About Building Software Defined Infrastructure

As an industry, we’ve now ticked box one of “how to build IP infrastructures” by reliably streaming video, audio and metadata over enterprise IP networks. Now, we need to greatly simplify IP broadcast infrastructures to improve their operation and integration.

This series seeks to clarify what is meant by Software Defined Infrastructure, how its fundamental design philosophy is key to the next evolutionary step for broadcast systems, and how it can benefit broadcasters with scalability, reliability, resilience and very high levels of security.

We discuss the fundamental differences between virtualization and microservices and how microservice based systems go hand in hand with Software Defined Networks in the design and implementation of truly scalable systems.

The next phase of our IP enabled journey is going to be one of delivering simplicity and integration through microservices. For IP to become the success it promises, we need to look more closely at how we make it work operationally so that simplicity and integration become as easy as maintaining a high-quality internet mobile phone connection when walking from the office to the park.

Building Software Defined Infrastructure will publish in 4 parts. Details of all four parts can be found HERE.

About Part 2 – Processing & Streaming Media Essence

Part 2 is a free PDF download which contains four original articles:

Article 1 : Shifting Data
The fundamental principles of how data flows through local and remote processing systems are central to designing software defined infrastructure.

Article 2 : Asynchronous & Synchronous Media Processing
One of the key challenges of building software defined infrastructure is moving a fundamentally synchronous media like video to an asynchronous  architecture.

Article 3 : Focus On Agility
Our partner Lawo discuss how just when broadcasters and AV providers are starting to put their heads around the Second Wave of IP, industry pioneers are already contemplating the next big infrastructure thing. It promises to be even more compact and faster than before.

Article 4 : Ground To Cloud
New efficient and flexible workflows like remote production and multi-site teams mean using IP to transport media between sites, and this brings its own challenges to flexible infrastructure design.