Internet portal Zaplive, a streaming platform for live broadcasting over the Internet, selected LeaseWeb’s hosting because of the company’s size. ‘LeaseWeb’s size and the quality of the network proved decisive for us.’

The organisation
zaplive.tv is a multilingual portal for live streaming based in Germany. Companies, institutions and private persons can stream concerts, parties, reports on hobbies or sport events, even press conferences, only using a webcam or camera and a computer with internet connection. The streaming technology, on which the platform is based, ensures that the live images can be displayed via the Internet. zaplive.tv started in April 2008 after four months of hard work to take the platform into production.

Band performances, DJs and Basketball
Zaplive’s aim – within the coming year - is to draw as much internet traffic as possible with good live streams. ‘We hope that we will have enough Internet traffic by then to start making money through advertising,’ says Christian Steiger, Technical Director and Co-founder of zaplive. ‘Our earning model depends on the Internet traffic and content quality we generate’ adds Steiger. ‘We already had a lot of interest from viewers in our first few weeks. There were live broadcasts from band performances, conferences, red carpet events and Basketball (premier league finals), and several DJ-Sets from some of the most famous DJs.'

Streaming hosting
The size of the hosting provider and the quality of the hosting network were important issues for zaplive. ‘The fact that LeaseWeb is a major hosting provider was very important to our decision,’ says Steiger. ‘Their client portfolio includes a lot of big names, and they operate a very comprehensive hosting network. At the moment their capacity even exceeds 200 Gigabits per second. That’s a lot. It allows them to offer us a lot of bandwidth. LeaseWeb also enables us to grow fast because they always maintain adequate over-capacity.’

Flash streaming hosting
zaplive definitely needs bandwidth because streaming is extremely bandwidth-intensive. ‘You consume a lot more with streaming than if you only offer video-on-demand,’ explains Steiger. ‘And we use flash streaming, which means that we need even more bandwidth on a relative scale. I expect that we will be consuming 2 Gbps of bandwidth within a year, so we need significant hosting capacity from LeaseWeb.’

Uptime dedicated server
At the moment, zaplive mainly serves Germany because of the recent start-up date, but international Internet traffic is extremely important to the portal. ‘Fortunately LeaseWeb has connections via carriers and internet exchanges all over the world,' says Steiger. ‘We are very pleased with the connections in LeaseWeb’s hosting network. The uptime of the network and the dedicated server environment are extremely important to us. A minor hiccup in the network can already have an impact on the streaming performance. Obviously you want to avoid that, because a seamless user experience is vital to zaplive’s success.’

The streaming platform is hosted via LeaseWeb’s hosting infrastructure; only the streaming server is supplied by StreamZilla. ‘The two companies work closely together, which is great for us,’ says Steiger. ‘We want a single contact for all hosting services, and the mutual collaboration means that everything runs smoothly.’

Attractive hosting price
‘We also like LeaseWeb's knowledge and qualities. They provided intensive support when we set up our streaming, and helped configure the hosting environment. They also helped us solve specific issues, and we like the attractive price of their hosting services.’ Until today, zaplive’s people have not set foot at EvoSwitch, the CO2-neutral data centre that accommodates the streaming hosting solution. Most of the contact occurs by e-mail and telephone. ‘Clearly we have to take a look in the Netherlands, but until now, we just didn’t have the time,’ explains Steiger. ‘LeaseWeb people did come to visit us in Germany. It is good to look each other in the eye before doing business, of course. Fortunately LeaseWeb took the time to come and meet us. We liked their story and we immediately liked their people as well.'

Virtual hosting
zaplive expects to grow rapidly within a year. ‘So the hosting solution will have to grow with us,’ says Steiger. ‘In time, we will probably switch to a virtualised hosting environment for that reason, but for now we do not have the required knowledge in our own organisation. LeaseWeb has, so we will be happy to use their knowledge because virtualisation allows us to make our infrastructure much more scaleable and efficient.’

• Dedicated streaming hosting 
  With a large hosting provider 
  A lot of bandwidth 
  Scaleable capacity
  Attractive price

A dedicated server environment plus a network infrastructure for Zaplive’s hosting environment. LeaseWeb engineers handle the implementation and management of the hosting solution.