Jan-Pieter Laauwen, Sr. Global Partner Manager for Telco, Media, and Entertainment, Red Hat
Fabrizio Bosi, Sr. Business Development for EMEA Telco, Media, and Entertainment, Red Hat
Evolution in the Media Industry
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, media companies face the dual challenge of delivering content efficiently while addressing environmental concerns. As the media industry evolves, it is crucial to adopt innovative approaches that transform existing media workflows, security, scalability, and carbon efficiency. To further future-proof media infrastructure and experience these benefits, the industry should focus on developing interoperable Software Media Functions (SMF) as software-based solutions, adopt a dynamic media factory layered model, and implement a common control framework to better anticipate the changing media functions landscape. When changing into a world of software-defined applications, a good foundation is essential. It should be agnostic of clouds (private or public) since interoperability needs to be guaranteed in case a business decision requires a migration to a new environment. Some content providers are already taking advantage of machine learning to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Traditionally this is not the domain of the broadcast or media specialists since this was handled by the vendors using embedded OS and Kubernetes in their hardware.
Enterprise IT in Media facilities
Now a new world is opening up and the software industry has also rapidly evolved to a service industry focussing on agile development, automation of updates, and security patches. Apart from the required people and scarce skills, it will introduce new risks when doing it yourself or pushing back the responsibility of maintaining infrastructure to the traditional media vendors. No one vendor will provide a complete media solution as a company-wide horizontal platform for all their media functions, simply because it is not within their scope of services. So each media company has to embrace interoperability in public and private clouds plus securing and managing the integration of media workflows; this will significantly reduce the complexity of achieving their goals.
Container Platforms as Foundation
Red Hat OpenShift is a powerful containerization platform, emerging as a transformative solution that enhances digital operations and enables media organizations to build secure, sustainable, and adaptable systems. OpenShift provides the infrastructure for containerized media workflows on-premise, in the public cloud, or at the network edge, allowing all media workflows from content production, management, preparation, and distribution to run seamlessly on one horizontal platform, making the entire network more efficient. Such a container platform serves as the foundation for these SMFs, enabling media organizations to design and deploy containerized media functions that can seamlessly integrate and communicate with each other. Whether it’s video production, post, encoding, transcoding, metadata extraction, or content delivery, Red Hat OpenShift provides the necessary infrastructure and tools to build a comprehensive ecosystem of media functions that work harmoniously together and allow for scalability.
Reduce complexity
Further, adopting a dynamic media factory layered model empowers media organizations to leverage well-established standard IT tools and frameworks, such as Kubernetes & Ansible. This approach allows the assembly of open platforms, enabling interoperability and scalability across different media functions agnostic of virtualized or physical location. By utilizing these standard tools, media companies can efficiently manage workflows, reduce complexity, increase security, and promote collaboration among teams, all while taking advantage of Red Hat OpenShift’s robust container orchestration capabilities.
Optimize and streamline
Media companies have a responsibility to minimize their environmental impact while scaling and improving efficiency. OpenShift provides media organizations with the flexibility to design customized workflows and user interfaces to implement a common control framework. The result is consistent governance and security across the entire media workflow, regardless of the deployment environment. By having a unified control system, teams can optimize operations, streamline processes, lower their carbon footprint, and enhance productivity, while maintaining compliance and data integrity. OpenShift provides tools and capabilities to measure resource usage, helping to monitor and manage their carbon footprint and optimize container deployments and efficient utilization of the network infrastructure.
Building Ecosystem with Partners
Red Hat plays a vital role in assisting clients with their transition to software-defined platforms – this has been done in Telco, Finance, Industry, and Governmental organizations. In the media industry, similar trends are being seen, therefore Red Hat is building an ecosystem of partners that support the vision of an Open Media Ecosystem with an enterprise-grade solution. Red Hat’s ecosystem of media partners is growing and brings together a diverse range of expertise and solutions tailored to the specific needs of media organizations. These partners have undergone rigorous validation and certification processes, ensuring their compatibility with OpenShift and guaranteeing the highest standards of performance, security, and reliability. By leveraging this ecosystem, clients can select and integrate solutions from a trusted network of media partners, enhancing their media workflows.
How can we help?
Red Hat’s container platform transforms the media industry by providing the infrastructure and tools necessary to build secure, scalable, and efficient media workflows across various deployment environments. Supported by a robust ecosystem of media partners, Red Hat empowers clients to transform their media workflows, enhance efficiency, and remain competitive in a dynamic and ever-changing media landscape. Clients can confidently transition to open-source-based, enterprise-grade, software-defined platforms, unlocking new levels of flexibility, security, and efficiency in their media workflows. Red Hat helps media organizations navigate the evolving digital landscape while addressing environmental concerns, driving carbon efficiency, and contributing to a sustainable future.
What can be done?
Create a company-wide vision on software deployments, and stimulate integral discussions between video teams, corporate IT, and your network teams to find out your best route to the future. Ask and challenge your vendors on open-source enterprise-grade container and automation platforms. Our teams are open to facilitating the move to software-defined platforms without creating dependency on the applications layer and can assist in taking the first steps.
Learn more about Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat in the media and entertainment industry.
