24 TVBEurope Cloud for Broadcast Hybrid: best of both worlds
The right hybrid cloud architecture offers a perfect combination of security and flexibility, according to Glenn S Pedersen, CTO, Vimond Media Solutions
THANKS to a surge in the number of internet-ready devices, the world has burst into the era of TV Everywhere with full force. Consumers expect to be able to watch what they want whenever they want, and increasingly, they expect to be able to interact with what they see.
This demand for control and
interactivity has led broadcasters to create internet video portals and ever more sophisticated services to go with them. TV Everywhere has opened up a new world of money-making opportunity for broadcasters, but it has also created challenges in terms of content management and delivery. A sure way to overcome some
of those challenges is to rely on hosted cloud services. Many cloud applications were designed to solve the scalability
that allows you to expand your services quickly and affordably, and scale easily to meet changes in demand.
Hosted infrastructure versus hosted services There are two basic functions of hosted cloud services – to provide infrastructure and to provide specific services. Infrastructure services such as Amazon EC2 or Windows Azure enable broadcasters to replace capital equipment costs and other overhead with lower- cost ‘virtual’ machinery that you pay for on a per-use basis. In addition, the cloud
infrastructure also performs essential functions such as database management, message queuing, transcoding, and streaming, which means you have greater flexibility and can deploy new services much more quickly because you don’t rely
Glenn S Pedersen: Many cloud
applications were designed to solve
scalability issues and handle the massive amount of traffic broadcasters are seeing now
www.tvbeurope.com February 2013
the hybrid cloud service. Many broadcasters prefer to keep some of their content or functionality in-house rather than move everything to the cloud. A hybrid solution allows them to do just that. One big difference between an online TV site and other websites is that online TV sites often experience spikes in usage when broadcasting live events.
A modular, API-based platform allows you to develop at your own pace and makes it easy to create unique experiences
issues and handle the massive amount of traffic broadcasters are seeing now. With its unlimited computing and storage capacity, the cloud can help you store and manage all of your media files in an infinite number of formats for quick and easy retrieval, whether for in-house collaboration, online distribution, disaster recovery, or anything in between. The cloud also offers infrastructure
on your own hardware. You simply build end-user services on top of the cloud infrastructure. But traditionally, many
broadcasters have relied on in- house platforms to protect high- quality, rights-sensitive video material and sensitive user data – a practice that has kept them from realising the advantages of a cloud-based solution. More interesting, however, is
For example, a broadcaster that handles a lot of live sports will likely have sudden bursts of activity at its online video portal on game day. A hybrid solution could provide the security of in- house content storage with the massive scalability of the cloud for those bursts of activity. With a hybrid solution, you decide if you want to perform particular parts of the process in-house, rely on a third party,
or both. If you have an existing service, you can divide your in- house and cloud platforms in a way that works best for your operation. For example, video material could be retained in- house and distributed through a content delivery network, while everything related to the online TV portal could reside in the cloud in order to handle a massive amount of web traffic.
APIs are the key Whatever combination of hosted cloud services you decide to use, choose or build a service platform that is modular so that you can extend your services easily. More important, ensure that the core platform exposes all functionality in application programme interfaces (APIs). APIs allow the services to
communicate with your internal applications and integrate your existing broadcast system into your online video platform for a high degree of automation. When you have a core platform made of APIs, you can create a whole ecosystem of applications
on top of it – whether you create them yourself, get them from a third party, or from the service provider. And you can choose what modules you want to host in- house or in the cloud. A modular, API-based platform allows you to develop at your own pace and makes it easy to create unique experiences for your end-customers. For example, one broadcaster
recently created an interactive player for ice hockey via Silverlight player built entirely on APIs that were earlier used for web applications. Others have built similar applications for soccer and the Tour de France. There are many services out
there that require sole dependence on the cloud, which can be problematic for some. But with the proper hybrid architecture, you can have the best of both worlds – the security of in-house infrastructure with the advantages of a cloud environment.
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