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An Entertainment Conglomerate’s Shift from Altair to InetSoft Serverless Microservices

StudioX’s existing Altair setup was powerful, supporting everything from data preparation and cleansing to machine learning and rich dashboards. Yet, the infrastructure was rooted in an on-premises, license-driven model—costly, complex to scale, and trapped by capital expenses that ballooned with every new project or team. Costs were not limited to licensing, but cascaded into resource hoarding, high fixed server expenses, and specialized IT-support overhead.

Why Switch to InetSoft's Serverless Analytics Microservice?

• Scalability on Demand: InetSoft’s cloud-native, event-driven system eliminates the need for upfront provisioning. Resources scale automatically with workload, with analytics microservices spinning up to meet demand and spinning down when idle.
• Usage-Based Pricing: No more paying for idle infrastructure—StudioX only pays based on actual microservice usage, allowing costs to directly map to real business value generated.
• Maintenance-Free Operations: All server upgrades, security patches, and backend tuning are handled by InetSoft, not StudioX’s IT department, allowing StudioX’s teams to focus on business outcomes, not DevOps firefighting.
• Self-Service Power: Users—whether data scientists or everyday business analysts—can mash up data, generate reports, and build dashboards in a true self-service model, without waiting on IT for customizations.

Licensing: From Upfront Burden to Agile Investment

Under Altair, StudioX managed a portfolio of perpetual and subscription-based licenses. Each major upgrade triggered negotiations, sometimes including per-server and per-feature fees. Departments had to predict usage up front—often overbuying for "just-in-case" scenarios, locking money into unused licenses.

With InetSoft’s serverless model, StudioX moved to an elastic licensing structure. They now pay a low per-user, per-month fee (as low as $50 per user for SME teams, or at enterprise rates for large deployments), with predictable annual ceilings and no additional server licenses. The ability to flex usage during high-profile film launches or major events—without triggering new fees—translates to tens of thousands in annual savings and far less budgetary overhang.

Resource Savings and Overhead: The IT Department’s New Reality

Altair’s infrastructure required significant ongoing maintenance: server monitoring, database tuning, OS patching, plus constant upgrades to keep up with new analytics methodologies. It also mandated hardware reserves for peak times, leaving servers underutilized and gamed "just in case."

"Serverless analytics means no resource hoarding. No more hardware idling for 90% of the quarter, just to be ready for a couple of blockbuster releases." — StudioX Infrastructure Lead

• Server Elimination: No servers, no OS maintenance, no patching. InetSoft runs all compute in their managed cloud. StudioX reclaimed several racks’ worth of hardware, retiring them and slashing energy and cooling bills.
• Instant Parallelism for Reports: Where Altair would batch 1,000 reports overnight, InetSoft’s serverless microservices trigger a thousand parallel function executions. Overnight reporting shrank to real-time or near-real-time, with no user queueing.
• No DevOps Headaches: Deployment, failover, and scaling are fully handled by InetSoft, saving IT staff hundreds of hours per year once spent on scripting, monitoring, and troubleshooting analytics workflows.
• Reporting Automation: Event-triggered, scheduled, or API-driven—reports are generated precisely when and how needed, thanks to serverless event architecture.

Support and Administrative Cost Reductions

The Altair setup required a support contract for ongoing break/fix and hands-on help around upgrades and integrations. Each issue—a failed server, report timing out, a new integration—often rippled between vendor, IT, and business units. InetSoft’s serverless model changed the support landscape dramatically:

• Direct Vendor Support: Issues are routed directly to InetSoft’s cloud support, with SLA-backed response and resolution times. StudioX’s own help desk tickets dropped by 65% in the analytics domain within the first year.
• No Downtime during Upgrades: Updates and patches are invisible and continuous with serverless delivery—no more planned (or unplanned) downtime for version management.
• End-User Empowerment: The self-serve platform means end-users launch their own ad-hoc reports and mashups, reducing dependence on the internal BI team. IT’s backlog of custom report requests and last-minute data pulls all but disappeared.

Business Impact: Management and End-User Satisfaction

IT and Management’s Perspective

StudioX executives and department leads cite a dramatic increase in the speed of insight generation and analytics delivery. Without protracted procurement cycles for new licenses or lengthy internal tech discussions for scaling up, new analytics projects launch faster—and at lower incremental cost—than ever.

For IT management, the shift from Altair to InetSoft’s serverless model means fewer infrastructure distractions and much less spreadsheet wrangling at budget time. The granular, usage-based reporting makes chargebacks and departmental allocations transparent. The technical team can focus on genuine innovation and data-driven projects instead of firefighting and system babysitting.

End-User Delight: Productivity and Adoption

• Self-Service Means Power: Reports that took days now take minutes. Business analysts, marketing teams, and even rights management can work hands-on without needing IT or a PhD in BI software.
• Higher Adoption Rates: InetSoft’s intuitive, drag-and-drop interfaces and native integration with cloud databases mean less training and higher daily usage among staff at all technical levels.
• Sandbox Experimentation: The platform encourages end-user experimentation and data mashup, letting teams explore and try new analytics approaches in a virtual sandbox. This feeds creativity and delivers faster business value.
• Fewer Bottlenecks: Self-service and automation reduce the traditional backlog of report and dashboard requests—users get what they need, when they need it, without frustration.

The Bottom Line

StudioX’s migration from Altair’s traditional analytics stack to InetSoft’s serverless analytics microservice fundamentally changed their operational model. By eliminating server and license bloat, reducing IT and support overhead, and empowering users with true self-service analytics, the conglomerate realized not just cost savings—but a leap in business agility, data-driven culture, and user satisfaction.

As media and entertainment companies continue to look for ways to turn massive data reserves into actionable insights, the experience of StudioX points to a clear competitive advantage for those embracing serverless, scalable analytics in the cloud era.