Visual Data Improves Content Delivery with AWS Partner TrackIt

AWS Partner TrackIt helped Visual Data Media Services (Visual Data) and Diskover Data to develop a cost-effective solution for entertainment companies to organize and improve the visibility of disparate data sources. TrackIt created an API and plugins to connect data from multiple vendors and made it searchable using Amazon OpenSearch Service. Powered by Amazon EC2, this scalable solution created by TrackIt and Diskover Data stores data in Amazon S3. Visual Data plans to increase its use of automated solutions to drive efficiency for its customers.

In helping some of the world’s largest entertainment companies deliver content globally, Visual Data manages complex workflows that were becoming cost prohibitive. While migrating to the cloud, Visual Data worked with the data-curation service Diskover Data, which provided indexing functionality using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Despite the collaboration, the company’s disparate systems lacked cohesive communication. To facilitate Visual Data’s access to various data sources, Diskover worked with AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner TrackIt to build a cost-effective solution, helping Visual Data gain control over its data.

Visual Data specializes in helping media companies distribute the correct versions of programming—a complicated process due to requirements specific to different countries and distributors. Visual Data sought a scalable solution to manage its data with pricing that would be more compatible with cloud storage. “The pricing of the previous system was entirely based on storage capacity and was not optimal for cloud-based workflows,” says Ken Spickler, the director of engineering for Visual Data.

Diskover enlisted TrackIt to build plugins for an internal order management system. Visual Data was the first user, and it successfully reduced errors, reliance on spreadsheets, and physical searches of storage systems. “It’s about automating customers’ workflows,” says Brad Winett, president of TrackIt. “We automate processes and help customers be more efficient and competitive.”

Videos, backups, and other data are stored on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), an object storage service offering industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. Data sources connect using TrackIt’s API and other plugins for Diskover. “We built the ‘glue’ so that disparate systems could talk to each other,” Winett says. For global searches of indexes, TrackIt used Diskover’s backend search engine built on Amazon OpenSearch Service to perform interactive log analytics, near-real-time application monitoring, website search, and more. “Amazon OpenSearch Service provides the core functionality to sift and organize massive amounts of data,” Winett says. Amazon OpenSearch Service runs on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), providing secure and scalable compute capacity for virtually any workload. Using this new workflow built on AWS, Visual Data significantly improved its ability to export and share search results.

Working alongside TrackIt, Visual Data plans to increase its use of automation. “We’re 100 percent focused on AWS,” Winett says. “We’ve been able to grow by honing our superpowers: media and entertainment workflows and cloud-native software development. We’re investing in our relationship and continue to grow alongside AWS.”