Preparing for AMS retirement: VI migration and updating guide

Article
04/16/2024

Azure AI Video Indexer (VI) used Azure Media Services (AMS) for encoding, packaging, and streaming of media assets. AMS announced that it's retiring on June 30, 2024. Therefore, VI is removing the dependency on AMS.

To continue using VI, between February 15 and June 30 2024, you must take the following steps to transition away from their current VI account AMS dependency:

Update your VI account so that it links to an Azure Storage account instead of an AMS account.
Migrate the existing VI AMS assets from the AMS managed storage account to the storage account you linked to the VI account. Although optional, if not migrating assets isn't done, once AMS is retired you won’t be able to access your previously indexed videos or their insights.

These changes affect many areas of VI and the preparatory actions you must take depends on how you're using it. Therefore, before performing a VI account update, you should review how you're using VI and make the needed changes to keep your applications and platforms using VI from being adversely affected.

This document discusses each of these changes, their impact, and what needs to be done to smoothly navigate them.

Changes

The following description outlines the changes to the VI product that apply once you update your account. Consider these changes and how they affect your workflow and your code. They only apply once you update your account.

Video upload

The AMS asset ID will no longer be used for uploading a video. A video URL or local file will be used instead.

Account creation, update, and management

Account update: All VI accounts created before February 15th must be updated so that they're linked to an Azure Storage account instead of an AMS account. For guidance on how to do it in the portal or through the API, see Updating an existing ARM account.
Classic account - connect to new ARM account: As announced in September 2023, VI Classic accounts are being retired June 30th, 2024. Before the retirement, all Classic accounts must be connected to a new ARM based VI account. For guidance on how to do it in the portal or through the API, see Connect a Classic account to a new ARM based account.
Account creation with API
- You must update account creation and requests to use the VI API version 2024-01-01.
- Requests must be submitted with the Azure Storage Account property rather than the AMS account.
Portal: During the VI account creation process, new VI accounts will be associated with an Azure Storage account.

Storage account

Linking an Azure Storage account to a VI account is permanent and can’t be undone. Therefore, it's recommended that you create a storage account that is solely for use with the VI account. (This is especially important if you expect to use network restrictions.) It’s recommended that the storage account is in the same region as the VI account.

You won’t be able to link your VI account to the storage account that was previously associated with the AMS account.

Classic accounts- API token based authentication

As VI Classic accounts are retiring June 30th, 2024, all customers with Classic VI accounts need to connect them to Azure Resource Manager (ARM) based VI accounts prior to July 1st 2024. With this change, the way that VI access tokens are generated changes. While VI Classic accounts generate access tokens for authentication with the Classic Get Access Token API, updated VI accounts are ARM based and ARM based accounts use the ARM API to generate access tokens.

Once you have connected your Classic account to an ARM, account, there's a 30-day transition state period during which VI supports accessing your count with both Classic API and ARM API generated access tokens. Learn how to connect your Classic account to an ARM account here.

Streaming player

Azure Media Player is also being retired as of June 30, 2024. If you have been using the VI streaming endpoint to stream videos, you must choose a different player that supports Dash or HLS packaging and the use of a token in the request.

Streaming and Streaming endpoints

Adaptive bitrate streaming – Encoding and streaming with adaptive bitrate is no longer supported and indexing requests will fail if streaming is set to adaptive bitrate. Instead, submit a request to encode with either single bitrate or no streaming.

Newly indexed video - All API requests for a streaming URL will get a URL to a VI endpoint rather than an AMS endpoint. The VI endpoint will be prefixed with “vi-apim.”

Previously indexed videos – Your updated VI account will still be able to stream your AMS assets until they're migrated. In this case, responses to requests for a streaming URL, Get Streaming Video URL and Get Video Index, will differ depending on whether the assets have been migrated. Therefore, your application must be able to play from both the AMS endpoint and the VI endpoints. For example, Shaka player will only be able to play VI endpoints while AMP will be able to play AMS endpoints.

Unmigrated videos - Requests for videos that aren’t migrated will return an AMS streaming URL until June 30, 2024. After that date, you won’t be able to make requests to AMS at all.

Projects

VI has a Projects feature that can be used to edit and stitch together videos. Once your VI account has been updated, the feature will be limited until your videos are migrated. Updated VI accounts and VI accounts created after February 15th won't be able to create new Projects until June 2024.

Existing projects will be playable, but you won’t be able to edit or render them. If needed, render and download the project files before you update your account.

If VI is migrating your VI AMS assets for you, projects will be disabled during the days/hours your assets are being migrated. Once the migration is complete, they'll be playable.

You'll receive an email notification that the migration is complete, and you can check the migration status on the VI website as well.

Billing

VI won’t charge for streaming. VI will charge a flat rate for encoding, which will cost less than it previously cost to encode with AMS in most cases. The charge for encoding will appear as “Video Modification." Remember to check if you need to change any billing alerts.

Migration

Recommended: Ask for VI assistance with migration

Due to the June 30th, 2024 AMS retirement, all VI customers that persist VI created videos and insights must process the assets to a new format and migrate them to the Azure Storage account linked to their VI account.

This requires the following operations:

It reprocesses the media assets, converting the AMS assets to CMAF format with HLS and DASH manifests. This is needed for the assets to be streamed by Video Indexer and other players.
Storing of these reprocessed assets in the Azure Storage account that you have linked to your VI account.

As AMS asset migration would be challenging to do on your own, VI is providing a migration experience for both the file reprocessing and asset move. There's no cost for using the migration solution except storage of the migrated assets and the networking costs associated with moving the data. The costs should be low if both storage accounts are in the same region. Migration won’t happen immediately, but VI commits to migrating your assets before the AMS retirement date.

You can opt in through the Azure portal or through an API request when you update your account up until the AMS retirement on June 30, 2024.

Only your VI associated AMS assets will be migrated. If other AMS assets exist on the same storage account, they won’t be migrated.

VI won’t delete the original copies of your AMS files. After the migration has successfully completed, if the AMS account linked to VI and the storage account linked to AMS were only used for VI, you can consider deleting both them.

Important

Even after you have updated your account, VI will still access your AMS account and its associated storage account until all your videos have been migrated. Until the migration is complete, it's important that you DO NOT delete or change the accounts, roles, or permissions of the AMS, Azure Storage or VI accounts. In addition, it's recommended that VI AMS assets are not deleted until you are notified that the migration is complete as they might not have migrated yet. The VI account owner will receive an email notification that the migration is complete and you can check the migration status on the VI website as well.

If an asset fails to migrate, despite VI’s multiple attempts and retries to migrate it, the migration will be treated as completed with errors and you'll be sent a list of the files that failed to migrate. They can also be downloaded from the Migration page in the VI website.

You can view the status and progress of your migration in the VI website and the account owner will receive a notification email once the migration is complete.

Microsoft disclaims any liability for any damages in relation to the migration.

Detailed updating and migrating instructions

For a complete step-by-step guide, see Update your Azure AI Video Indexer account and migrate assets.

FAQ

Can we request that VI only migrates some of our accounts VI AMS assets?

No, it's all or nothing. Before starting the migration, you should review and delete any assets you don’t want migrated.

I opted in to the VI migrate solution but then changed my mind. Can I opt out?

You aren't able to change the request through the portal or API and VI might have already started migrating your assets. If needed, you can open a support ticket and if the migration process hasn’t started yet, VI might be able to cancel the request.

Does VI charge me for the migration?

No, it’s a free experience. The only cost is the storage of the migrated assets in a storage account and the networking costs associated with moving the data. The cost should be low if both storage accounts are in the same region.

If I don’t use VI for streaming or encoding, do I still have to migrate VI AMS assets to continue accessing VI insights?

It's still encouraged as it will make sure that any VI data or asset currently available to you continues to be available.

If we don’t persist any video data, do we have to migrate VI AMS assets?

No, unless you want to migrate the source video that you initially sent to VI for indexing.

I see that my asset migration is in process – does it matter if a particular video has been migrated yet?

In most cases, no. The only scenario that is impacted is if you're using a VI Streaming URL to play videos. Videos not yet migrated need to be played by a player that supports AMS assets, the Azure Media Player. Videos that were already indexed need to be played by a player that supports Dash or HLS packaging and the sending of a token in the request (such as Shaka, DashJS, or VideoJS).

How can I tell if a video has been migrated yet?

By the reply of the Get Streaming URL request – if not yet migrated, it will contain mention of media service at the beginning.

Can multiple VI accounts be linked to a single storage account?

Yes