Application layer
The application layer is a collection of services and business logic that interacts with the streaming media layer to deliver functions like authentication, authorization, search, recommendations, or interactivity. This layer exposes a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and serves data in response to requests from clients. Though your application will have a unique set of endpoints, there are a common set of services deployed alongside streaming media applications.
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Subscriber Management — A method for user authentication and media playback authorization is necessary for transnational or subscription services. Services like Amazon Cognito, when combined with URL tokenization and content encryption, can be used to secure access to content.
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Content Management — A purpose-built database for indexing content and associated metadata. AWS Database Services like Amazon DynamoDB or Amazon Relational Database Service are common backend services used for Content Management state.
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Analytics — A system for ingesting client analytics regarding playback behaviors (content preference, play-through, skip, pause, re-watch) and extracting business insights for decision-making. In the streaming media layer, telemetry data (error rates, buffer rates, latency etc) is used to maintain quality of experience during playback, but services like Kinesis Data Streams can also be used to populate data warehouses with Amazon Redshift or Amazon S3. These long-term warehouses can be examined by business stakeholders to make strategic decisions regarding feature enhancements to the service or to produce content relevant to viewer interests.
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Interactivity — A service, commonly aligned with video playback using embedded metadata, that provides audience engagement through interactions with the host, audience members, or metadata to enrich the experience. Amazon IVS and AWS Elemental Live provide timed metadata interfaces that are used to embed data directly within the video stream and initiate events to call application APIs to render relevant features.
