, and drive adoption.
• Get a clear overview of usage, bandwidth savings, video distribution, viewer experience, and much more.
• Determine which of your video platforms is worth the investment (i.e. generating ROI) so you can look for ways to optimize your tech stack.

Speak to our eCDN experts

Learn how Hive can help your business make significant eCDN cost savings.

Contact us