Beijing, September 14, 2016— Cisco is teaming up with LeCloud Computing Co., Ltd (LeCloud) to drive the development of Digital Rights Management (DRM) through its leading VideoGuard® Everywhere DRM solution. The two companies have built a DRM cloud platform that makes cloud services global. It is compatible with multiple DRM protocols and able to provide one-stop solutions. With this, the two companies are working together to promote the disruptive transformation of DRM business models and innovation in the global video cloud service ecosystem.

Cisco VideoGuard® Everywhere, an end-to-end video service protection and monetization solution, enabled LeCloud to comply with content protection requirements from English Premier League (EPL) and to meet its aggressive deadline for service launch following a short phase of only eight weeks from project inception to launch,as well as to secure EPL content distributed through its LeSports OTT service.

VideoGuard® Everywhere, which was deployed on LeCloud’s cloud infrastructure and integrated with its cloud-based video services, is also enabling LeCloud’s global efforts to roll out a Video-as-a-Service (VaaS) offering.

LeCloud is one of the largest video cloud platforms in the world, and the creator of the first cross-industry, cross-device video cloud service ecosystem based on the vertical integration of the industry chain. Globally LeCloud provides 10 million live broadcasts a year, the dynamic acceleration of hundreds of millions of devices a day, and tens of millions of real-time HD videos concurrently. It serves 110,000 corporate clients and billions of users. Today, the 21 VaaS products of LeCloud have formed the biggest video cloud portfolio in China.

In recent years, enhancing the security of digital content and protecting intellectual property (IP) has become a key issue in the development of the digital content industry. The 10 most popular movies in 2015 were cumulatively pirated 4 billion times, and problems faced by the industry during transition such as rampant piracy, regulatory difficulty and losses caused by infringement, make the effective protection of rights very urgent.

As the largest video cloud platform in the world, LeCloud sees content protection and rights protection as the key foundation for creating market value and the value of the video industry’s ecosystem. After in-depth discussions about integration and multiple improvement tests, the custom VideoGuard® Everywhere DRM solution provided by Cisco won the favor of LeCloud. This is the industry’s only system specifically designed to protect pay TV content. It proactively modifies critical components before hackers can compromise the service. Other DRM systems currently available in the marketplace provide only static, basic protection. Through the LIVE (Locate, Identity, Verify, Eliminate) Cycle, VideoGuard® Everywhere DRM can detect and eliminate the online activities of illegal devices effectively and in a timely manner. The DRM cloud platform jointly built by Cisco and LeCloud is based on industry-leading security technologies for video service, providing security protection for content including concerts, TV programs, sports events, variety shows, movies, and paid training programs across media, across links and across devices.

This platform can serve tens of millions of end users a day, providing millisecond response with up to 99.99 percent availability, to flexibly cope with the peak traffic of business clients, enabling them to provide more stable services securely. This platform also covers all media formats and all devices to provide security protection across links for content, services, devices and apps.

The DRM cloud solution from Cisco and LeCloud helps to optimize the operating cost of business clients and simplify complex IT infrastructure and operation. During the broadcast of this year’s Premier League games in Hong Kong, the excellent performance of the DRM cloud platform was already highly recognized by the IP holders of the Premier League.

LeCloud CEO Wu Yazhou spoke highly of the partnership, saying, “LeCloud will join hands with Cisco to explore cloud rights service and provide one-stop solutions for digital media content from transmission, management and broadcast to distribution and protection of digital rights end-to-end. In the future we want to work together with Cisco to protect the secure distribution of quality content around the globe, to create an unprecedented ecosystem value for global business partners, and to further transform the traditional business models for content protection.”

“Cisco is committed to helping customers seize opportunities in the new round of tech revolution and industrial transformation, to create new business value for them,” said Zhang Li, Senior Vice President, Great China, Cisco. “Cisco is collaborating with LeCloud, in order to respond to the wave of digital content protection in the Internet+ era and ensure the secure, convenient, stable and cross-platform circulation of video content across the globe. It is our goal to protect video everywhere, to build the new engine for the protection of digital content through technological innovation, and to provide unlimited possibilities for the disruptive development of the next generation DRM cloud services.”

Cisco is architecting the network of the future through virtualization, automation, simplification and programmability. Cisco’s leading position globally in cloud, networking, video, mobility and security enables service providers, media and web companies worldwide to reduce costs, speed time-to-market, secure their networks and achieve profitable growth.