Microsoft has acquired enterprise content delivery network Peer5 to help improve video streaming quality on Teams, its communications platform.
Microsoft said its large enterprise customers need eCDN solutions to help alleviate restraints from limited corporate network downlink bandwidth for video streaming and broadcasting to large audiences.
“In the last few years we realized that our mesh networks are extremely valuable for enterprises who face last mile bandwidth issues within their corporate network. When many employees stream at the same time, the network gets congested. This can happen during an all-hands meeting, a large training session or when everybody opens a link to a video that was just sent over email. Our technology solves this problem in the most efficient way possible, without changing the existing network infrastructure,” wrote Peer5 CEO Hadar Weiss in a blog post.
Peer5 is a WebRTC-based eCDN solution that runs in-browser to optimize bandwidth usage through mesh networks that are self-balancing and automatically scale as the number of viewers increase. Microsoft said the technology does not require additional installation on user endpoints or changes to the physical network infrastructure, adding that Peer5 will allow it to provide a first-party offering for streamlining purchase process and customer support.
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Microsoft said that it will continue to support eCDN solutions from its certified partners in addition to Peer5 and that current Peer5 customers will be able to continue using Peer5 services.
Microsoft throughout the summer has introduced new features for Teams to improve remote working. In July, the company rolled out a Teams broadcast development kit, an open-source project for integrating Teams directly into cloud production workflows running on Microsoft Azure. In June, the company announced updates to Teams Rooms including live reactions, spotlight, and the ability to pin multiple video streams (coming in the fall) and chat bubbles when using the video grid layout.