Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 02 June 2009 17:20
IT Industry -
Deals
Page 1 of 2
Macquarie Hosting has inked a three-year deal with SBS to host the network’s web portal and mission critical IPTV and online radio applications.
Under the deal Macquarie’s high-availability,
fully-managed solution will enable SBS to manage peaks in traffic to
its site driven by breaking news, on-air calls to action, popular shows
and live streams of broadcast events. The web portal, visited by more
than 800,000 people a month, is the primary online presence for SBS and
delivers a mix of news, current affairs, sport, entertainment programs
and documentaries.
SBS’s IT manager, David Zufic, said today Macquarie Hosting, a division
of Macquarie Telecom, had won the deal following a competitive tender
of service providers, with Macquarie chosen for its proven experience
working with digital media and online companies, as well as its
specialisation in the design and implementation of scalable, complex
managed-virtualised hosting environments.
“The deal will also underpin SBS’s plans to diversify and grow its
online content offerings to capitalise on increased consumer demand for
IPTV and mobile TV formats. This will be particularly crucial in the
lead up to the 2010 Football World Cup for which SBS is the sole online
broadcast partner.”
A global event that attracts more than 2.2 billion viewers per series,
SBS expects to see its online World Cup broadcasts create spikes in
traffic of up to 500 per cent over the course of the event.
Zufic says that with just under 12 months to prepare, SBS is using the
managed hosting platform from Macquarie Hosting to test the reliability
of new technologies that it will deliver to viewers to keep them up to
date on the latest news and results throughout the championship.
“The Football World Cup is a flagship event on SBS’s broadcasting
calendar. We need to deliver our coverage to audiences no matter where
they are: in their lounge room, at their desk or on the move. To do
this our system needs to be reliable - we simply can’t afford any
downtime.”
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