Keynote upgrades streaming media monitoring service

Keynote Systems Tuesday released the fruits of its July 2003 acquisition of Streamcheck with the launch of Streaming Perspective 3.0, an improved streaming media performance management service that’s based on the technology the company acquired.

Streaming Perspective 3.0 allows customers to check the performance of any streaming offering, be it live or on-demand, from 14 points around the globe – nine in the U.S. and five abroad. Version 3.0 is essentially a rebranded release of Streamcheck’s offering with an expanded footprint and replaces the monitoring system Keynote had in place prior to the acquisition, says Shai Berger, general manager of streaming at Keynote and former president of Streamcheck.

One change that customers will notice is the way they access the Web-based management and reporting interface. Previously, Keynote provided access to both its streaming and Web performance tools through a single interface. Now, Streaming Perspective will have its own interface geared toward streaming.

“[The previous version] suffered a bit because it was not streaming centric in attempt to mold everything into one interface.” Berger says. “Now, we're designed for streaming and streaming only.”

By using the service, customers can see how well their streaming offerings are performing. Keynote tests a target site or file throughout the day to gather such statistics as initial connect time, buffer time and whether any rebuffering occurs. Data from the all the test sites is aggregated and presented in numerous ways through the Web interface or can be downloaded using XML and integrated into an existing content management system.

The pricing for Streaming Perspective 3.0 has changed a bit as well. Previously, a flat rate fee covered any URL that needed to be monitored. Now, a basic monitoring package that requires users to provide Keynote with the URLs to be monitored starts at $250 per month. For customers who want to enter their own URLs as well as start and stop tests can sign up for the Diagnostic Services which starts at $650 per URL monitored up to 75K bit/sec. Any stream that exceeds 75K bit/sec is assessed a surcharge.