TV Platforms 2014 ReportAn S3 Group Survey of Pay-TV Service Delivery

table of contents

introduction

service velocity tops the charts

modern deployment approaches

more being done, and it’s getting busier

deployment cycle times are long

where does the time go?

areas for process improvement

service outage requires (many) tools

dev and ops collaboration - a secret sauce

who took the survey?

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1

Video service providers are striving to shorten

innovation cycles, get new services to market

faster, and make updates more frequently.

To deliver on these ambitions, delivery processes

are in transition.

In July and August of 2014, S3 Group undertook

a study that sought the views of leading

executives from companies including Accenture,

BSkyB, Comcast, Ericsson, Liberty Global,

Numericable, Virgin Media, and Time Warner

Cable. This report is based on a sample size

of 20 respondents, who serve more than 60m

subscribers worldwide.

As operators seek to accelerate new feature

introduction, this survey provides a snapshot of

the changes underway, and assesses opinions

on build and release processes.

introduction

2

Priority #1 Priority #2 Priority #3 Priority #4

Accelerating delivery of new

features 10 4 3 2

Improving service availability 6 1 4 8

Improving agility 2 9 7 1

Increasing efficiency 1 5 5 8

Service velocity is the top priority of the

respondents to the survey. More than half of

respondents also ranked improved agility in

responding to customer needs as one of their

top two priorities.

The increasing number of releases can be

positively correlated to the growing importance

of delivery of new features and responsiveness

to customer demands.

For an industry historically known for a low

number of releases per annum, 28% of

operators are issuing releases at a rate of

almost once a month. Just over one in ten

respondents are issuing releases at a rate of

three times per week.

service velocity tops the charts

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

1-4 5-20 21-50 51-150 151+

28%

44%

11%6%

11%

Number of Releases 2013

Q: Please rank the following criteria in order of importance to your team?

Q: How many releases did your organization deploy in 2013?

Top Team Priorities

3

The general trend with deployments is towards

an increasing number of deliveries.

Almost half of video service providers are

delivering more releases in 2014 than 2013.

For those delivering more in 2014, the increase

is dramatic, with the majority of respondents

reporting up to 50% more releases.

1-19% 12%

20-50% 75%

51-100% 13%

more being done, and it’s getting busier

Same rate of releases as this time last year 47%

More releases than this time last year 47%

Less releases than last year 6%Q: To date in 2014, are you making more or less releases than last year?

Q: What is the percentage increase in number of releases deployed vs. this time last year?

Rate of Releases to Date In 2014

How Many More Releases in 2014

4

The adoption of modern/newer deployment

practices has overtaken Waterfall as the

preferred practice.

In fact Agile and Hybrid deployment

approaches are 8 times more widely adopted

than pure Waterfall.

Agile typically equals more frequent and

smaller-sized releases.

Another data point reflecting the growing

importance of responsiveness was release

type. The survey picked up that the number of

major software releases is almost evenly

balanced with (typically more frequent) smaller

drops.

Waterfall 11%

Agile 32%

Hybrid 53%

Continuous Deployment 5%

modern deployment approaches

52%35%

13%

Major

Minor

Emergency

Q: How would you best describe your current deployment methodology?

Q: Of the releases deployed in 2014, how would you classify each release?

Deployment Methodology

Release Type 2014

5

Less than a month 20%

2-3 months 7%

4-6 months 33%

7-12 months 33%

Don't know 7%

While many operators are issuing more

releases than previously, deployment cycles

are typically long.

One third of operators take almost a year from

receiving a requirement in development to

deploying software into production.

One in five operators are able to go from

development to deployment in a single month,

which represents a significant closing of the

gap on pure-play internet video providers.

In terms of challenges, respondents to the

survey identified the quantity and quality of

requirements being put through the

development funnel as the top impediments to

faster release cycle times.

deployment cycle times are long

Q: What is your current deployment cycle time i.e. the time from receiving requirements

in development to deploying software into production?

Current Deployment Cycle

Key Challenges to Release Cycle Times

6

Q: In order of priority, can you please rank the key challenges to release cycle times?

Inefficient communications

between departments

Quality of requirements received

Number of requirements targeted per release

Limitations in release tooling Limitations in test infrastructure

Human resource constraints

Number & variety of deployment

environments and devices

31%

11%

23%

35% Implementation

Approvals

Bug fixes

Testing

When asked to identify where time was spent in

the deployment cycle, a substantial amount of

effort is being taken to complete QA processes.

QA (testing and bug fixes) consumed almost

60% of the time.

When probed further, for almost four out of ten

operators it takes more than a month to

complete testing.

Even after a release has been tested and

approved, for 38% of operators deployments

takes more than a month to enter production.

where does the time go?

Less than a week 8%

Between a week and a month 38%

More than a month 38%

Don't know 15%

Less than a week 15%

Between a week and a month 46%

More than a month 38%

Q: In terms of the deployment cycle, where is most of your time spent?

Q: How long does it take to deploy a change, once tested and approved?

Q: How long does it take to test a feature change, once it leaves development?

Deployment Cycle Effort

7

Time taken to Deploy after Approval

Time taken to Test

Perfect, it is

at the

correct level

Unimportant,

is not used or

required

Sufficient,

but could be

improved

Insufficient,

and an area for

improvement

Software build 0 1 7 6

Component testing 1 0 3 10

Server load testing 1 1 5 7

Consumer device

testing3 1 6 4

End-to-end video

platform testing0 1 6 7

Code deployment 0 0 4 10

Live service monitoring 1 0 6 7

To deliver on service velocity requires support

across the whole organisation. Automation

provides such support to engineers.

Code deployment and component testing

are areas that can be improved most through

automation.

Of slightly less importance are the areas of live

service monitoring, end-to-end video testing

and server load testing.

areas for process improvement

Q: Thinking about some of the key activities in the service delivery flow, would you say

your use of automation is ...?

Use of Automation in Service Delivery Flow

8

service outage requires (many) tools

Unimportant Limited Importance

Important Essential

Cross-functional collaboration

0 0 7 7

Log analysis tools

0 1 7 6

Remote site access

1 3 5 5

Proactive Monitoring

0 2 5 7

Version control 0 3 6 5

Innovation must be married with a stable service

since otherwise customer care costs and churn

will rise.

When resolving a service issue, the survey

highlights that any tool or approach that can

give ‘an edge’ will be used.

However, a slight preference was expressed for

proactive monitoring and cross-functional

collaboration.

Both can be seen to be progressive practices.

Proactive monitoring enables pre-emptive

detection and problem mitigation. Cross-

functional collaboration promotes good

information flow between teams.

Q: In your opinion how important are the following to resolving a service issue?

Important in Resolving an Issue

9

dev and ops collaboration – a secret sauce

An important contributor to the service velocity

and stability of online giants such as Amazon,

Google, Netflix, and Spotify is their adoption of

DevOps practises.

Close collaboration between Dev and Ops mean

that releases are more frequent, and issues are

resolved faster.

DevOps places a premium on collaboration.

It builds better and more reliable services, faster.

From the survey it appears that this is an area

that could be immediately improved. 43% of

teams meet less than once every three

months.

Weekly, 14%

Monthly, 43%

Quarterly, 22%

Never, 21%

Frequency of Cross-Functional Meetings

Q: How often do teams from different functions (Dev, QA, Ops, DevOps)

assemble to discuss video platform quality improvements?

10

Job Functions %

Development 30%

QA 25%

Operations 10%

DevOps 5%

Other e.g. SI, CXO 30%

Broadcast Technology %*

Satellite 50%

Cable 64%

IPTV 57%

DTT 21%

OTT 50%

* Responses add up to more than 100%, as respondents could

select more than one technology

Location of Respondents

N = 20

11

50%

30%

5%

15%

Europe

N America

S America

Africa

who took the survey?

About S3 Group

S3 Group is a global leader at enhancing the performance and service readiness

of video platforms across connected devices. In both development and

production, S3 Group provides unique insights through service validation products

and platform integration services for multiscreen deployments.

S3 Group has more than 100 customers, across 28 countries, including: Astro,

BSkyB, BT, Comcast, Kabel Deutschland, Liberty Global, Mediacom, NAGRA,

Swisscom, Time Warner Cable, upc cablecom, RDK Management LLC, Videotron,

and numerous others.

For further information visit www.s3group.com/tv-technology

Copyright © 2014 Silicon & Software Systems Ltd. (S3 Group). All rights reserved.

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