Brightcove CEO apologizes for service outage

Brightcove, an online video platform that provides player and hosting solutions, experienced a service outage this week that prompted an apology from the chief executive.

CEO Jeff Ray sent an email on Thursday explaining the company “encountered a system issue” on Wednesday. The outage may not be directly related to the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent swells in internet traffic as more people shelter in place, but the crisis has made the need for consistent service more crucial.

“On behalf of the entire Brightcove team, I want to express my sincerest apologies for yesterday’s outage. We are committed to ensuring the success of your business. Now, more than ever, you expect that level of service from us, and we will work hard to restore your trust in us,” Ray wrote.

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Brightcove said that the issue that caused the outage has since been resolved. The company said it sent out incident reports to all customers who opened a support case, and that it will provide root cause analysis reports by next week.

Brightcove is hardly alone in experiencing service outages. Google this week suffered widespread outages (attributed to a router failure) which were concentrated on the U.S. East Coast, and impacted services including YouTube, Search and Gmail. Netflix also suffered a partial U.S. and Europe service outage this week.

The service outages (even if unrelated) arrive against a backdrop of millions of Americans forced to shelter in place and possibly work from home, which has put extra strain on the country’s networks. Video technology company OpenVault has been tracking rising broadband consumption rates, and last week shared data showing a significant uptick in internet usage during normal business hours.

The company said last Friday in the week after the CDC officially declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, subscribers’ average usage during the 9 a.m.-to-5 p.m. daypart rose to 6.3 GB, 41.4% higher than the January figure of 4.4 GB.

During the same period, peak hours (6 p.m.–11 p.m.) usage rose 17.2% from 5 GB per subscriber in January to 5.87 GB in March. Overall daily usage has grown from 12.19 GB to 15.46 GB, an increase of 26.8%.

Based on the current rate of growth, OpenVault projects that consumption for March will reach nearly 400 GB per subscriber, an increase of almost 11% over the previous monthly record of 361 GB, established in January of this year, the company said in a news release.