Pac-12 Conference Goes All-In on Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, 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."