Microsoft Targets Small IPTV Rollouts with Virtualization

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) announced Wednesday that its Mediaroom IPTV platform supports virtualization, reducing the number of physical servers operators need to deploy by six times and making the middleware more attractive for smaller deployments where its high startup costs have been hard to justify.

“One of the primary knocks against Mediaroom has always been the relatively high startup costs in terms of servers to support features like fast channel change and video on demand,” said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst – broadband and video for Infonetics Research. “Now that Microsoft can take that off the table, it should allow smaller operators to consider it, since previously, ROI models for them just didn’t make sense.”

With virtualization, a 30,000 home Mediaroom deployment that previously required nearly 60 servers now requires fewer than 10, said Ben Huang, director of product management for Microsoft Mediaroom, in an interview with xchange.

“Operators are happy about it. The quantity of servers causes a ripple in the balance sheet,” said Huang, noting that not only is there the capital expense of the hardware, but the ongoing expense of housing, powering, cooling and maintaining the gear. The lack of physical hardware also can speed time to market by up to three weeks, the company said in a press statement.

To support virtualization in Mediaroom, Microsoft is using Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V server virtualization technology, which enables multiple virtual servers to be hosted on the same physical server. Virtual servers share the physical server’s resources, such as memory, disk access and CPU cycles, to reduce the number of physical servers needed to deliver services.

“Reducing the startup costs allows Microsoft to go after the Tier 2/3 markets they were unable to address previously,” said analyst Heynen.

Reservation Telephone Cooperative is one example. The IOC provides voice, data and TV services to fewer than 10,000 customers in North Dakota. “By adding virtualization support, Microsoft Mediaroom is making the promise of converged entertainment services approachable without the cost and compromise inherent in more piecemeal solutions. The opportunity to sprint ahead of traditional TV services is now within our reach,” Royce Aslakson, CEO of Reservation Telephone Co.

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