72 Friday 13.09.13 theibcdaily Time to embrace virtual machines Opinion
The industry has reached a tipping point in the cost, capability and technology to achieve unified and automated workflows, says Snell chief architect Neil Maycock
The continuing trend of more content being consumed on more devices is creating new priorities in our customer base. It is very clear that traditional models of media handling simply don’t scale economically to service the many platforms on which content is now being consumed. Several business drivers are
shaping technology choices, such as aligning costs to revenue, because not all services are equal, and increased agility to address time-to-market pressures. These business drivers are defining both new operating models in our customers’ businesses and new technology choices, the latter of which will undoubtedly be reflected on the floor of IBC2013. Against this backdrop, the
concept of automation is changing. Once the domain of the controlling playout infrastructure within master control, automation is now moving up the media supply chain. From content capture, QC, and processing to end delivery, automation of file- based workflows is an absolute requirement. To better articulate this new
automated world, we use a concept called the Media Factory. This concept is a holistic view of a media operation that has unified systems for handling media, from the output of production and then through subsequent storage, processing, and repurposing for traditional linear broadcast distribution models as well as demand distribution platforms. Importantly, the Media Factory addresses integration with business
systems, since a critical factor in process automation is the ability to capture and report operational metrics so that visibility of business performance is not lost. The Media Factory’s concept
of unified and automated workflows is not unique, but there are very few organisations that have managed to implement it – primarily because the cost of such business process re- engineering is significant. However, I believe the industry is now at a tipping point due to the previously mentioned pressures of multi-platform consumption combined with the capabilities of some key technologies. The capability of virtualised
generic processing and storage (also known as public or private clouds) is now at a point where high-end media
applications can be hosted at a lower cost of ownership and with the performance and reliability required by major revenue generating services. I don’t see cloud or virtualisation necessarily as an outsourcing model, although this is obviously an option with these technologies. Rather, virtualisation allows
businesses to invest in generic infrastructure that can rapidly adapt and scale to changing requirements. I think the availability of these platforms and the applications to run on them will be a catalyst for many businesses moving forward with the Media Factory concept. IBC2013 will see a new
generation of solutions that are cloud- or virtual machine- hosted, and I expect an increasing level of interest in our new offerings in this space.
Neil Maycock: ‘The concept of automation is changing’
On the Snell stand, we bring the Media Factory to life by showing a complete workflow starting with tablet capture of video, then remote processing in a Media Factory, then delivery and playout right on the stand. 8.B70
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