The broadcast industry is notable for several things, a major one being that new technology adoption typically comes with a transition phase. Today, this is evident in the transition from SDI to IP and from on-prem, server-based media processing to using cloud-native services for that purpose. The cloud transition must consider the driving factors enabling the transition, the massive size of media files, mandatory reliability and high quality, and it must consider the fact that media companies do not, and in many cases, cannot be tied to a single cloud provider.
   

Focusing on the transition to cloud, there are several factors providing the impetus to make the move. First, the acceptance and adoption of cloud infrastructure is becoming more prevalent. There is a mindset change underway from owning and managing a private data centre to adoption of cloud services for storage and management of media content.

Second, cloud-based services are widely available for many applications, which means there is less concern about them for use in the media and entertainment industry. The unfamiliar can often be rejected out of hand for just that reason – it’s different from the “norm”. As cloud adoption becomes more ubiquitous there is a need to have cloud-native software services available to execute media workflows. This is where media companies are going and having access to deployment options is the best way for them to facilitate a transition.

Third, and this has long been true going back to the origin of cloud-native services, elasticity (the ability to set resource limits based on demand fluctuation) and scalability (the ability to expand and contract resources in lock step with demand fluctuation) ideally suits the requirements for media processing engineering and operations. Media companies can control their costs by limiting capacity (and changing those limits over time) and stretching out timelines, or they can scale up to peak demand for maximum throughput and continue to match resources to demand. There is no need to overbuild media processing capacity when utilising elastic cloud resources.

Fourth, as the decentralisation of workers accelerates, native cloud media services allow remote workforces to more easily collaborate and not rely on hardware and locally installed software.

Fifth, change is occurring with respect to the operations of the media companies. More and more there is core competency in software development and a desire by those groups to be flexible in the deployment of their workflows. These development teams want to control the decision making and technology integration themselves without relying on their suppliers’ road maps.