AWS Case Study: MediaSilo

The size of video files make them costly to store and cumbersome to access for the end user. MediaSilo saw an opportunity with the release of the Amazon Simple Storage Service to make videos cheaper to store and quicker for the consumer to access. The company built a comprehensive set of tools for content producers who need to manage post-production projects online or launch pay-per-view Web TV channels. MediaSilo solution lets their video professional customers collaborate online with their high-resolution video footage without having to install software or make any upfront investments in hardware or software. Perfectly suited for short- and long-form video, MediaSilo puts the power of the internet to work as a bridge between geographically dispersed teams.

MediaSilo uses Amazon S3 as the backend for its video collaboration offering. Amazon S3 is “storage for the internet” with a simple Web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the Web. Amazon designed Amazon S3 to make Web-scale computing easier for developers by giving them access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of websites. Using Amazon S3 makes it simple and inexpensive for MediaSilo Faced to store hundreds of user accounts, each with multiple gigabytes of data.

Without Amazon S3, MediaSilo would have had to purchase a large SAN upfront. A 3 terabyte storage array would have cost MediaSilo roughly $10,000 plus annual maintenance fees of $2,000-$3,000. The same amount of storage costs MediaSilo just $500 through Amazon S3, at full capacity, with no maintenance cost.

“With Amazon S3, we only have to pay for the storage we use,” said Kai Pradel, MediaSilo president. “We are able to invest in other areas of our infrastructure now that our cash isn’t tied up in hardware that’s just sitting there waiting to be put to use.”

Today, Amazon S3 is the storage backbone for MediaSilo. Users upload data to the MediaSilo server where the system converts it into Flash FLV files. Once converted, MediaSilo pushes data to Amazon S3 for permanent storage and deletes the original from the main server. This approach allows MediaSilo to grow gradually without spending money to purchase storage in advance of its need.

In less than a month MediaSilo fully implemented Amazon S3 into its business model, and is now in the midst of beta testing. The company estimates to service upwards of 300 accounts with up to 50GB of data each by years’ end. With Amazon S3, MediaSilo can leverage the virtually limitless capacity of Amazon S3 to better compete.

“Amazon’s entrance into the online storage market with Amazon S3 has had a profound impact on our business,” added Pradel. “The business implications are significant. If we offer our subscribers large amounts of storage, we have to plan accordingly and purchase hard drive space, perform backups and regular maintenance. With Amazon S3, we pay for what we use and can shift our focus to the other important elements of our business.”

With Amazon S3, MediaSilo has the ability to offer its customers virtually unlimited storage space without overcharging. This opens up additional product opportunities for MediaSilo as its user base begins to use the application as a repository for video clips. The more video a subscriber stores with MediaSilo, the more loyal a customer they are likely to become.

http://www.mediasilo.com/