Add external data into Content Hub

Hi ​@james-mke 

Great question, and it’s something a lot of AEMaaCS clients are actively exploring right now, especially with video-heavy use cases.

Let me break this down into what’s possible today, what’s emerging, and what teams are actually doing in the field.

1. Can AEM / Content Hub expose videos from external storage (Azure)?

Partially yes today, but not fully native in the way you’re imagining (yet). Current Reality is AEM Assets (including Content Hub) is fundamentally designed around:

• Assets being stored in AEM’s binary cloud storage 
• Metadata, renditions, and delivery tightly coupled to AEM’s asset model

2. Do teams store native video in AEM Assets aaCS?
Yes but with caveats.
Common Use Cases Where Videos are stored in AEM :

• Marketing videos (short-form)
• Campaign assets
• Social media content
• Lightweight product demos

Where teams avoid storing videos in AEM : 

• Large video libraries (GB/TB scale)
• Raw production footage
• Long-form media (films, training libraries)
• High streaming workloads

3.Creative Approaches You Can Consider

1. Create lightweight AEM assets:
   • Thumbnail
   • Metadata
   • External video URL
   •  Acts like a “virtual asset”
2. Smart Linking with CDN :
   • Azure Blob + Azure CDN
   • Store CDN URLs in AEM
   • Stream directly
3. AI / Metadata Enrichment in AEM
   • Keep heavy video outside
   • Use AEM for:
   • Tagging
   • Search
   • Governance

Hope this helps , Thanks