that we ’ re addressing with our product suite . We expect to see more of that . I think it ’ s going to be hybrid , both public and private , but I strongly think it ’ s going to be the Big Three public ones . They have all got slightly different tools ; some are more advanced than others . Rendering might be better . I think it ’ s going to be a hybrid world ,” he concludes .
“ The more strict real-time requirements and higher resolutions and bitrates , for example , the more difficult or challenging it gets to run in the Cloud ,” states Synamedia ’ s Hungenaert . “ Eventually , technically , a lot will be possible . Today , if you have an 8K uncompressed signal from a camera that needs to be processed in the Cloud , you need a Cloud close by to start with , and then with the packet loss to cope with , it might not be the best technical solution ,” she admits . “ But once technically viable , why would we not move everything to the Cloud , and then the other aspects come into play . Two other aspects are the business and commercial side , but also the organisational side . If I do a Cloud DVR application , technically , I could do this in the Cloud but if , for content rights , I need to give everyone a unique copy , then the storage costs to do that mean the Cloud might not be the best way ,” she admits . SKILLSET . “ As we have heard , the hybrid solution is probably the best way forward . Even if commercially it makes sense , as an operator , for example , you need to have the skillset in-house to really operate it . Do you have the people that can manage it and maybe
you need to acquire the talent or train the people , or you need to look at managed service solutions , that could be an alternative . So , I would concur , hybrid , definitely , but even multi-cloud .
Ateme ’ s Dods is in agrees that it ’ s not just a case of ‘ throwing everything into the Cloud ’. “ I think it ’ s rapidly developing . If you look at that end-to-end from the ingress , ARQ technologies are certainly enabling the distribution .” MICROSERVICES . “ Once you are into the Cloud , there are all sorts of benefits . How best do you manage at the application level ? Microservices technology is enabling you to pick and mix . How do you build your pipeline , whether it ’ s for live application , or off the back of live when you start doing file distribution , editing and production for further distribution . You can do so much of it now in the Cloud , but there are always benefits in the distributed model ,” he suggests .
“ The architecture of being close to certain production requirements is very critical . Once you start to look on the distribution side , the Cloud can really offer those benefits of scale . As we start to get into more personalised television , it ’ s not just VoD to live , it ’ s real personalised television , where specific graphics are rendered for that individual viewer . That ’ s where you start to need the scale of the Cloud and that ’ s where the benefit comes of it , because I think the pure recommendation engines are going to advance to a new level where people have personalised TV and that ’ s really going to be a differentiator going forward ,” he predicts .
According to Encompass ’ s Rose , the first question is ‘ Can you move everything ?’. “ You have to say yes , technically ,” he accepts . “ If
“ We look to build Cloudfirst now .” - Scott Rose , Encompass Digital Media you ’ re not aspiring to get to a more scalable , workable platform , you ’ re going to struggle . You have to shoot for the end goal here , but as many of the team here have said , it ’ s not as straightforward today as you ’ d like it to be . So , choosing the Cloud platform is a very critical step that you ’ re going to make . If you ’ re going to go with the public cloud , as indeed we do for many customers , then you get the sheer scale and capability of large organisations as your infrastructure provider , but you do lose some control ,” he warns . CONTROL . “ We ’ ve found , having built out a private cloud for Encompass for just this reason , is that for some use cases , particularly when working with high bandwidth , high resolution media that must be frameaccurately delivered , that you need that level of control . Things that people never talk about : How contended is our Cloud ? We all know what contention is . Most people don ’ t understand that when you ’ re using a CPU in the Cloud , you ’ re being contended against the other customers , and do you have control over that , because an application that has to render a frame , frame-accurate can ’ t then be contended with eight other people trying to buy that time ,” he argues .
“ It ’ s kind of different , but actually the same as broadcast engineering has been for probably the past 20-plus years . It ’ s picking the correct platform and understanding it . Public Cloud - very appropriate for many use cases ; private Cloud for others . I ’ m sure there ’ s still a use case for on-prem for certain applications , but I do think that everybody is aiming to be Cloudfirst . Why this thing cannot be in the Cloud is a good conversation to be having . Just keep your organisation moving forward and try to meet what the end customer wants ; the viewers or the listeners .”
In terms of selecting the right Cloud for the right client , Imagine ’ s Wills says that from a purely playout perspective , his company is currently running end-to-end chains in the Cloud , so replicating the chain is not a problem . Echoing fellow panellists ’ observations , he suggests the challenges are in low-latency work flows , frame accuracy , and especially frame rates and data rates . “ Fundamentally , the technology is there , so the next question is , the workflow you want to migrate to the Cloud , does it make economic sense to do that ? There are a lot of variables that come into that calculation depending on IO requirements and that sort of thing .”
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