IBM, Cisco work together on digital media

It has been a widely held belief in the Web acceleration market for some time: Streaming media will be the killer application when it comes to the deployment of enterprise content delivery networks. It looks like that assertion still rings true, at least for IBM and Cisco.

The two are partnering to create a system for delivering digital media for enterprise businesses that want to move media-rich files across corporate networks and the Internet. The goal is to make it easier and more cost-effective for businesses to deploy CDNs.

IBM and Cisco – and other technology partners, including Media Publisher, which makes rich-media automation software – unveiled what they call the Digital Media Delivery Solution (DMDS) at last week’s SuperComm 2003 trade show in Atlanta.

DMDS combines Cisco’s application and content networking hardware and software with software and services from IBM. It’s part of the Digital Media Factory that IBM announced last year to enable businesses to manage, store and distribute audio and video files. DMDS brings the distribution capabilities to a higher level, company executives say.

The system uses networks to deliver rich media, enabling users to store and search the content. The system can also be used to deliver video on demand.

Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is one of the first organizations to use the system. It is using DMDS to deliver online resources to its academic community. The DMDS architecture Marist is using integrates Cisco’s Application and Content Networking System with IBM DB2 content manager and WebSphere portal server.