HP and Hughes unite to deliver application content by satellite

Hughes Network Systems and Hewlett-Packard Co. will jointly offer a managed-content satellite service that can deliver applications such as distance learning at from 50 to 400 remote sites.None of the announced beta testers of the Direcway Content Delivery Network Suite are at federal agencies, but about half the expressions of interest have come from the Defense Department and law enforcement agencies, said Emil Regard, vice president of strategic marketing for Hughes Network Systems of Germantown, Md.The Direcway suite does not require broadband connections to stream video securely in real time. An HP caching appliance manages the content distribution at each remote site.The customer sends the chosen content by leased line or virtual private network to one of five Hughes uplink centers. Using leased satellite capacity, Hughes transmits the content to a downlink at each of the customer’s remote sites. It can deliver up to 90 Mbps per satellite channel; 3 Mbps is adequate for full-motion streaming video.A small satellite dish at each remote site brings the signal to an HP caching server behind a firewall. The server has a 1.2-GHz Intel processor, 91G of disk storage and 1G of memory, and it runs Media-IXT software from Inktomi Corp. of Foster City, Calif.Hughes remotely manages each server through HP’s OpenView management software at the uplink.