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Very few companies know how to scale and deploy cloud applications like Netflix, the ginormous movie streaming site. And now it’s making some of that cloud management expertise available to the masses via Github.

On Monday, the company open sourced Asgard,  a Grails and JQuery web interface that Netflix engineers use to deploy code changes and manage resources in the Amazon cloud in a massive way. The technology was named after the Norse god of thunder and lightning but was once known as the Netflix Application Console or NAC. And it offers some capabilities that the AWS Console does not.

Asgard, for example, helps engineers track the multiple Amazon Web Service components — AMIs, EC2 instances etc. — used by their application and manage them more efficiently.

As Joe Sondow, the Netflix senior software engineer who leads the project, wrote in the blog:

When there are large numbers of those cloud objects in a service-oriented architecture (like Netflix has), it’s important for a user to be able to find all the relevant objects for their particular application. Asgard uses an application registry in SimpleDB and naming conventions to associate multiple cloud objects with a single application. Each application has an owner and an email address to establish who is responsible for the existence and state of the application’s associated cloud objects.

There’s more information on Asgard and its inner workings here and here. It’s techie stuff but one of Asgard’s chief benefits is that it enables very fast roll-back. So if you’re performing a massive code deployment and something doesn’t look quite right, you can reverse that process on a dime, according to Netflix.

The Twitterverse was impressed.

very cool! RT @jinman: Netflix’s web based cloud management and deployment is now open source bit.ly/MLv2p4 #awsome #aws #cloud—
Werner Vogels (@Werner) June 25, 2012

Netflix is an early and huge adopter of AWS, but has also bolstered that cloud where needed with projects like Asgard. Now third parties can utilize Asgard to manage their own massive code rollouts (and press that fast rollback into service as needed.)

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The VoD service Netflix has been leading a charge for consumers to watch more on-demand, digital video — with its service aggregating TV and film content from a number of media players now attracting more than 25 million subscribers, and bringing new audiences to that content. But just how much of an impact on traditional, physical sales are digital companies like Netflix making if they were to grow even further?

Quite a lot, it seems. According to one account of a presentation made last Friday by Dan Heaf, EVP and managing director of digital for BBC Worldwide (the BBC’s commercial arm), Heaf reportedly said that if everyone got their BBC content via services like Netflix at its current subscription rates — the equivalent of $7.99 or £5.99 per month — it could wipe out 80 percent of BBC Worldwide’s revenues. To be clear, the BBC, which didn’t invite media to the event, has denied the percentage. But it does admit that its digital business is less profitable and generates less revenues for it right now as they transition away from more traditional forms of media, and that is driving the company to find new ways to grow that digital business:

“Audiences are transitioning from physical to digital platforms and BBC Worldwide understands the importance of using these new platforms in order to grow reach and revenue. However, as digital platforms can be less profitable than traditional physical platforms, BBC Worldwide is managing the transition by developing new additive [digital] revenues,” a spokesperson says, citing live events, BBC.com and BBC Global iPlayer as three of these.

Heaf’s reported comments were made last Friday, at an event to mark the launch of BBC Labs, a new incubator/mentorship program to find innovative (and potentially revenue-generating) digital content services. Fostering startups with good ideas to spin BBC content is one route for the BBC to shore up digital returns as physical sales continue to erode.

“These additional revenues will ensure that we can continue to invest more into original content which we make available around the world.  We continue to collaborate with existing partners while also searching for and supporting new ones hence the launch of BBC Worldwide Labs,” says the spokesperson.

The launch of BBC Labs comes at a time of change at the corporation: on Friday it was also announced that Jana Bennett would step down from her role as president of Worldwide Networks and the Global BBC iPlayer, as part of a larger reorganization where global product divisions have been replaced by regional divisions.

While the BBC uses partnerships such as the one with Netflix to increase its reach and find new audiences, it’s also looking to build out its own direct offerings further. Its iPlayer service, initially developed as a free offering for UK audiences only, is now available as an app (free with in-app purchases) in 16 countries, and there is talk of a further commercial product, built as more of an iTunes rival, covering a wider catalog of current and archival programs. However, Project Barcelona, as the service is called, may be facing some problems: according to this report from paidContent, there is some conflict between BBC Worldwide and its parent over how such a service would get implemented and who would run it.

In the meantime, the BBC’s partners in expanding its customer base worldwide continue to grow their own offerings to woo consumers. Netflix, in a kind of arms race against Amazon, has been building up its content relationships to make itself more attractive to consumers — and as its scale grows it is bound to have better leverage in its negotiations with content companies. The latest of these incremental steps was actually taken by its rival: Lovefilm, Amazon’s UK subsidiary, announced today it has signed a large deal with 20th Century Fox.

There are others looking to become more involved as well. Google TV just yesterday announced that it would finally be breaking ground in the UK, in a TV partnership with Sony. Google is likely to make more TV announcements this week during its I/O developer event.

BBC Labs could be one route for the BBC to look for innovation and new services for the future that it offers itself, widening what it does beyond basic program delivery.

The BBC is taking a wide approach to the Labs project. It says it will consider early-stage startups in web applications, gaming, virtual worlds, mobile, advertising technologies, advanced video applications, connected TV, community and collaborative software and CRM, “to name a few.”

The Labs project is a six-month program aimed specifically at startups in the UK — ultimately five will be chosen for the program, and the aim is to help selected participants “gain traction and scale by working closely with them with the objective of helping them strike a commercial partnership with BBC Worldwide.”

No equity stakes are taken, and no actual cash funding will be passed along. Instead, “We… focus on promoting innovation through mentorship and access to the varied resources of BBC Worldwide.” That includes marketing, sales, advertising and legal help, as well as free office space at the BBC Media Centre, technical resources and mentoring and networking events.

BBC Worldwide’s most recent financial figures in its annual report indicated that in 2011, it made sales of £1.15 billion ($1.8 billion) overall. Within that, digital entertainment accounted for only 2.3 percent of revenues, or £27.1 million ($42 million), compared to £14.5 million in 2010. Overall digital brought in £81.9 million across all of the BBC. Digital entertainment; however, it still made a loss of £6.8 million ($10.6 million) — although that was significantly down on losses of over £17 million in 2010. (2012′s figures will be out next month, a BBC Worldwide spokesperson tells me.)

There is a clock ticking on how the BBC will leverage digital in the long run. Currently the BBC still makes much more in revenues and profit from physical video sales, largely in the form of DVDs. In 2011, this business brought in £192.3 million ($300 million), with profits of £43.3 million, according to the annual report, but sales are slowing down: that was only £1 million in more in profit over 2010.

Heaf’s remarks on Friday underscored the trend we’re seeing here: he projected that DVD would remain a revenue stream for another 10 years, before it got killed off by VOD.

When Mike Bemiss was looking for a new video game to buy, he hopped on a site operated by Gaikai Inc. and clicked on “Dragon Age 2.”

Within seconds, the 37-year-old engineer from Erie, Pa., was able to play the game right from his browser — with no download, no game console and no credit card. He liked it so much that he bought the game, along with the previous game in the series.

Headed by industry veteran David Perry, Aliso Viejo-based Gaikai operates a streaming service that is like Netflix for games. Users get a free look at the first 15 to 30 minutes of a game that interests them. If they decide to buy, they’re sent to a retailer or the game’s publisher.

“It’s changed the way I shop for games,” Bemiss said. “I can cut right to the chase and see if it’s a game I’m going to like.”

Cloud gaming has been talked about as the next big thing for more than three years. Several companies have already built streaming services, including OnLive Inc., Playcast Media Systems, Tenomichi/SSP’s StreamMyGame and Media Speed Tech’s GameStreamer.

Since then, streaming game technology has become increasingly available to consumers in the U.S. and Europe who have grown comfortable with the idea through streaming music and video. Game publishers are starting to see streaming games as a potential avenue for reaching new players while combating piracy. And even retailers such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy have embraced Gaikai’s try-before-you-buy streaming service as a way to accelerate sales in their stores and on their websites.

“This is how people consume media these days,” said Wanda Meloni, a media analyst with M2Research. “Consumers have gotten used to getting content instantly. What Gaikai is doing fits right into this new consumption pattern.”

Not everyone believes that the market is ready for streaming games technology. Internet delivery sometimes involves a slight time lag. Players of shooter games require instantaneous reaction times. The loss of even a millisecond can ruin a player’s chances in a shooter game like “Call of Duty” or “Halo,” which are among the most popular games on the market.

“Nobody wants to be in the middle of a death match and have the game start to buffer just as they’re about to make a kill,” said Geoff Keighley, executive producer of MTV Network’s GameTrailers TV.

Perry, Gaikai’s chief executive and co-founder, is a 45-year-old Irish-born game developer known for titles such as “Earthworm Jim” and “Enter the Matrix.” He believes that the ability to stream games will be a boost to the $50-billion global games industry. Free from the disc, games could flow to numerous devices that have Internet connections, Perry said.

Gaikai has agreements to stream full games to smart television sets such as the ones coming out later this year from Samsung and LG, as well as to tablet devices including the Wikipad, a gaming tablet that uses Google’s Android operating system and is set to launch sometime before the holidays.

Under current agreements, Gaikai’s game publishing clients — such as Electronic Arts Inc., Ubisoft Entertainment, THQ Inc., Capcom, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. — pay the company a service fee to stream their titles to hundreds of websites, including Facebook, YouTube, Wal-Mart.com, Best Buy and numerous game review sites.

The 4-year-old company is privately owned and does not disclose its financial performance. But its technology is promising enough that it has raised more than $50 million in funding from Benchmark Capital, Rustic Canyon Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Intel Capital, Qualcomm Inc. and others.

In addition, Gaikai has caught the eye of other investors who may be interested in plunking down even more money for a sizable piece of the company, according to people knowledgeable about Gaikai who declined to go on the record because the discussions are confidential. A company spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Among its potential suitors are large cash-rich Asian companies. Firms such as Japan’s Gree and DeNA, as well as China’s Tencent Holdings, have spent billions buying U.S.-based online game companies in recent years.

Gaikai’s name is based on a Japanese word for the open ocean, a term that suggests limitless possibility.

“Just like the open ocean, streaming allows games to be distributed a thousand different ways,” Perry said. “Players are no longer tied to a console or a high-end computer when they want to play triple-A, high-quality games. They can now do so on any device, even cellphones with 3G or 4G connections.”

The technology shifts the computational heavy lifting traditionally done by game consoles and PCs to servers in data centers all over the world. Users receive a stream of the game, but not the complex underlying mathematical calculations. This is appealing to game publishers because none of the game code is streamed, which means that the games can’t be copied and pirated. And because there is no disc, players can’t resell it to retailers who peddle used games, which returns no revenue to publishers.

“It is the future of gaming,” said Daniel Ruf, a 21-year-old media designer in Nieder-Liebersbach, Germany, who used Gaikai to test-drive a demo of “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings,” an action role-playing game. Ruf, who lives in a small hamlet outside Heidelberg, said he values the convenience of being able to instantly “play games at any time, in any place” with an Internet connection via a Web browser.

For game consoles, however, streaming services could be highly disruptive, M2Research’s Meloni said. Console manufacturers such as Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. make the bulk of their revenue from licenses that publishers pay to have their games on the consoles. When games can be streamed to any screen, publishers may question the need to pay console licenses.

Sony and Nintendo declined to comment for this story. A Microsoft spokesman said streaming games was not “optimal,” at least for now. Nintendo has said its new Wii U console will continue to play discs, and Sony’s next PlayStation and Microsoft’s next Xbox are expected to do the same.

But in a recent interview with British website MCV, Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios, said although disc-based games will endure a little longer, “In the long run, we’ll land in a spot where there’s cloud distribution of all content.”

alex.pham@latimes.com