10
NEWS & VIEWS
Automated media
processing has
left the building
– exploring the
transition to
the cloud
The transition to “the cloud” in our industry
has been challenging. In order to understand how we address cloud computing, we
must follow the history of how we got here.
Minnetonka Audio provides quality-first
audio processing, resulting in a number of
disruptive innovations in our field.
Twenty years ago, we provided audio
processing for the new platform of the
time: the digital audio workstation (DAW).
Sold as plug-ins that professional audio
engineers could integrate into their DAWs,
encoding to the codec of the day, such as
using our SurCode for Dolby Pro Logic II,
became a reality. We call this “on-premise”
processing, or processing on individual client workstations. Each on-premise system
required maintenance, as well as continual
upgrades in hardware.
Ten years ago, we began transitioning
our products to automated Enterprise-level
platforms that offer facility-wide workflow
management and audio processing. By focusing on the Enterprise, overall hardware,
maintenance and labour costs could be
reduced. Minnetonka’s AudioTools Server
platform is now in a single “machine room”
environment connected to shared storage,
but requires substantially less engineering
and maintenance effort than a DAW. A server-based system can provide the flexibility
to load balance between multiple systems
and directly integrate into systems such as
Telestream’s Vantage, Harmonic’s Carbon
& WFS, Avid’s Interplay MAM, and more.
Today, we transition again to “offpremise” computing to meet the needs for
greater scalability and fast turnaround. AudioTools Cloud offers scalable on-demand
computing resources using Amazon’s EC2
processing and S3 object storage platform
to provide media processing facilities with
tremendous flexibility.
We have three models for off-premise
(cloud) processing. AudioTools Cloud OnDemand is an online Web-service that offers the processing that you want, when you
need it, and you pay only for what you use.
Workflow control, processing modules, and
reporting all happen within the Amazon
EC2 Instance as well as the S3 Cloud Disk,
requiring no on-premise hardware costs or
ongoing maintenance. Expansion to handle
peak processing requirements is possible
by configuring additional EC2 instances,
which can then be taken offline when not
required, saving money during downtime.
AudioTools Server facilities can apply the
licences that they own to their on-premise
Jayson Tomlin,
VP of Marketing,
Minnetonka Audio/
Linear Acoustic,
The TV Solutions
Group of the
Telos Alliance
processing plant or to a cloud-based thirdparty engine, such as Telestream’s Vantage
Cloud. Vantage Cloud platform natively
supports third-party connectors, including
the Vantage AudioTools Connector for integration with AudioTools Sever and AudioTools Cloud. Custom-defined workflows,
profiles and licences can be shared in this
hybrid on-premise and cloud architecture,
giving maximum flexibility and scalability.
AudioTools Cloud can interoperate
directly with Telestream Vantage Cloud in
two unique ways.
AudioTools Cloud BYOL –
Bring Your Own License
AudioTools Server user