October 2014 Presentation shared during the TV in the Cloud event (London)

1. 1
Gradual Introduction of Cloud based
TV Functions to Legacy Networks
Erwan Nédellec – Orange Labs, October 2014

2. 2
Orange in
a nutshell

3. 3
 236 million customers worldwide
 €40.9 billion revenue, and
€1.873 billion net profit (2013)
 165,000 employees
– 102,000 in France
 4G in 10 countries
 450,000 km of submarine cables
– enough to circumnavigate the earth
10 times!
 IPTV launched in France 10 years ago
– 6.5 million digital TV (IPTV / satellite )
customers in Europe
 Live TV & VOD services available in OTT
on SmartTV and Xbox game consoles

4. 4
Defining
Cloud
based TV
approach
for Orange

5. 5
Clouds are not always white and fluffy
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/science/gallery/2012/aug/23/meteorology-cloud-shapes-in-pictures

6. 6
Cloud TV approach for the UI embraces different
concepts
Native apps Cloud based UIBrowser based
Device centric
approach
Cloud centric
approach
The UI is rendered
in the cloud and
delivered as a
video stream
The data is usually
downloaded
from the cloud
The UI and the data
are downloaded from
the cloud

7. 7
Virtual STB also corresponds to different concepts
Virtual Set-Top Box
[vur-choo-uhl] [set] [top] [boks]
noun
1. A basic Set-Top-Box where most of the
service execution environment
- e.g. the web browser – is running in a
cloud infrastructure
2. A device which is not a Set-Top Box,
but which acts as a Set-Top Box plugged
on a TV set

8. 8
Cloud computing is also an opportunity for the TV
ecosystem
Source: http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/upload/NIST_SP-500-291_Version-2_2013_June18_FINAL.pdf
Visual Model of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) definition of Cloud Computing
Broad network
access
Measured service
On-demand
self-service
Rapid elasticity
Resource pooling
Software as a
Service (Saas)
Platform as a
Service (Paas)
Infrastructure as a
Service (Iaas)
CommunityHybridPrivatePublic
Essential
Characteristics
Service
Models
Deployment
Models

9. 9
What can we
learn from our
Cloud based
gaming
service offer?

10. 10
Orange launched its cloud gaming offer for TV in
October 2011
 Rely on the G-cluster product
 Around 200 games
 Games can be tested for free
during 20 minutes
 Different Business models
– Transactional: 24H, 48H, 1 week
– Subscribed:
– Basic: 50+ games,
5€/month
– Premium: 150+ games,
15€/month
– Electronic sell-through

11. 11
A Cloud gaming solution can make sense for STB
 Native games induces high-end
STB
– Aggressive GPU, CPU
– An additional costs for every STB,
while that extra feature may not be
used by everybody
 At least for low-end STB, cloud
gaming is a good trade-off
– But the main issue is latency
 The latency is the amount of time
between the stroke of a button on
the gamepad (or the move of the
stick) and the update of the UI
– Perception threshold: 120-150 ms
– Annoying for the user (in gaming
context): >350 ms

12. 12
Residential
Gateway Game
Servers
STB
IR: 130 ms
Wired: 30 ms
RF: 45-55 ms
BT: 55-65 ms
Ethernet: negligible
Wi-Fi: 50 ms
Ethernet: negligible
Wi-Fi: 50 ms
Fiber: 2-3 ms
ADSL: 20-30 ms
Fiber: 2-3 ms
ADSL: 20-30 ms
50-70 ms
HDMI: negligible
20-80 ms
Best case: 125 ms
versus
Worst case: 500 ms
20-60 ms
TV
Remote Control:
• Not relevant
for all games
Game Pad:
• Latency between sticks and
buttons may be different
• We selected RF
Home Network:
• So far, our STB in the
field are not in Wi-Fi
Game Servers:
• Video encoding
tuning is key (a
good frame rate
is mandatory)
STB:
• A low latency buffering policy is mandatory
TV:
• Monitors are often better than TV in term of latency
• “Gaming mode” must be turned on

13. 13
Our
experience
with a STB-
less
approach

14. 14
Orange services have been launched on connected CE
devices for several years
 Infotainment services are available on
– LG (March 2010 in France,
August 2011 in Poland)
– Samsung (November 2011)
 Our live TV channels are available on
– XBOX 360 (April 2012)
– Samsung Smart TV (February 2013)
– LG Smart TV (July 2013)
– XBox One (November 2013)
 Our VOD service is available on
– XBOX 360 (April 2013),
– Samsung Smart TV (July 2013)
 The strategy is to target second
screens at this stage
– The STB is still the preferred device in
the living room
Smart TV Orange portal in 2010
Orange VOD on XBOX 360

15. 15
Our experience is positive in many ways
 Innovative devices
 Good relationship with the partners
 Constructive exchanges
 Co-marketing opportunities
 But we have also identified several
topics that we must improve together
WebTV linear channels on SmartTV
WebTV linear channels on XBOX 360

16. 16
Our biggest fear is regression
 We have faced regression with all our partners
 Examples (not the complete list):
– Regression with persistent PlayReady license
– Regression due to heuristic changes in Smooth Streaming player
– Regression in rendering Live streams in Smooth Streaming
– Regression in dealing with the same origin policy for XHR requests
– Etc…
 Regressions are unfortunately unavoidable, but:
– It is more complex to identify regressions for a CE manufacturer with
100+ partners, due to the distance from Korea or US, than for a telco
with its end-to-end controlled solution in its premises
– So, regressions are identified too late (after a firmware upgrade in some
cases), and the probability of facing regressions is higher on CE
devices than on a STB

17. 17
And when a regression occurs, the following questions
come up straight away
1
2
3
Are we the only partner impacted ?
Is the firmware already rolled-out ?
Was it the latest firmware for that device ?
Yes
Yes
Yes
+
+
Very
bad news

18. 18
Firmware management is the second hot topic
 As we do not control the device, we
have no control on
– the features included in the firmware
– when the firmware will be rolled out
– which kind of firmware will be rolled
out (mandatory or optional update)
 Firmwares do not always behave the
same way (differences between mid-
range and high-end models within the
same line-up)
 We lack visibility on the scope of the
firmware
– In almost all cases, there is no
release note available for partners

19. 19
And last, but not least, the support is more complex
 Today, we have representative
configurations of households in
our premises (STB + gateway)
– This is a really useful means
of reproducing customers
issues
 When we rely on Smart TV, this
is not possible
– Between 2 and 4 different
platforms by manufacturer
each year
– In some cases, there are
several different firmware
releases in the field for a
same device
 It is very hard for hotlines and
technicians to help our
customers

20. 20
What the
Cloud
Computing
could bring to
the TV
ecosystem?

21. 21
Cloud computing is a revolution, like when we switched
from water wall to water tap
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/05/13/moving-cloud

22. 22
Cloud computing brings lot of opportunities…
 Elasticity
– Can adapt to workload changes by
provisioning and deprovisioning resources
in an autonomic manner
 A better Time-To-Market
– Prototype easily in production environment
with very little investment
– Very helpful with a DevOps approach
– A more flexible solution to address
different market size
– Cf. Orange footprint in different
countries
 Can (potentially) save money
– More OPEX oriented with a pay-as-you-go
billing model
– But you must monitor the usage of
cloud services and track costs
– And not forget to release resources…

23. 23
But lot of challenges as well…
 Migrating existing applications to the
Cloud induce lot of impacts
– Must migrate stateful components to
stateless
– More data centric than component
centric
– Applications must be designed for
failures
 And the challenges are not technical
only
– Impacts of organizational change
– Do not underestimate skills shortage
– Service Level Agreement
– Security

24. 24
So, do not underestimate the migration path
 The safest way for migrating an
existing IPTV platforms to the cloud is
– To avoid a big bang approach
– To analyze your data first
(consistency, durability, read/write
cycle, security, repository…)
– And only then the impacts on
your components
– To set up tools and to automate as
much as you can (Deployments,
Configuration, Error recovery,
Elasticity, …)
 And do not forget
– “Release early, release often“
– “If at first you don't succeed, try
again”

25. 25
Thank you