As virtual events, hybrid conferences, and online learning continue to grow in demand, organizations need reliable, scalable, and low-latency video solutions. For Cadmium, a leader in event technology and continuing education platforms, this shift created an opportunity to extend their video-on-demand capabilities into the world of real-time live streaming. To do it right—and fast—they turned to Ant Media Server. This is the story of how Cadmium built Warpwire Live, a dynamic, enterprise-grade streaming platform, by integrating Ant Media’s powerful technology into their ecosystem.
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About Cadmium
For over 25 years, Cadmium has been a trusted provider of technology solutions for virtual events management and continuing education. Serving a diverse range of clients—including professional associations and institutions of higher education—Cadmium helps organizations deliver exceptional learning experiences through its unified platform.
A key component of that platform is Warpwire, Cadmium’s secure, education-focused video platform. Originally designed for video-on-demand, Warpwire has been a vital tool for online learning and content sharing in academic and professional development settings.
But with the world turning to virtual events during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cadmium saw a clear opportunity—and a need—to go beyond on-demand video.
The Challenge: Bringing Live Streaming to Warpwire
Since its launch in 2013, Warpwire had focused on secure video hosting and playback, optimized for education. But in 2020, the spike in demand for live streaming—driven by virtual events, online conferences, and hybrid learning—changed the equation.
To meet this need, Cadmium set out to build Warpwire Live, a real-time streaming extension to its video platform.
“We needed to bring a live streaming solution to market quickly. But instead of reinventing the wheel, we wanted to build on top of an existing media server and integrate the features that make Warpwire unique—like captioning, scheduling, analytics, and user access control.” stated by Monte Evans, SVP.
The goal was to focus on user-facing functionality while leveraging a proven streaming engine for the core media delivery. This would allow Cadmium to deliver a robust live experience without starting from scratch.
Choosing Ant Media Server
After evaluating several options, Cadmium selected Ant Media Server to power the back end of its new live streaming platform. The decision came down to a combination of performance, flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency.
“We needed a media server that could scale dynamically in our Kubernetes infrastructure, be fully API-driven, support low-latency via WebRTC, and be cost-effective. Ant Media Server checked all the boxes.” indicated by Jonathan Stuart-Moore, Manager, Warpwire Development.
Here’s why Ant Media Server stood out:
- Kubernetes-friendly deployment for scalable, cloud-native environments
- API-first architecture, allowing Cadmium’s custom scheduler to control the full stream lifecycle
- WebRTC support for low-latency interactive streams
- Affordable pricing model that allowed both dedicated and on-demand usage
- Strong support team and regular product updates
Cadmium’s engineering team appreciated that Ant Media was built on the solid foundation, offering both reliability and flexibility. Deployment was straightforward, and integration with Cadmium’s existing codebase was seamless.
The Result: A Scalable, Streamlined Platform
Thanks to Ant Media Server, Cadmium was able to bring Warpwire Live to market much faster than if they had built the media engine themselves.
“Ant Media Server has allowed us to focus on what we do best—delivering a great user experience. It handles the low-level streaming tech so we can spend more time on features like UI, analytics, and scheduling.” indicated by Jonathan Stuart-Moore, Manager, Warpwire Development
By offloading the complexities of media handling, Ant Media Server enabled Cadmium to:
- Launch a scalable live streaming platform within their desired timeline
- Deliver low-latency experiences for events, webinars, and classes
- Maintain high availability and dynamic resource allocation via Kubernetes
- Integrate streaming features into the broader Cadmium ecosystem
- In addition, Ant Media’s frequent updates have continued to improve the security and performance of Warpwire Live with minimal development overhead.
What’s Next for Cadmium?
Cadmium is committed to continually evolving its live streaming capabilities. The company is now exploring deeper integration of Warpwire Live across its platform and new use cases in hybrid events and interactive learning.
“We’re excited to see what’s next from Ant Media. Their pace of innovation gives us confidence as we grow and improve our platform.” stated by Monte Evans, SVP.
Final Thoughts
Cadmium’s journey with Ant Media Server is a great example of how the right technology partner can accelerate innovation. By combining Cadmium’s domain expertise with Ant Media’s powerful streaming engine, they’ve created a reliable and scalable solution that’s already making a difference in education and events worldwide.
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