Stuttgart, 7 July, 2003 - IBM today announced that it has developed and installed one of the world's largest digital media content hosting and delivery systems integrated into a hosted solution at Deutsche Telekom that will reach over 3.5 million German Households. Enterprise customers and Internet service providers, along with Deutsche Telekom's T-DSL broadband users will now have faster, easy to access multimedia content, in real time and on an on demand basis.
DT's new Media Distribution Caching Service (MDCS) provides a total digital media solution for media management, distribution and delivery to and from remote locations. The solution, running on IBM server systems, IBM software, and key products from Network Appliance, also provides hosted enterprises with precise metering or accounting data for content billing. The network as a shared resource is able to authenticate and authorize subscriber access and provides data on a 'pay as you go' time-based billing.
As more consumers and businesses turn to the Internet as a primary source of music, books, software, distance learning and corporate training, telecommunications service providers are exploring new ways to distribute digital content to customers safely and efficiently. By working with IBM and Network Appliance, Deutsche Telekom has set up a dedicated ASP infrastructure that will help deliver next generation services and increase sales of broadband access and higher valued ASP services.
Deutsche Telekom's hosted platform can be reached via every form of access technology. The system can handle the most popular IP-based streaming media formats and features multi e-company hosting support for various sales channels. It also includes integrated metering for all service types, including content hosting (for the enterprise) and content delivery (for the subscriber). When enterprises are able to deliver digital content to employees beyond email, it helps to increase productivity, reduce operating costs, and accelerate the delivery and use of current networks. Digital content services represents a major growth opportunity for enterprises.
The first step was to integrate a content distribution model into Deutsche
Telekom's ASP environment. As a host, Deutsche Telekom could handle any
number of complex distribution issues, such as billing, subscriber authorization and load balancing, while IBM developed and installed what was to become one of the world's largest digital media content hosting and content delivery systems integrated into a hosted ASP solution. The solution includes a host of IBM technology including IBM eServer pSeries and zSeries systems, IBM DB2 Universal Database software, using components of IBM's Service Provider Delivery Environment (SPDE), an open standards based framework designed to give carriers the flexibility to introduce new revenue generating voice, text and next generation services faster, easier and at a lower cost. Also included in the solution will be key products from Network Appliance, one of the leading suppliers of Network Attached Storage and content delivery solutions.
Highly specialized caches from Network Appliance embedded in an IBM server infrastructure set up regionally throughout Germany serve as localized data pools to ensure fast user access to the hosted digital media content.
Software components developed by IGS are responsible for managing the media platform, hosting media content, access control, content backup, provisioning of billing data for accounts processing, and various other network services.
According to Independent industry researcher Gartner, Inc. By 2006, 80%
of Global 2000 enterprises will have implemented private content delivery networks to deliver video-on-demand and other media-rich content to branch offices.
About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is Europe's largest communications company and one of the largest communications carriers worldwide based on 2002 revenues of 53.7 billion Euro. The company is active in four key growth segments of the global telecommunications market: mobile communications, network access services, consumer Internet services and integrated IT and telecommunications solutions. Through T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom's mobile telephony subsidiary, and through other majority and minority shareholdings, Deutsche Telekom served by year end 2002 worldwide almost 82 million mobile telephony customers worldwide. In 2001, Deutsche Telekom completed the acquisition of U.S. mobile telephony companies VoiceStream Wireless and Powertel Inc., forming the first transatlantic wireless communications operator utilizing the GSM digital wireless technology standard. Deutsche Telekom offers its customers a complete range of fixed-line voice telephony products and services through more than 57 million access lines. The company is a leading provider of high-speed digital access lines, with currently more than 3.4 million new asymmetric digital subscriber line (T-DSL) services sold and more than 23 million channels using the information transfer standard ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network). T-Online is one of Europes's second-largest Internet service providers with over 12.2 million subscribers. T-Systems is Europe's largest provider of comprehensive IT and telecommunication solution and services to business customers in more than 20 countries. For more information about Deutsche Telekom, visit www.telekom.de/international.
About Network Appliance
Network Appliance is a world leader in unified storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has delivered technology, product, and partner firsts that continue to drive The evolution of storageTM. Information about Network Appliance solutions is available at www.netapp.com NetApp is a registered trademark, and Network Appliance, NearStore, and The evolution of storage are trademarks of Network Appliance, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.
About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com. For more information about IBM Global Telecommunications Industry visit http://www.ibm.com/industries/telecom
Voor meer informatie:
Tineke Mertens
PR Manager
IBM Business Consulting Services
Off: +31 36 545 4594
Mob: +31 6 200 150 92
tineke.mertens@nl.ibm.com