Skip to main content

AWS Media Services

AWS Elemental Media Event Management (MEM)

Contact us about your event or launch

What is AWS Elemental Media Event Management

AWS Elemental Media Event Management (MEM) is a consultative support program designed to improve the operational reliability of your business-critical video workloads. MEM assigns specialized resources and applies a process modeled for the unique operational requirements of video workloads that use AWS Media Services, AWS Elemental Appliances and Software, or Amazon CloudFront. MEM is designed to service video workloads such as broadcasting or streaming live linear channels, marquee sporting events, or launching a new over-the-top (OTT) video service.
Illustration of three people using AWS laptops with media, technology, and workflow icons in the background, representing AWS Elemental Media Services and cloud-based media processing solutions.

Benefits

Why AWS Elemental Media Event Management

Leverage the AWS Elemental Customer Success team’s deep technical expertise to improve the reliability of your media workload. You get the benefit of both industry best practices and AWS-specific engineering experience.
Receive a clinical, data-driven assessment of operational risks and recommended actionable steps to mitigate them summarized in an Operational Readiness Review (ORR) document. This documents how you can achieve the resiliency, scalability, and performance needed for your video workload.
Expedite the resolution of both critical issues and non-critical questions by having support cases routed to engineers familiar with your workflow. With direct access to informed experts, issues that arise during implementation, deployment, and testing can be addressed quickly to keep the deployment on schedule for a successful launch.

Types of MEM engagements

The MEM program offers two types of engagements: MEM Launch and MEM Annual. MEM Launch is a fixed-term engagement with a typical duration of 2-5 months depending on the complexity of the workload. MEM Launch is ideal for new workload launches, critical video workload migrations, and important live events. MEM Annual is a subscription model designed for more complex deployments where the duration is uncertain, or for ongoing live event support such as coverage of an entire sports season.

MEM Launch engagements consist of four phases: an initial Planning phase, a Preparation and Testing phase in the weeks leading to the workload launch or event, Event Support on the day of your event, and a Retrospective summary after the event is completed. An Event Delivery Manager and a Media Enterprise Account Engineer from the AWS Elemental Customer Success team will work with you throughout the engagement. The cost and duration varies depending on the size of your event and the complexity of your workload, with typical engagements lasting between 10 and 18 weeks.

MEM Annual engagements are ongoing and offer customers that need support with coverage for extended periods of time. Like MEM Launch, a MEM Annual engagement includes an onboarding process with an initial discovery, documentation, and planning phase. MEM Annual is ideal for complex workload migrations like an SSAI deployment or season-long sports coverage where you regularly need experts on a live event bridge. MEM Annual requires a 6-month minimum commitment and automatically renews each month.

Services eligible for coverage

The MEM program is designed for end-to-end video workloads. While complex video workloads running in AWS often include other AWS Services beyond the Media Services, the MEM program is intended for workloads that use AWS Elemental hardware and software, AWS Elemental Media Services, and Amazon CloudFront. If there are issues with the video workload that involve other AWS Services, the MEM team will engage the appropriate support teams.

AWS Elemental MediaConnect

Icon representing AWS Elemental MediaConnect, a service for reliable and secure transport of live video content. Learn more

AWS Elemental MediaConvert

Icon representing the AWS Elemental MediaConvert service, shown as a stylized hexagon with central geometric elements and arrow motifs. Learn more

AWS Elemental MediaLive

AWS Elemental MediaLive service icon featuring a play button in the center with directional arrows, representing live media processing and streaming. Learn more

AWS Elemental MediaPackage

Icon representing AWS Elemental MediaPackage, a media services product by AWS. Learn more

AWS Elemental MediaStore

Icon representing the AWS Elemental MediaStore service, illustrated as an abstract geometric cube outline. Learn more

AWS Elemental MediaTailor

Icon representing AWS Elemental MediaTailor, a media services product by AWS. Learn more

AWS Elemental Appliances & Software

An icon representing AWS Elemental Appliances & Software, illustrated with a stylized appliance and abstract connection lines, used for media services product categories. Learn more

Amazon CloudFront¹

Icon depicting a network, used for Amazon CloudFront media services. SVG format, 48x48 pixels. ¹ | 24x7 on-call support, an optional add-on feature for MEM Annual, does not include Amazon CloudFront Learn more

How it works

A MEM Launch engagement consists of four main phases. The duration of each phase varies depending on the complexity of the workflow and size of the engagement.

1

Diagram illustrating the AWS Elemental Media Control Plane (MCP) engagement process, including key steps such as discovery, documentation, risk assessment, operational readiness reviews, event preparation, testing, support, game day trial, event launch, and retrospective meetings over a 3-week period.

Phase I: Planning with Discovery, Workflow Documentation, RAMP, and ORR

At the start of an engagement, AWS Elemental assigns a MEM team consisting of two individuals from the AWS Elemental Customer Success team: an Event Delivery Manager and a Media Enterprise Account Engineer. This team’s first step is to review your proposed event workflow, requirements, and success criteria. This is done through interviews, documentation reviews, and by participating in working sessions with your team's technical contacts. The MEM team documents your proposed workflow and identifies the products and services that make up the end-to-end media delivery chain, including the monitoring and alarm systems that are used for the event and your assumptions about the expected viewership.

The MEM team performs our Risk Assessment and Mitigation Planning (RAMP) process, which helps identify potential risks and recommends best practices to mitigate them. We deliver an Operational Readiness Review document (ORR) outlining the recommended workflow, key operational risks, testing guidance, and recommended mitigation actions.

2

Phase II: Event Preparation and Testing

In preparation for the event, the MEM team reviews your plans for monitoring, including key metrics, dashboards, and possible impact mitigation steps. This is an iterative process in which the engagement manager delivers weekly ORR status reports to monitor progress on the priority list of identified risks and tracks the actions identified in the RAMP. As the event approaches, the team provides testing guidance, operational runbook recommendations, and assistance, and conducts at least one “Game Day Trial” to simulate your actual event.

3

Phase III: Event Support

During the event, AWS Elemental proactively staffs a live bridge with a team of media specialists, including on-call engineers who specialize in the AWS services used on the event. For complex events, a member of the MEM team may also be co-located at your facilities. The duration of bridge support for staffing on-site experts for the event varies depending on the size and scope of the engagement and is subject to availability.

4

Phase IV: Event Retrospective

Following your event, the Event Delivery Manager compiles a retrospective report highlighting the operational performance of the Event with detailed post-event analysis. Finally, you have the opportunity to provide an engagement evaluation to rate the experience and give feedback to the MEM team.

Features

Experts supporting your team

The experts assigned to your event form the principal value-add of a MEM engagement. Each engagement includes both a Media Event Delivery Manager and a Media Enterprise Account Engineer.

Media Event Delivery Manager

The Media Event Delivery Manager leverages technical experience and account management skills to understand workflows, timelines, and priorities, giving you the freedom to focus on what matters: transforming ideas into compelling content that captivates viewers. The Media Event Delivery Manager collaborates with your key stakeholders to drive the MEM engagement from start to finish, and coordinate action items, scheduling, and communications with all stakeholders.

Media Enterprise Account Engineer

The Media Enterprise Account Engineer is a media workflow technical expert who works to address technical issues that may arise. This individual is available to respond to any technical questions and workflow issues, evaluate how the workflow is implemented, understand recommended configuration settings, and identify associated risks.

Severity levels and response times for 24x7 on-call support

The 24x7 Video Subject Matter Expert (SME) On-call Support team is made of video-specialized Enterprise Account Engineers that work as an extension of your team. You can leverage this optional add-on to any MEM Annual subscription (subject to availability) and achieve peace-of-mind knowing that you have a team of experts who understand your most critical workloads and are available on-call 24x7x365.

We will make every reasonable effort to respond to your support case within the corresponding timeframes:

Severity Level Description Response Time
Level 1 Urgent - full production outage issues <15 minutes
Level 2 Critical - critical production impacting issues <1 hour
Level 3 Major - significant business impact, with little or no production impact <4 hours
Level 4 Normal - moderate to minor business impact, and non-workflow impacting issues <12 business hours

Media-specific workflow recommendations

Video configuration: encoding, packaging, and origination

Our experts help you optimize video encoding parameters, aiming for the highest video quality per bit. We review your encoding configurations and provide recommendations for content-specific optimizations to accommodate your workflow limitations. The MEM team’s depth of experience enables us to adapt parameters and make adjustments based on interoperability issues as those needs arise.

Our experts also help you define packaging configurations designed to provide your viewers with an optimal experience, and at the same time meet your requirements for content protection and compatibility with playback devices.

CDN configuration

An optimally configured Content Distribution Network (CDN) is a critical component of any media event. As a result of our specialized video knowledge, our team is aware of the primary concerns and considerations that should be looked at when communicating with your CDN providers.

Monitoring configuration

Monitoring live events can be challenging, even for experienced operators. Our experts help you develop a monitoring strategy that keeps you up to date with every aspect of your video workflow, so you can spot issues before they impact your viewers.

Failover configuration

Our team helps you determine an appropriate level of redundancy and resiliency. We can provide configuration recommendations to help you reduce impact to viewer experience even if a component in your workflow fails. Another key factor of failover and redundancy is knowing when and how to act; we help establish runbooks so your operational teams know what to do if they are faced with issues during an event.

Critical interoperability validation

Our team’s specialized video workflow knowledge means we can leverage AWS Media Services in complex workflows that include components from multiple vendors. We can recommend how to appropriately tune your workflow to avoid or quickly adapt to any critical interoperability issues that may arise.

Testing strategy

MEM provides guidance on how to test your workflow before the event, highlighting the critical areas to focus on. Our testing recommendations target mission-critical points in the workflow, simulate failover with components, and focus on any unique or novel areas in the workflow. This testing guidance helps your team develop the overall test plan, dashboards, and runbooks in preparation for game day, with dress rehearsals leading up to the event.

How MEM complements your Enterprise Support

The MEM program is a consultative and specialized solution support service. MEM requires that you already have an AWS Enterprise Support plan and the MEM team works side-by-side with AWS Support Engineers when issues involve services outside of AWS Elemental appliances and software, AWS Elemental Media Services, or Amazon CloudFront. MEM does not supplant support coverage for AWS Elemental appliances and software and an Elemental Service Plan is also required separately for coverage of Elemental appliances.

AWS
Enterprise Support		 AWS Elemental
MEM Launch		 AWS Elemental
MEM Annual
Area of Focus Product Support Advisory / Consultative
Specialized Solution Support
Expertise Generic
All AWS services		 Specialists on
Video Workloads
Workload Coverage All AWS Services Experts with focus on
AWS Elemental Appliances, Media Services, and Amazon CloudFront
Video SME Engagement Transactional Designated resources
Engagement Duration 4-6 weeks
(for IEM)		 Varies
(typically 2 – 5 months)		 6+ months
Availability 24 x 7 x 365 M – F / 9 – 5 M – F / 9 – 5
(24 x 7 x 365 optional)
Video Live Event Bridge Support No Up to 24 hours
(not required to be consecutive)		 Unlimited hours
(optional & must be reserved)
Video-Specialized
Event Delivery Manager (EDM)		 No Yes Yes
Video-Specialized
Enterprise Account Engineer (EAE)		 No Yes Yes
24x7 Video SME Support No No Yes
(optional)

Pricing

The cost of a MEM engagement varies depending on the size of your event and the level of support needed. Please contact us to get a workflow assessment and price quote for your event.

AWS will invoice you for MEM Services upon the conclusion of your engagement. Charges for other AWS Services, AWS Elemental Products and Services, and AWS Support Plans are not included in your invoiced amount.

Availability

MEM Services are provided remotely, and may be performed by AWS or its affiliates. If you would like to receive MEM Services on-site at your event location, please contact us prior to purchasing.

Scope of a MEM engagement

MEM Services do not include the following:

  • Code development
  • Debugging custom software
  • Managed services
  • Performing system administration tasks
  • Support of third-party products
  • Delivery of product training
  • Performing software upgrades