In theory, DevOps pipelines promise speed and stability. In reality, most media organizations are still stuck in a loop: fragmented QA, delayed releases, and last-minute bugs that haunt production.
When Ericsson approached IT PODS to overhaul their deployment strategy for a high-profile global video delivery platform, it wasn’t just about tooling—it was about aligning DevOps with real media complexity.
Automation ≠ Effectiveness
Many teams install Jenkins and think they’ve ‘gone DevOps.’ But media delivery at scale—especially live or multi-region VOD—requires more than pipelines. It demands orchestration, observability, and QA tightly integrated into every sprint.
“Automation isn’t the goal. Predictability is,” said Michael Jones, Senior DevOps Engineer at IT PODS. “We look at the end-to-end chain and ask, ‘Can you deploy with confidence on a Friday night?’ That’s the benchmark.”
In Ericsson’s case, pipeline automation was there—but feedback loops were missing. QA ran parallel to development, not with it. And issues often appeared after production pushes—not before.
Why CI/CD Without QA Is a Half-Measure
We rebuilt Ericsson’s pipelines from the ground up to embed QA into the core CI/CD lifecycle:
- Integrated automated testing at every merge
- Added gated deploys tied to environment health
- Built synthetic tests for edge-case playback scenarios
“We aligned our QA sprints with DevOps cycles,” said Eric Paulding, QA Lead. “That gave us real-time confidence and eliminated the ‘unknown unknowns’ that usually cause post-launch bugs.”
Results: Faster Deploys, Shorter Test Cycles, Higher Confidence
Over six agile sprints, Ericsson saw:
- 3x increase in deployment frequency
- 45% reduction in average test cycle time
- 70% decrease in post-deploy issue reports
By combining automation with integrated QA and stakeholder visibility, the entire release cadence transformed—from risk-prone to resilient.
What Real DevOps Looks Like in Media
True DevOps in the media space means:
- Version-aware deployment strategies tied to device OS releases
- Telemetry-informed rollbacks before users complain
- Content-aware pipelines that recognize bitrate shifts and regional compliance
“Most media systems weren’t built for continuous delivery,” said Chris Bentz, CIO at IT PODS. “Our job is to bridge the gap between what’s possible in theory and what’s needed in production.”
Results at a Glance
- 3x deployment velocity
- 45% shorter QA cycles
- 70% fewer post-deploy issues
- Full integration of CI/CD with QA for global video systems
Quote from the Field:
“CI/CD isn’t a checkbox—it’s a mindset. With IT PODS, we moved from reactive to release-ready.” – VP of Engineering, Ericsson
Ready to close the gap between automation and production stability?
Contact IT PODS to discuss a CI/CD and QA audit for your next media rollout.
Ericsson,a multinational telecommunications innovator, engaged itPODS to support the Ericsson team in Switzerland at one of their top cloud customers, Swisscom. itPODS' background with Ericsson's NFVi as well as experience with cloud and platform automation enabled the team to provide industry-leading solutions to Swisscom, which catapulted their productivity. The platform automation has significantly reduced the effort required to launch new systems while at the same time reducing costs and improving platform performance.