A virtual 04 NAB Show

The 2014 NAB Show marked the end of a long list of consecutive events on the PayWizard calendar - and what a note to end it on! NAB surpassed previous records with a total of 98,000 attendees at this year's show. Although termed a US show, 26,000 of the attendees at the Las Vegas Convention Center were international, coming from 159 countries*.

Last year 4K was the buzz word of the show - and this year we saw it come into fruition. On the floor there was an abundance of 4K cameras, and even 8K ready solutions. With Ultra HD becoming mainstream, and more HD TV sets entering the market, the future of television is clear to see.

The cloud made another appearance at NAB, but this time alongside virtualization. Many think that cloud and virtualization are one of the same, but in fact they are not - virtualization is actually the technology behind the cloud - and there are significant differences between both.

To start, virtualization is part of a physical infrastructure, whereas the cloud is a service. Then there are the cost differences - with virtualization, although there are upfront costs, operators can save money in the long run. The cloud on the other hand is usually implemented on a subscription based fee, which means operators only pay for what they use.

Another important distinction to make is that virtualization can be used to deliver private cloud technologies, but it doesn't actually work the other way round. Private cloud itself is often another misused term in the industry. So what does it mean, and why is private cloud becoming so important?

Private cloud utilises the economic and operational advantages of cloud based delivery along with the benefits of dedicated software and hardware to provide operators with cost-effective solutions. And today, the most advanced subscriber management systems (SMS) will use private cloud technology. Having software and services deployed on private servers within a highly resilient data centre means operators can scale in terms of capacity and performance as demands change. Private cloud technology also allows operators to move away from a CAPEX model to an OPEX equivalent, scaling systems in line with the number of subscribers they handle.

Which is why private cloud delivery is a core component of the PayWizard Enterprise solution. Each deployment of PayWizard Enterprise uses the latest version of our software, with the added availability of many diverse configuration options. Our software is highly productised for pay-TV, allowing the tailoring of client driven business processes. This approach is particularly important for companies who operate high volume events, such as sports.

Now that the cloud is much more than a buzz word, we are adamant that private cloud will play a significant role in the industry - it's certainly helping our customers deliver on capabilities. For once, we're actually looking forward to an outbreak of cloud!

Jamie Mackinlay, Commercial Director

*http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/NAB/2014/NAB-2014-By-the-Numbers.aspx

LINK:	http://www.paywizard.com/index.php/business-news/293-a-virtual-2014-na...
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