Tech Radar Pro online article
Written by Daniel Robinson, Head of R&D, Pebble
Planning a cloud strategy based on a hybrid approach
It seems inevitable that everything in media playout – and all other domains in media capture, management and delivery – will ultimately be based on cloud technologies. The pandemic has accelerated any flexible system that accommodates remote workflows to the extent that what may have taken years to deploy is now happening in a greatly truncated timeframe. Keeping the lights on, businesses afloat, and content on screens has short-circuited many of the objections to cloud deployments. In some areas of the business and with some workflows (editing and Media Asset Management are particularly strong) it is now the norm rather than the exception, especially in projects that are currently out to tender.
However, despite the increasing noise around cloud adoption, areas of the industry remain where legacy equipment and methodologies still hold sway. For example, most playout today is still based firmly on-premises in dedicated, purpose-built facilities. Indeed, there are significant revenue streams dependent on their uninterrupted operation. And while there are few wholly on-premises playout facilities being specced in the industry nowadays, especially in the mature markets with established high bandwidth infrastructures, the move away from legacy equipment is perhaps taking longer than cloud evangelists would once have thought.
This is despite the acknowledged advantages of the cloud, notably the shift to an opex financial structure, the ability to scale rapidly, reduced time to market, and the implementation of an iterative development environment that enables companies to innovate at a speed unmatched by bricks and mortar installations.
So, what are the hurdles here? Why is playout a holdout when it comes to the cloud?
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