With an aim to reach out to a large number of audience, recently ZEE5, which is a video on demand platform run by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited launched an integrated entertainment solution. The company's newly launched tech-driven platform is powered by Microsoft Azure. The company has chosen to take its library of multi-genre and multi-language content to different market with Microsoft Azure.

ZEE5 went live in over 190 markets worldwide earlier in October across platforms, offering audiences around the globe a completely integrated entertainment experience, with both On-demand and Live TV. ZEE5 offers the largest width and depth of multi-genre content including news and entertainment across English, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Oriya, Bhojpuri, Gujarati and Punjabi. ZEE5 comes packed with 1,00,000 hours of On Demand content, including Movies and TV Shows, Music, and Health and Lifestyle videos along with a slew of originals, across 12 languages. It also has an extensive Live TV offering with 60+ popular Live TV channels.

Amit Goenka, CEO, Zee International and Z5 Global, said, “Ensuring consistent performance for a seamless customer experience and security are of paramount importance to us, and we are extremely happy to partner with Microsoft for this. The elasticity and security they provide have been key to deploying our new service, and in building a more scalable platform.”

ZEE5 uses a fully-managed Azure platform to perform infrastructure maintenance and load balancing. Azure has also helped ZEE5 to accelerate containerized application development within rigid stipulated timelines, said the company.

With growing internet penetration, OTT services are fast being adopted, not just in metro cities but in tier 2 and tier 3 cities as well. Azure is helping app providers become agile and scale rapidly on demand, in sync with the increase in customer base and app traffic.

Deployment of Microsoft DevOps (VSTS), Microsoft Azure PAAS, DBAS, Azure Media Service (AMS), App Service (Linux, Windows), Access Control Services (ACS), Azure Container Registry (ACR) and Functions, has enabled ZEE5 to reduce the burden on hardware and lower the maintenance of its services, while continuing to offer exceptional customer experience in a secure, compliant environment with high level of data security, said Microsoft.

Sashi Sreedharan, Managing Director, Microsoft India said, “We are very excited about this partnership with ZEE5. The fast-increasing penetration of OTT services necessitates more efficient and secure ways to build scalable streaming solutions. Microsoft Azure services has not only enabled ZEE5 to expand their footprint globally, but it can accelerate seamless transition to personalized services in future. We are happy to partner with ZEE5 to cater to the entertainment demands of the global South Asian diaspora.”