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Fastly > Case Studies > Atresmedia Enhances Live Streaming Experience with Fastly's Edge Cloud Network
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Atresmedia Enhances Live Streaming Experience with Fastly's Edge Cloud Network

Technology Category
  • Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
  • Sensors - Encoders
Applicable Industries
  • Cement
  • Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions
  • Logistics & Transportation
  • Quality Assurance
Use Cases
  • Construction Management
  • Infrastructure Inspection
Services
  • Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
  • System Integration
The Challenge
Atresmedia, a leading communication group in Spain, has been expanding its streaming package since its launch, which is a key line of business for the company. The company has turned to live streaming for broadcasting important events, such as sports finals or elections, which have high ratings. Users expect an experience similar to that of broadcast television, with no delays and zero latency. To cater to the increased traffic levels generated by live events, it was crucial for Atresmedia to prepare its entire infrastructure and partner with a CDN to support it, ensuring zero downtime, even if they experienced a tremendous spike in the number of users. The main challenges of live streaming that Atresmedia wanted to address were avoiding latency, improving the quality of the user experience, offering a reliable and scalable architecture that is able to absorb large and unpredictable traffic spikes, reducing the costs associated with live streaming, and having greater control in order to make autonomous, quick changes through API or UI.
About The Customer
Atresmedia is one of the leading communication groups in Spain, operating through various lines of business including cable and digital television, radio, film, internet, and advertising. The company owns media such as Antena3, La Sexta, Neox, Onda Cero, and Europa FM. It also has its own streaming channels: Atresplayer, which offers shows from the group’s networks, and Atresplayer Premium, a paid version that includes access to exclusive content and premieres of its products intended for basic cable. Atresmedia reaches 26% of Spanish TV audiences and commands 40% of the Spanish TV market share.
The Solution
Atresmedia implemented Fastly’s edge cloud network to control the precise capacity needed for its origin infrastructure at any given moment. Fastly’s edge cloud network provided Atresmedia with a flexible and highly scalable solution for distributing content, which improved the quality of experience by reducing live streaming latency and guaranteeing its performance, even during traffic spikes. Fastly’s modern architecture allowed Atresmedia to cache more content and worked as an extension of the company’s infrastructure. It became possible for Atresmedia to make instant configuration or rule changes and hold full control and visibility of performance indicators and key data in real-time. Fastly's Media Shield ensured a high-quality response and protected the origin infrastructure. Fastly's UI and API allowed for instant configuration changes, including rollbacks, tests, and settings. Fastly's on-the-fly geo-blocking enabled quick and easy changes to streaming settings.
Operational Impact
  • Fastly's edge cloud network has provided Atresmedia with peace of mind in the face of traffic spikes. The modern design of its architecture has a greater capacity to store content in its cache, so Atresmedia's origin servers only have to send information to cache once, rather than distributing from origin to every endpoint requesting data. This has resulted in cost reduction as Atresmedia has control over traffic management and can adjust its origin server infrastructure. Fastly's on-the-fly geo-blocking has also reduced the total cost of ownership of its geolocation service. Atresmedia has gained independence and flexibility as its CDN works as an extension of its infrastructure, making it possible to carry out developments on its own servers and in the cloud. The Fastly network configuration delivers very detailed real-time logs, providing relevant technical and market information, enabling Atresmedia to constantly keep track of traffic, infrastructure performance, quality of service, and key aspects of user profiles and segmentations — and make immediate adjustments if necessary.
Quantitative Benefit
  • Fastly's edge cloud network has a greater capacity to store content in its cache, enabling Atresmedia to manage large numbers of concurrent users in a predictive way.
  • Atresmedia was able to adjust its origin server infrastructure, helping them predict bandwidth needs and avoid preventive oversizing.
  • Fastly's on-the-fly geo-blocking reduced the total cost of ownership of Atresmedia's geolocation service, cutting the required number of encoders and the complexity of geo-blocking management in half.

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