Video test and validation platform vendor S3 Group has expanded its StormTest portfolio beyond labs and into live networks with its new StormTest Warning Center element.
The new cloud-based platform enables remote service monitoring, validation and real-time analytics of video services across connected devices on live networks. Warning Center provides network operations teams with continuous, automated monitoring of service availability and performance,
Warning Center provides network operations teams with continuous, automated monitoring of service availability and performance, including: linear TV services, on-demand services, interactive menus, set-top box applications, EPG validity, and more. It was designed to cut the time from product concept to market deployment through increased service visibility and actionable data as well as reduce the time it takes to resolve issues.
Warning Center customers can use their own pre-defined thresholds for alerts, use real-time analytics to make “big data” driven business decisions, and reduce mean-time-to-diagnose and mean-time-to-repair through remote access to network monitoring nodes.
Warning Center was designed to work with S3 Group’s StormTest Development Center, which is a video test automation platform. Development Center was designed primarily to test devices and services by development teams in lab environments prior to deployment while Warning Center provides development and operations teams with ongoing feedback from devices and services within a live network.
Using the Warning Center portal, operators can monitor real-time performance and service readiness thresholds, and interact remotely with set-top boxes deployed in the network.
“With Warning Center, we’re bringing automation out of the lab and into the live network and making it available as a cloud-hosted offering that allows our customers to monitor service playout on the live network, and also to continually validate those services to make sure they’re working as expected,” said John Maguire, director strategy and marketing, TV technology, S3 Group. “So now we’re into more ongoing, live interaction and live testing.
“Obviously the use cases are a bit different, but what is important is that Warning Center is part of our portfolio, and they genuinely share a common automation platform under them, which means customers can leverage any existing investment they have in our products, or use Warning Center as a stepping stone into our broader portfolio.”
S3 Group put Warning Center through its paces with Iredeto, which used it to automate intercontinental monitoring of customer service levels across its global operations in support of the FIFA World Cup tournament earlier this summer.
In April, Freesat, a free-to-air digital satellite television company in the United Kingdom, also deployed Warning Center.
Maguire said Warning Center wasn’t currently in any live trials in North America, but he said after numerous demonstrations he was “very confident on getting our first trial.”
S3 Group will demonstrate Warning Center for the first time at the IBC show next month.
Dublin-Ireland based S3 Group manages the code base for the cable industry’s Reference Design Kit (RDK), which is a joint venture among Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global. The RDK Management joint venture is based in Philadelphia.
S3’s customers include Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Videotron, Liberty Global, Mediacom Communications, BskyB, and BT, among others.
