SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 20, 2018– Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced that the Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12) has extended its strategic relationship with AWS, going all-in on the world’s leading cloud and selecting AWS as its standard for machine learning and media workloads. Pac-12 leverages AWS’s industry-leading services for a wide variety of production use cases, including its website, mobile applications, and live television networks, to transform the collegiate sports experience for its millions of fans. As a key part of its all-in migration, Pac-12 will move business-critical databases to Amazon Aurora to gain the speed and availability of a commercial database with the simplicity and cost effectiveness of open source.
AWS analytics, machine learning, and digital media services enable Pac-12 to innovate and develop new cloud-based solutions that can anticipate and exceed fans’ media and entertainment needs. For instance, Pac-12 runs its advanced media infrastructure on AWS using Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), AWS Elemental MediaLive, and AWS Elemental MediaPackage to bring personalized, broadcast-grade games to a broader audience on any device. Pac-12 is quickly setting up new production workflows at scale on AWS for live-to-video-on-demand (VOD) content and over-the-top (OTT) streaming to provide more personalized viewing experiences for collegiate sports fans. In addition, Pac-12 will use AWS machine learning services such as Amazon SageMaker to automate core content workflows—building, training, and deploying models that capture gameplay and highlight clips, and deliver closed captioning for broadcasters in real time.
“We’ve chosen to go all-in on the world’s leading cloud to drive digital transformation across the entire organization, and to enhance our innovation and workflow processes so that we can bring new cloud-based capabilities to market faster,” said Mark Kramer, Vice President, Engineering & Technology at the content arm of the Pac-12 Conference, Pac-12 Networks. “As we standardize on AWS machine learning and media services, we’ll be able to usher in a new era of entertainment for collegiate sports enthusiasts. Our fans will benefit from highly reliable and personalized viewer experiences, even in times of rapid traffic spikes like conference championships or rivalry games, and our internal teams will be able to experiment with ease using AWS services to rapidly test new ideas. The unmatched breadth of functionality, agility, and security that AWS provides has been, and will continue to be, instrumental to our success in the cloud.”
“College sports fans expect exceptional viewing experiences no matter where, or how, they are watching,” said Teresa Carlson Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector at AWS. “AWS delivers the scale, reliability, and breadth of functionality needed to give fans access to high-visibility Pac-12 conference games. Already, Pac-12 is tapping into our services to find new ways to connect with collegiate fans without being limited by an on-premises architecture. Since AWS services remove the upfront capital infrastructure expenditure and months of configuration, Pac-12 is primed to deliver championship quality experiences to audiences of any size for any sport.”
About Amazon Web Services
For over 12 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 125 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 57 Availability Zones (AZs) within 19 geographic regions around the world, spanning the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the UK. AWS services are trusted by millions of active customers around the world—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—to power their infrastructure, make them more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
About the Pac-12 Conference
The Conference has a tradition as the “Conference of Champions,” leading the nation in NCAA Championships in 52 of the last 58 years, with 514 NCAA team titles overall. The Conference comprises 12 leading U.S. universities – the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Colorado, the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Stanford University, the University of Southern California, the University of Utah, the University of Washington and Washington State University. For more information on the Conference’s programs, member institutions, and Commissioner Larry Scott, go to Pac-12.com/conference.
About Pac-12 Networks
Pac-12 Networks is the innovative TV and multimedia company of the Pac-12 Conference and is the first such company to be wholly owned by 12 universities. Pac-12 Networks incorporates one national and six regional television networks, plus extensive digital content accessible through social media, university websites and the Pac-12 Now app. Each year, Pac-12 Networks offers live coverage of 850 sporting events, making it one of the top live sports producers in the country. In addition, Pac-12 Networks creates extensive original programming, provides visibility for marquee football and basketball events as well as traditionally under-served women’s and Olympic sports. Pac-12 Networks also provides training and paid internships for thousands of students of the Pac-12’s member universities, preparing them for careers in media. With headquarters in San Francisco’s SOMA District, Pac-12 Networks draws on the creative, entrepreneurial and technological culture of the Bay Area and nearby Silicon Valley. For more information, go to Pac-12.com.
