UltraViolet — a cloud-based digital rights storage system

What is UltraViolet?

In short, UltraViolet is a cloud-based digital rights storage system, enabling consumers to access their purchased content across all devices using many different services. UltraViolet was first announced in 2010 by DECE (Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem), a huge consortium composed of major film studios, e.g. Universal Studios, Sony Entertainment Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Internet-based companies and ISPs, retailers, cable TV companies, network hosting vendors and many more.

UltraViolet from user perspective

Every time you get a copy of a DVD or Blue-ray Disc distributed/produced by one of the DECE partners and labeled with the UltraViolet mark you can easily add your new title to your UltraViolet Library by redeeming a code that comes with each copy. This gives you unlimited access to your movies throughout different devices and platforms. Pretty neat. You can also directly buy digital versions of movies and TV shows from UltraViolet participating services.

What was the project all about

We took an active role working with castLabs development team in building a totally new version of DECE’s UltraViolet Coordinator service — the cloud-based servers, databases, and web services API - ensuring fast and error-free communication between UltraViolet ecosystem and various retailers and content publishers.

Results

The service ran smoothly during December holiday peak and no major issues were reported which, considering the sheer numbers involved, makes it a great success. UltraViolet has over 28 million users with over 250 million movies and TV shows in 13 countries. During holidays (24th/25th) the number of API calls peaked at 1M per hour, and on New Year’s Eve it rose up to 1,7M transactions per hour. And everything worked just fine. If that’s not a success, I don’t know what is.

Aftermath

The project has ended successfully. We like to treat the sheer scale of this undertaking as a good proof of our capabilities and high skill level, but we’ll happily accept even more challenging project anytime.

A good thing that comes from such joint projects is the possibility to work in a new environment and with new developers which is very motivating, especially when you see they know what they’re doing. All in all, we certainly hope for further cooperation with castLabs.

“teonite really did their part. They exhibited high skill in all-round programming, while sticking to the development requirements and deadlines. With their contribution of expertise and cooperative spirit we made swift and solid progress.”
— Piotr Buliński, castLabs Development Lead