Secure, lag-free live streaming: How LIVECODER uses OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes® to set European standards
OVHcloud and LIVECODER
High availability for major sports, gaming and business events streaming
Low latency for live streams with more than 100,000 viewers
Transparent costs and excellent value for money
The background
LIVECODER offers a powerful platform for video streaming. This encompasses real-time video streaming with superior quality, and a smooth viewing experience. The platform has already been used to stream global sporting, gaming and corporate events, including events for Telefónica Germany. The portfolio covers various formats, from live streaming productions, web conferences, webinars, keynotes and CEO speeches to pre-recorded video productions. The live video platform is available as a SaaS, cloud, or on-premise solution (Bring Your Own Licence) and is very easy to install. After installation, the streams are delivered and broadcast via HTTP live streaming (HLS).
LIVECODER GmbH serves a diverse customer base spanning numerous industries and fields. Viewers can stream and access a variety of interactive features through the event app. These applications demand substantial computing power and a robust cloud infrastructure to manage traffic surges during popular live streams. Focusing on secure European streaming services, LIVECODER currently offers a platform for large European businesses and aims to broaden its customer segments in the coming years.
The challenge
The company aims to provide all its customers with secure and flexible live streaming. Previously, LIVECODER hosted its streams and files at one of the major US hyperscalers. While the cloud services offered were diverse, the complexity of infrastructure management and high costs were significant drawbacks. In addition, the previous cloud provider did not offer a transparent pricing model. Especially for a company like LIVECODER, which has to balance and plan for the high traffic loads in the streaming business, the costs should be predictable and completely clear at the outset of any major project.
Another requirement was the high availability of computing resources. For the live streaming events, the company was looking for a provider that can handle high traffic loads at very short notice. These happen, for example, during the streaming of a popular webcast or a keynote speech by a large company.
“During our live streaming events, up to 100,000 viewers can join the stream within just a few minutes. That's why we were looking for a cloud provider that could handle heavy traffic spikes.”
Sascha Röder, CEO of LIVECODER GmbH
The solution
With these requirements in mind, LIVECODER GmbH found the European cloud provider OVHcloud, a company that stands for sovereign and secure cloud infrastructures from Europe. In order to manage the large traffic spikes during online events, LIVECODER built two dynamic and scalable Managed Kubernetes clusters on the OVHcloud infrastructure. To control the traffic, LIVECODER is using a load balancer.
In addition to the Managed Kubernetes® clusters, the company is also using OVHcloud's Managed Database and S3 storage services to securely and efficiently store metadata, images, videos and multimedia content on a centralised system.
This diagram shows the entire cloud architecture:
The result
With the new Managed Kubernetes® clusters, LIVECODER GmbH has finally found a flexible cloud infrastructure that allows it to dynamically scale the necessary workloads. Aside from traditional corporate customers, the company also wants to start handling requests for smaller webinars or online events in the future.
“With OVHcloud, we have found a partner that offers infrastructure solutions in a modern tech stack that are both highly scalable and able to support our high-quality live streaming platform.”
Sascha Röder, CEO of LIVECODER GmbH
LIVECODER combines a variety of security mechanisms, encryption and certificates to strengthen the IT security of streams and increase complexity for hackers. Additionally, the company offers a free security analysis of live streaming platforms, drawing on its expert knowledge in the area.
The company intends to place a particular focus on customers in Europe, as it is establishing itself, among other things, with secure streaming services that are hosted and processed in compliance with the GDPR. LIVECODER is especially committed to European data sovereignty and has become a member of the Open Trusted Cloud™ program, just to give an example. This program supports software and platform developers in creating secure, open, reversible and European services.
“We are committed to the security and sovereignty of our customers' data and, just like OVHcloud, we advocate for European data sovereignty.”
Sascha Röder, CEO of LIVECODER GmbH
