Executive summary
This article presents how a multi-tenant OTT solution — dotTV — was deployed to modernize an end-to-end OTT video platform operated by a regional integrator serving tier-2 and tier-3 service providers. A significant improvement in user experience, operational efficiency, and infrastructure reuse was achieved. The solution was integrated with multiple CRMs and IDMs, existing video pipelines, and a CDN platform. Flexible application deployment strategies were implemented to accommodate different branding and distribution needs across service providers. As a result, a scalable, cost-effective, and feature-rich platform was delivered, allowing the integrator to remain competitive with leading streaming services while maintaining service provider autonomy.
Customer background
A regional integrator serving tier-2 and tier-3 telcos and video service providers (referred to collectively as “Service Providers”). The customer delivers a full-stack video platform that includes applications, streaming devices (STBs), CDN, video transcoding, metadata, and content protection.
The Problem
The customer’s legacy OTT solution, a mix of in-house and third-party tools, had become inefficient and unsustainable:
- Outdated user experience and lack of modern features compared to top-tier streaming platforms.
- High maintenance and operational costs, requiring specialized personnel.
- Fragmentation due to heterogeneous tooling and duplicated efforts across multiple Service Providers.
- Scalability and agility limitations, impacting ability to adapt to market demands.
Environment Context
- The Service Providers operate in similar geographical areas, leading to shared infrastructure and audience expectations.
- Significant overlap in content cataloguesown subscriber database, identity management (IDM), and customer relationship management (CRM) systems
- Each Service Provider maintains its own subscriber database, identity management (IDM), and customer relationship management (CRM) systems
Solution
The customer adopted dotTV’s multi-tenant OTT video platform to address its legacy system challenges. This architecture enabled the consolidation of common features and content delivery infrastructure, while preserving the individual identity and control required by each Service Provider.
Key technical highlights
Multi-IDM & CRM Integration
- dotTV operates as a slave system for subscriber data, integrating with each Service Provider’s existing IDM and CRM.
- The dotTV IDM Gateway routes user login requests to the appropriate IDM, which authenticates credentials and returns a security token.
- Package entitlements and subscriber status are pulled or pushed from the respective CRMs to dotTV’s back-office.
Flexible App Deployment Models
Two main strategies were implemented depending on the Service Provider's business model
Shared App with Dynamic Branding
- A single app, published under a common umbrella brand, dynamically rebrands itself post-login based on the Service Provider.
- Pros: Simplified maintenance and publishing.
- Cons: Initial login experience is under shared branding.
- Ideal for small operators or multi-brand use cases.
Dedicated App per Service Provider
- Each Service Provider has its own branded app, optionally connecting to either a dedicated or multi-tenant back-office.
- Pros: Full brand control.
- Cons: Higher overhead for app maintenance and deployment.
Reuse of Existing Video Pipeline and CDN
- dotTV was integrated with the customer’s existing video encoding and CDN infrastructure.
- Required custom development to support proprietary content security and token-based access control mechanisms.
Results and outcomes
Migration to dotTV allowed customer to reach few important goals
- Modernized UX and feature-rich apps brought the platform on par with leading OTT providers.
- Reduced operational costs by over 50%(*) through shared infrastructure and consolidated development efforts.
- Accelerated time-to-market for new services and features across all Service Providers.
- Scalable architecture that supports onboarding of new Service Providers with minimal incremental cost.
(*) Detailed metrics available for download upon providing email address below.
