The Digital Delivery Dilemma

TV and video production and distribution are undergoing a period of disruptive change. Dramatic growth in IP-delivered and over-the-top (OTT) video, the rise of multiscreen viewing, and rapid evolutions in consumer devices will dictate the future of media. According to Strategy Analytics, the OTT video market in North America was up 57 percenttotaling $9.9 billion in 2013. By 2019, it’s expected to triple to $27 billion, 消费者对多种设备上视频内容的需求不断增长，推动了这一增长.

利用如此巨大的变化所带来的机遇，并应对它们所带来的挑战, producers and broadcasters, and the service providers who support them are looking at new ways to create, store, manage, and distribute TV and digital video content. 他们越来越多地采用端到端IP工作流程以及基于云计算和软件的服务，以保持相关性和竞争力.

However, determining how fast and how far to move into the cloud is a complex endeavor, and media companies must consider costs, content, and security challenges when architecting their infrastructure approach.

Don’t Deny a Dedicated Model 

Though use of the cloud is on the rise, 内容的安全和隐私仍然是大型广播公司和多系统运营商(mso)的关键驱动因素，他们仍然在为核心工作流应用部署专用硬件或本地虚拟化基础设施, storage, and archiving. 大型企业不应忽视专用基础设施的好处:越大的媒体企业, 他们就越有可能利用现有的数据中心基础设施和it百家乐软件, maximizing ROI assets. Additionally, their scale keeps the cost of purchasing commodity hardware down. Most significantly, they believe on-premises deployment offers better control and content security, which they prize over everything else.

In a recent report from IDG Connect, 信息安全是促使IT决策者将工作负载保留在自己的数据中心内的主要因素(53%), followed by data protection and governance rules (41%). [Figure 1]

Figure 1

A Case for the Cloud

The cloud delivers scalability, flexibility, and cost-reduction benefits that aren’t easily achieved from a dedicated environment. Major studios, broadcasters, 制作公司已经在数字视频工作流程的制作和后期阶段采用基于云的协作和编辑解决方案. Look no further than the benefits Fox Sports 1 is seeing as a result of Aframe’s secure private cloud video production platform. 这种协同作用使福克斯体育能够简化整个制作流程以及体育和新闻收集, 最终使福克斯在播放突发体育新闻和内幕内容方面获得先发优势.

Other benefits of cloud meet the requirements of media owners, producers, and distributors amid this shifting landscape. Variability in demand is inherent in delivery of multiscreen OTT content; the recent mishap involving SlingTV, which for all intents and purposes failed a major stress test during the NCAA Final Four competition, producing choppy, error-ridden, or non-existent streams.

Instances like these, characterized by an influx of users and exponential demand, 最好使用公共云——基础设施即服务(IaaS)或软件即服务(SaaS)——因为它灵活且适应变化的风险最低. Netflix在aws上的成功——为无数移动设备和平板电脑提供内容服务，以满足波动的客户需求——证明了公共云的灵活性，以及在不过度投资的情况下提供可扩展性的能力. Like public cloud, 私有云和虚拟化环境将提供灵活性和降低成本的好处.

提供OTT服务的媒体所有者和分销商已经实施了迄今为止最强大的基于云的部署，并且最有可能利用第三方SaaS转码和交付, or host their own applications and services on IaaS. The dedicated, 传统上用于转码和播放等功能的优化硬件可以被在商用硬件的虚拟化环境中运行的基于软件的部署所取代. As well as lowering the cost of hardware purchase and operational support, 这种对私有云或虚拟化基础设施的使用提供了可以更容易地根据可变需求进行扩展的处理和存储容量.

Harmony with Hybrid IT

专用环境带来的安全优势以及云计算带来的成本和灵活性优势正在影响媒体公司尝试针对某些工作负载改变其基础设施部署. Recently, NBC adopted Microsoft Azure and iStreamPlanet's live streaming services to deliver coverage of the Sochi Winter Olympics. This deployment forecasts growing industry perception: in three to five years, 大多数媒体提供商将在云中进行部分操作，并混合使用本地部署, hosted private cloud and public cloud.

Similar to considerations around a pure-play cloud or dedicated environment, getting the balance right with hybrid IT 将要求媒体企业了解有关基础设施的成本效益和内容安全性的影响. For instance, optimizing the cost balance in a hybrid model means balancing CAPEX and OPEX, hardware efficiency and cloud service provider pricing.

媒体播放器应该问问自己:使用商用服务器的私有云部署是否比专用的专业视频硬件更便宜?

Also, 公共云服务可以消除资本支出障碍，但只有在有效使用的情况下, regular and reliable transfers of large data volumes to and from the cloud, 媒体提供商绝对应该确保他们与IaaS和平台即服务(PaaS)提供商有私有连接, which is faster, higher performing, and cheaper than internet. In the recent report from IDG Connect, when asked about how their corporate data centers are, or will be, connected to the cloud, 41%的IT决策者声称互联网不再足够好，并表示他们基于安全和性能考虑而绕过互联网.

部署混合IT模型的另一个关键考虑因素是不同基础设施的互操作性, platforms, and services at play. A mix of dedicated infrastructure, private cloud, and public cloudand IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings – is bound to create complexities. 媒体企业如何确保由供应商和服务提供商混合支持的工作流能够顺利运行?

Fast, reliable connectivity to and between cloud providers, ideally within a connectivity-rich third party data center, is a key enabler of interoperability. 实现更加结构化和标准化的api也将为跨多个云环境集成来自不同提供商的应用程序创造奇迹. The industry isn’t there yet, 但OpenStack和OpenCloud在管理跨数据中心的大规模云平台方面取得的进展，有可能推动媒体提供商采用云计算.

就像生活中的所有事情一样，混合基础设施部署没有正确或错误的答案. Still, 媒体企业可以放心，混合架构将帮助他们从容应对周围的变化. With a best-of-both worlds IT approach, 他们将逐步利用云提供的灵活性和工作流程创新, without risking content security or operational performance, or disrupting core workflow processes.

布莱恩·希尔(Bryan Hill)是facebook数字媒体部门营销和业务发展总监 Interxion. 流媒体接受供应商撰写的文章，完全基于它们对我们读者的价值.]