Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
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IBM Sales and Distribution Media and Entertainment Thought Leadership White Paper Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
2 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
Contents Media cloud evolution
As a result of these challenges, media executives are having to
1 Executive Summary
rethink their supply chain. We are learning that the troika of
4 Introduction service-oriented architecture (SOA), digital supply chain, and
cloud is evolving into the blueprint for enjoying innovation
8 IBM takes a leadership role to address cloud industry
issues and challenges with the potential to reduce capital expense and operating
expense. This triad of technologies, SOA, digital supply chain,
13 IBM recommendations for successful cloud and cloud will enable media companies to keep pace with
27 General recommendations turbulent times by providing:
29 IBM Global Business Service cloud “get started” and
• Faster time to market
“keep going” offerings
• Increased sales by increasing exposure to content
30 Cloud computing resources • A richer flow of information to adapt quickly to changing
consumer interests and demand
• Decreased labor, inventory, and working capital costs
• Faster, fresher content packaged, identified, and available to
Executive Summary the right consumer anywhere, anytime
Challenges facing media executives
These are very turbulent times for media executives. Media Content that is available “forever” as deep catalog or digital
CEOs are having to adapt their business models at an inventory that has the potential able to produce a revenue
unprecedented rate. How will media companies manage to stream over the Long Tail or for years to come.
keep pace with the ever-accelerating rate of innovation? How
will media companies maintain competitive advantage over Media companies are looking for ways to innovate without
new entrants? Are there cloud consumption models that are compromising their content ownership and digital rights.
appropriate for media companies to pursue? Should media Cloud providers must be aware that security and content
companies be leaders or adopters? protection are key issues that media executives care about.
IBM® has been involved in cloud computing from the
Market forces and landscape of media beginning, was one of the original co-authors of the Cloud
and entertainment Manifesto in 2009, and continues to be the media and
The new reality is that the consumer is in the eye of the storm. entertainment industry’s trusted partner: a partner that
Where there was once a scarcity of content, now there is a brings innovation when and where it provides value; not
seemingly unlimited supply coming from traditional media technology for its own sake; and, only when it strengthens
sources as well as new media and social network Internet sites clients’ strategic goals and objectives. IBM provides facilities,
via more and more portable consumer devices. It is estimated hardware and software, and professional services to match our
that by 2012 there will be one trillion devices connected to the clients’ needs, budget and their optimal cloud deployment
Internet and 50 billion of them will be mobile phones. model. IBM appreciates that media consumers, along with
media assets, both hold the highest value to media companies.
IBM Sales and Distribution 3
• Provide e-commerce and storefront capabilities with ad
insertion capability.
IBM has been involved in cloud computing • Support subscription and pay-per-view models.
from the beginning, was one of the original • Maintain control over the cloud’s content delivery resources:
co-authors of the Cloud Manifesto in 2009, Prevent rogue applications from over-consuming resources
using SOA governance capabilities.
and continues to be the media and • Integrate enterprise legacy and backend systems—such as
entertainment industry’s trusted partner. enterprise resource management (ERP), customer relationship
management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM)—
with external cloud services.
Working closely with our clients, IBM continues Why IBM?
to extend digital supply chains reliably and securely to create IBM appreciates that the journey will be different for each
new revenue streams that pursue the right customers with media company. IBM is a trusted partner offering proven
the right content. technology, products, and professional services. IBM is focused
on creating value and delivering meaningful solutions. Media
“What do I have to do?”—IBM Recommendations companies and IBM share the key values of reliability and
Media companies must understand where they are in
security. IBM is a global company that supports open
developing their digital supply chain and how they can best
standards, oversees complex projects, brings relevant emerging
utilize SOA and cloud computing to augment and improve it.
technologies to market, and stays in the trenches with our
The application of technology to enrich the digital supply
clients from the development of strategy through the ongoing
chain and to improve competitive advantage will depend upon
implementations of new solutions and business models.
a wide variety of factors. However, a generic strategy for a
media company might include combinations of these elements, IBM believes that enhancing the digital supply chain with
all of which are related to digital supply chain, and all of which cloud computing holds the key to providing cost-effective,
IBM has a history of successfully delivering to media clients: extra-enterprise content processing services that can extend
and enhance media companies’ core competencies and enable
• Build digital archives (convert analog assets to digital assets):
them to compete and thrive in today’s consumer-centric
Digitize assets, store them on-site and off-site applying best
marketplace. Cloud computing represents a fresh approach to
practices in storage and asset management.
outsourced and managed services solutions, which have long
• Leverage the digital archive to support on-going production
been salient IBM capabilities. This paper is intended to provide
services.
media executives with new business insights into how cloud
• Protect assets using encrypted communications
computing can extend their core enterprise capabilities, and it
(authentication, authorization) and the encryption of content.
will provide some guidance, current and future offerings and
• Provide analytics to support pricing, product mix, release date,
step-by-step recommendations for help along the unique
and placement decisions.
journey each company will take to reach its goals.
• Provide separate portals for business-to-business (B2B) and
business-to-consumer (B2C) processes to support branding
and consumer experience.
4 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
Introduction targeted consumers. In other words, media companies are
Today, economic pressures are forcing media companies looking to the cloud to enhance their digital supply chain—
to alter the way they do business. We live in an “attention adding specific media processing services—while reducing
economy” and compete for the ever-changing attention operating expenses. There is considerable talk about how cloud
of consumers. Our customers and consumers are more computing can help reduce capital expenses; however, this is
demanding and less loyal than ever before. Advertising as a less likely for large, mature media companies than it is for
source of revenue isn’t what it used to be. Media companies small-to-medium media companies. Small-to-medium
cannot simply raise prices or sell more advertising to attain businesses (SMBs) are likely to be more eager to outsource
profit goals, and there is not much room left to cut from content storage and content processing than the very large
operating expenses. In today’s economy, there is an increased media companies since it is difficult to increase capital and
focus on the effectiveness of digital supply chains. However, operating expenses. Large media companies are likely to have
merely reacting well in today’s attention economy is not developed highly efficient custom enterprise systems that are
sufficient to survive financially. not likely to be replaced by generic or composite services in
the cloud. Also, large media companies are likely to have
Media CEOs are adapting their business models at a rapid decentralized storage pools in multiple physical data centers
pace. How will media companies keep up with the ever- presenting access complexities and limitations. There is also
accelerating rate of innovation in the new economic the issue of how much content is still in analog formats.
environment? How will media companies maintain competitive However, no media company can afford more capital expenses
advantage over new entrants? Are there cloud consumption merely to accommodate seasonal needs or for resources that
models that are appropriate for media companies to pursue? are not fully utilized.
Should media companies be leaders or adopters?
The greatest opportunities for media companies are available
wherever content storage, media processing and distribution
services are co-located. Just as economies of scale become
Using cloud computing, media companies are available to media companies seeking to reduce their cost per
developing new and better ways to quickly and gigabyte (GB) to $0.10 or less, processing services economies
of scale become available when the range and intensity of
efficiently deliver content to fine-grained content services are co-located with the content itself. For
targeted consumers. example, it is becoming clearer that processing services are not
standalone services. If large video files need to be transcoded, it
is probably not cost effective to merely transcode these files
since the communication costs may be too great. However,
Media companies are responding with new ways to enhance
when transcoding services and other content processing
their digital supply chains using cloud computing. Using cloud
services are co-located with the content, the communication
computing, media companies are developing new and better
costs become a proportionately smaller part of the overall cost.
ways to quickly and efficiently deliver content to fine-grained
IBM Sales and Distribution 5
Media companies will need to prepare themselves to make the The new reality: Consumers at the eye of the storm
journey and take advantage of these evolving media clouds. Today, the traditional economics of media have been
While few media clouds exist today, they will evolve over time overturned. Before the Internet, there were limited sources of
along paths of greatest return, in terms of time to market and content, or what Bob Garfield, author and long-time writer for
the ability to distribute more B2B and B2C content to more Advertising Age, has called the “age of scarcity.” Today, the
consumers for the least investment. supply of content is greater than the demand. Advertising alone
cannot support media delivery. As new business models
emerge, it is clear that the consumer is at the eye of the storm.
Content that cannot be discovered and easily located, played or
Cloud computing represents many downloaded will be forgotten. Media executives now must
opportunities for media companies to improve rethink their supply chain: The emphasis is on the assets rather
their competitive advantage by getting content than the medium and consumers are no longer dependent on a
dominant medium for the content they want.
to multichannel, three-screen (or even
four-screen) markets faster than ever before What is the most efficient way to get content to consumers?
while potentially reducing costs. What is the best way to reduce time to market? The supply
chain of the past, which focused on the distribution of content
after it was created, is being inverted to focus on the consumer.
IBM believes its key differentiator is being able to bring all the
Cloud computing represents many opportunities for media
various technologies, components, services, and business
companies to improve their competitive advantage by getting
partners together in these media value chains to create business
content to multichannel, three-screen (or even four-screen)
value and deliver real-world solutions.
markets faster than ever before while potentially reducing
costs. This paper begins by looking at how cloud deployments Current and future cloud deployment: What have
have been done in the past. It reviews the promises and risks others done?
associated with cloud computing, what media and IT industries Over the past two years, several surveys have been performed
are doing to address these opportunities and risks, and provides in an attempt to better understand how companies are using
the IBM point of view. It concludes with IBM’s cloud computing today, and how they plan to use cloud
recommendations and identifies resources that will enable computing in the future. In 2008, a professional IT journal
media companies to enhance their digital supply chain by using study revealed that storage, archiving, and disaster recovery
cloud and SOA technologies. were the most likely uses and planned uses for cloud
computing. In 2009, an industry analyst published the results
of a study that identified security and performance as the issues
that most concerned executives about cloud computing.
Another study in 2009 showed that less than half of decision-
makers were either using or considering using cloud
computing, and, of those who were planning to use cloud, most
were considering private clouds.
6 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
More recently, a cloud adoption survey was performed that Cloud gains momentum in media
included nearly 600 respondents responsible for managing From the surveys cited, it can be observed that despite the
their organization’s IT budget and operations throughout challenges, cloud computing, mainly due to its economic
Canada and the United States in 2009. This survey revealed attractiveness, continues to grow. There are good reasons to
some interesting findings: switch to cloud: low costs, low barriers to entry, increased
mobility and scalability. There has been an emergence of
• Security remains the leading reason for not adopting cloud content clouds recently. As technical and cost barriers fall and
computing. Forty-six percent of respondents who indicated security issues are addressed, the cloud has become a viable
they were not going to adopt cloud computing indicated that platform not only for back-end operations, but also for key
lack of sufficient security was the reason. business practices, including content management and
• Despite the fact that security and integration issues are users’ distribution. During the 2008 presidential election in the
biggest fears, this has not dissuaded them from implementing United States, the New York Times online was able to handle
cloud-based applications. record traffic using cloud technology. The on-demand nature
• The survey shows strong satisfaction with cloud computing of massively scalable clouds has enabled media companies to
once it has been installed. provide more video on demand (VOD) without having to make
• Seventy percent of the decision-making respondents plan to investments in content delivery networks. By harvesting,
move additional applications into the cloud; most indicated hosting and combining their content with other content in the
they would be doing so within the next year. cloud, publishers and media companies can answer a higher
• Sixty-two percent of the respondents considered using cloud level of questions for the customer. Consumer demand
computing. rules—getting content to the consumer fast is the key to
• When those who indicated they were not going to adopt cloud success.
cloud computing were asked what changes or improvements
would change their minds, 33 percent said maturity of This concept of “mix and match” around content is not new;
solutions and 32 percent said better integration. however, cloud-based distribution of content promises to
• Thirty-two percent indicated that existing infrastructure enable consumers to use vast amounts of digital content in
investments were a reason for not adopting cloud computing. ways that currently do not exist. John du Pre Gauntt, the
• Twenty-six percent indicated that integration worries founder of Media Dojo, describes a digital supply chain
prevented them from moving to cloud. manufacturing cloud that will enable customers to pick and
• Cost is still the primary motivation for moving to cloud, choose among media titles and how they want to experience
however, agility is gaining momentum. them based on their product or service purchases. The news
source BBC, in its information and archive strategy, describes
At a recent major software industry event, panelists estimated moving to an asset-focused approach with enhanced metadata
that approximately 20 percent of enterprise computing takes that will make content searchable and accessible. This
place inside the cloud, while 80 percent, generally the more demonstrates the digital archive cloud as another channel.
mission-critical applications, take place inside the firewall. In
other words, most enterprises are still running their
applications on their own servers in their own data centers.
IBM Sales and Distribution 7
Gauntt takes this further in his discussion of media scenarios,
Table 1. Major cloud outages 2008 - 2009
describing “smart media” that has been strategically tagged and
will seek out interested consumers regardless of the channel or Service Outage Date Duration Source
consumer device. Until rights management is better controlled
Amazon S3 02/15/08 4 hours cnet
in software as a service, more media companies like The New
York Times will convert their internal application Amazon EC2 04/07/08 1 hour techcrunch
programming interfaces (APIs) to externally facing APIs on Amazon S3 07/20/08 8.5 hours amazon
clouds so that customers can license feeds or download content Amazon EC2 06/11/09 7 hours cnet
and mix it with their own content. For some media companies,
Amazon EC2 12/09/09 1-5 hours datacenter-
there is a greater willingness to package and price content on knowledge
an a la carte basis.
Google App 6/17/08 7 hours softpedia
Engine
Recently, in a move to increase the ability to earn more
Google Gmail 07/16/08 2.5 hours pcworld
revenue from digital distribution, a consortia of 48 media
companies, called the Digital Entertainment Content Google Apps and 08/06/08 about pcworld
Gmail 15 hours
Ecosystem (DECE), agreed to standardize on a common
format and enable proliferation of their content using Neustar Google Gmail 08/11/08 1.5 hours gmailblog
as the cloud-locker along with five digital rights management Google Gmail 08/15/08 more than pcworld
formats: digital rights management (DRM) formats (Adobe® 24 hours
Flash Access, CMLA-OMA V2, the Marlin DRM open Google Gmail 10/16/08 30 hours pcworld
standard, Microsoft® PlayReady and Widevine). Through Google Gmail 02/24/09 2.5 hours googleblog
cloud computing, entertainment that consumers buy would be
Google Gmail 03/09/09 up to 22 hours cnet
stored in a digital locker, Neustar, and remotely accessed from
Google network 05/14/09 2 hours arborne-
any device that meets DECE’s format requirements.
networks
The dark side of clouds Google App 07/02/09 6 hours techcrunch
Engine
In order to increase the adoption of cloud computing by media
companies, it will be necessary to build trust and confidence. Google Gmail 09/01/09 2 hours gmailblog
Public clouds have made the news frequently over the past two Google Gmail 09/24/09 2.5 hours cnet
years with major outages (Table 1). Microsoft Hotmail 03/12/09 5 hours network-
world
Security and performance issues cannot be controlled by the Microsoft Azure 03/13/09 22 hours network-
media company in the public cloud; these issues represent world
dependencies. Not only have there been instances of stolen Microsoft 10/04/09 6 days + cnet
content, but there have many cases of stolen online identity. Sidekick total loss of
These issues can be summarized as loss of control by the contact data
content provider. Salesforce.com 02/11/08 6 hours zdnet
Salesforce.com 01/06/09 1 hour The Register
8 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
Other important issues that worry public cloud users include • Investigative reporting: It may be impossible for some cloud
vendor lock-in, or the inability to get information out of the providers to support investigations of inappropriate or illegal
content, or to transfer it to another cloud provider if the cloud activities since logs, data and content may be dispersed over
user deems the service to be unsatisfactory. Cloud computing ever-changing hosts and data centers.
continues to mature and address these issues; however, it is • Long-term viability: What are the provisions if the cloud
doubtful that many media companies are rushing to put the provider goes out of business or gets acquired by another
crown jewels into public clouds. The best analogy is putting company?
money in a bank; it takes time to realize this level of trust and
confidence. IBM takes a leadership role to address
cloud industry issues and challenges
Another more obscure issue is data dispersion, or the fact that
the cloud user does not know where the data physically resides. IBM and the Open Cloud Manifesto
Countries where content may reside could have very different In 2009, the Open Cloud Consortium, originally a consortium
laws regarding access and privacy. IT research and advisory of universities, was formed to address the creation of open
group Gartner, Inc. has identified seven risks: standards to provide for inter-cloud interoperability—basically,
a pledge to develop standards that would make it possible to
• Privileged user access: Cloud customers do not know the easily move applications from cloud to cloud. Shortly
background, credentials or police records of those who thereafter, it was recognized that the corporate computing
administer public clouds. Enterprises generally have physical, industry would need to develop a coordinated approach, which
logical and personnel controls. came in the form of the Open Cloud Manifesto, and was
• Regulatory compliance: Many businesses must be SAS largely driven by IBM. The resulting document was brief (only
70-compliant1. Regardless of whether or not one uses a cloud seven pages) but it laid out the basic principles for companies
provider, ultimately it is the customer who is responsible for and cloud suppliers to work together and make it possible to
the security and integrity of the data or content, even if it is interoperate between clouds and to provide the flexibility to
being managed by a cloud provider. switch between suppliers. IBM and 29 other groups agreed to
• Data location: This is another way of describing the data the Open Cloud Manifesto.
dispersion problem of not knowing where data and content is
physically located. One of the more recent outcomes from the original Open
• Data segregation: Cloud users assume that their content is Cloud Manifesto is the work of the Cloud Computing Use
segregated from other users. While encryption helps, users do Case Discussion Group, which continues its efforts today, and
not always know or understand what schemes are in effect (or in which IBM continues to be a major contributor. IBM
how effective they are). continues to foster an open discussion about cloud computing,
• Recovery: Cloud users may not know what will happen to their and created http://cloudusecases.org, as a launch site for our
content in the event of a disaster. original work with Google. This group produced an important
white paper, Cloud Computing Use Cases White Paper,
identifying key cloud business scenarios. This white paper is
now in its fourth version focused on service level agreements
(SLAs) and use cases for security compliance. This document
IBM Sales and Distribution 9
provides easy-to-understand descriptions of cloud service Cloud value drivers
consumer and cloud service provider, as well as descriptions of There are a number of ways that clouds can drive business
the most typical use case scenarios (not intended to be an value. Cloud provides much more than merely a cost-focused
exhaustive list): return on investment (ROI) model:
• End user-to-cloud: Consumer gains access to content through
subscriptions, pay-per-use and/or sponsored advertising
• Enterprise-to–cloud-to-end user: Media company stores archive
content offsite in private cloud and cloud pushes derivative
content to subscribing consumer
• Enterprise-to-cloud: Media company collocates content
distribution services and consumer behavior analytics in the
cloud, and integrates with the cloud to monitor sales and time
to market
• Enterprise-to-cloud-to-enterprise (digital supply chain): Media
companies collaborate on content; for example, studio dailies,
multi-lingual/global production and distribution
• Private cloud: An in-sourced, enterprise-hosted, on-premises
private cloud, or outsourced private cloud managed by an Figure 1. Cloud value drivers help define how business value is created.
external entity
• Changing cloud vendors: Business continuity
• Hybrid cloud (single cloud has characteristics of private cloud
and public cloud): Cloud stores copies of digital masters Cloud value drivers have the potential to transform business
(private cloud); manufactures digital derivatives for B2B and strategy in many ways:
B2C distribution, and may provide storefront capabilities
(public cloud) • Driving business innovation
• Increasing business agility
• Lowering total cost of ownership
• Improving asset utilization and products-services time to
market
• Optimizing technology investments
• Enabling real-time content and metadata sharing
• Providing globally available resources
• SOA and cloud: The dream team
10 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
The media and entertainment industry has been met with Service oriented architecture (SOA) has been increasingly
dramatic changes over the last five years that have moved it promoted as a means of addressing the media business’ needs
from nearly all physical products to predominantly digital in a cost-effective and responsive manner. In 2008, Gartner
products. Everything associated with the creation of content reported that most European and North American companies
has turned from physical goods to digital. While this transition were planning to adopt SOA over the next 12 months. SOA
has opened up new opportunities in delivering new products promises to provide services as the basis of abstraction so that
and services to consumers (such as new audio and video services are loosely coupled, autonomous, stateless and include
delivery services that have evolved to products like iPads), new their own explicit quality of service characteristics (security,
challenges have been introduced in understanding where performance, etc.).
content is inside the client’s environment, what state it is in,
who needs to get it, and when it needs to be delivered. An SOA is the perfect architecture for cloud because services
run on any system that exposes them, inside or outside the
Systems and processes have evolved over time to support the enterprise. An SOA allows you to manage, orchestrate and use
physical creation and distribution of these products and services and create “situational” applications that are
services. As the content and its delivery environment have “composites” of services, which enable business agility. This is
changed, many of these systems have as well, but for the most made possible because an SOA provides the following three
part the systems and technologies do not all work well fundamental properties:
together. Closed, proprietary and siloed infrastructures must
now give way, or at least harmonize with open, standardized • Open standards
and more horizontal processes and applications. –– SOA provides a standard method of invoking web
services allowing disparate organizations access to these
Media companies, dealing with a more competitive services across network boundaries.
environment during difficult economic times, are searching for –– Web services use open standards to allow inter-
ways to minimize their technology costs while, at the same enterprise connectivity across networks and the Internet.
time, offering more sophisticated products and services. Media –– Messaging protocols (SOAP) and transport protocols
companies’ resources have been organized according to the (including HTTP, HTTPS, JMS)
specific business functions they support which, as we have –– Security can be handled at both the transport level
stated, have resulted in the formation of separate application (HTTPS) and/or at a protocol level (WS-Security).
silos. In response, these separate application silos result in –– Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) allows
duplication of application functionality, high integration costs, web services to be self-describing for a loosely
underutilization of resources, and limited ability to share coupled architecture.
content and information. Media companies’ underlying • Integration
technology has become much more complex and less flexible, –– Interfaces are provided to wrap service endpoints to
making it increasingly difficult to respond and keep pace with provide a system-independent and application-
the revolutionary changes in the industry. independent architecture.
–– SOAs can provide dynamic service discovery and
binding, which means that service integration can
occur on demand.IBM Sales and Distribution 11
• Virtualization the workflows necessary to provide multiple channel content
–– A key principle of SOA is that services should be distribution are too much for many media companies. On
invoked by service requesters that are oblivious to the other hand, doing nothing could mean disintermediation
service implementation details, including location, or, worse, obscurity.
platform and if appropriate to the business scenario,
even the identity of the service provider. How media companies can benefit from SaaS
SaaS minimizes the upfront costs associated with hardware and
All of the properties above are prerequisites to support software acquisition and helps companies avoid having to hire
services delivered from the cloud. Additionally, if an SOA more staff to operate and maintain in-house systems. There are
framework is to provide the ability to situationally create a four basic SaaS models (and combinations that can benefit
composite service, it must be able to provide the messaging media companies):
properties that are required to connect the various services
that comprise the composite service. Messaging properties, 1. A multi-tenant architecture owned and maintained by a cloud
such as persistence, transformation, routing and mediation, are service provider (ASP-style)
necessary precursors to be able to support the choreography 2. Hosted internally and maintained remotely
of the composite service. Extending these messaging properties 3. Internally developed and hosted on cloud provider
to media objects enables content agility and is the key to infrastructure
providing an SOA that allows a seamless integration of the 4. Self-hosted software providing software services to partners or
transactional messaging and content essence that exist in all subscribers
services that emit or consume digital media.
A cloud based on SOA allows an enterprise’s intra-
organizational business processes to be extended into the
In the future, most internal-facing, media
cloud and take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing, company enterprise applications will be delivered
particularly on-demand services and highly scalable IT in the form of reliable and secure services using
services. Cloud computing and SOA combine to form the
“dream team.” Since a cloud is basically an instance of an
private networks and the Internet.
architecture, using SOA ensures that cloud computing
provides be the most agile and cost-effective cloud platform.
In addition, there are various combinations of the basic models.
Cloud computing provides media companies with software-
as-a-service (SaaS), infrastructure services (infrastructure- In the future, most internal-facing, media company enterprise
as-a-service, or IaaS), and platform services (platform-as-a- applications will be delivered in the form of reliable and secure
service, or PaaS). Considerable pressures exist to meet services using private networks and the Internet.
consumer demand. However, the development and infra-
structure costs associated with building the technology and12 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
How media companies can benefit from IaaS IBM has been building large data centers for years, offering
IBM offers IaaS by using core competencies in various these benefits:
infrastructure technologies, including cluster computing,
autonomic computing, grid computing, utility computing and • Reliability: An IBM data center typically provides 99.99
virtualization. IaaS benefits media companies by providing percent up time.
elastic or scalable infrastructure on demand to handle • Smarter data center management: Thousands of sensors,
traffic and content overflow situations. IaaS uses statistical connecting IT equipment, data center and building
multiplexing to increase and shrink resource utilization. automation systems, provide data that can be analyzed for
Some estimates are that statistical multiplexing reduces future capacity planning, conserve energy and maintain
resource utilization costs by a factor of five to seven. operations in the event of a power outage.
• Energy efficiency: An IBM data center uses half the energy cost
A mission-critical, enterprise-scale cloud provider must to operate compared to data centers of similar size by taking
possess large-scale reliable and secure fundamental advantage of free cooling—using the outside air to cool the
infrastructure resources: data centers, managed services, data center. Intelligent systems use sensors to continuously
massively scalable storage, massively scalable processing read temperature and relative humidity throughout the data
and secure network connections. center and dynamically adjust cooling in response to changes
in demand.
• Cloud computing capability: Support for cloud computing
workloads allows clients to use only the resources necessary
to support IT operations at any given moment—eliminating
the need for up to 70 percent of the hardware resource that
might have been previously needed to perform the same task.
The data center also hosts recently announced “Smart
Business” cloud computing offerings—each of these solutions
can significantly reduce a client’s total cost of ownership
(TCO) by up to 40 percent.
• Built for expansion: Due to an innovative modular design
method, IBM will be able to add significant future capacity in
Figure 2. IBM North Carolina Leadership Data Center
nearly half the time it would take traditional data centers to
expand. This design/build method, called IBM Enterprise
Modular Data Center (IBM EMDC), also enables IBM to
rapidly scale capacity to meet demand by adding future space,
power and cooling to the data center with no disruption to
existing operations. This means up to 40 percent of capital
costs and up to 50 percent of operational costs may be
deferred until client demand necessitates expansion. An IBM
data center can also quickly and seamlessly expand its power
and cooling capacity.IBM Sales and Distribution 13
How media companies can benefit from PaaS IBM recommendations for successful cloud
Finally, as a layer built on top of IaaS, PaaS offers media
Digital supply chain
companies consistent services such as authentication,
IBM has been looking at how the new business reality impacts
authorization, data persistence and task scheduling. PaaS
supply chain. By using digital supply chain, media companies
has been a topic of interest with telcos since they already
can use their core competencies and call upon clouds to
provide content, storage, and connectivity services to
enhance their supply chain. Clouds are places to store, process,
consumers and businesses. Telcos are providing their existing
distribute and support exposure of content in an elastic fashion.
IaaS as a platform for B2B and B2B2C digital supply chains.
To increase supply chain efficiency and deliver the products
IBM is building digital media exchange clouds supporting
and services consumers want, media companies are looking to a
comprehensive content aggregation, management, derivative
combined SOA and cloud computing solution.
manufacturing, and multichannel distribution built on top
of clients’ outsourced and managed services.
Using SOA and cloud computing in the new digital supply
chain enables media companies to keep pace with the rate of
innovation. SOA and cloud computing support:
IBM is building digital media exchange • Faster time to market
clouds supporting comprehensive content • Increased sales by increasing the exposure of content
aggregation, management, derivative • Richer flow of information to adapt quickly to changing
consumer interests and demands
manufacturing, and multichannel distri-
• Decreased labor, inventory and working capital costs
bution built on top of clients’ outsourced • Faster fresh content that is packaged, identified and available
and managed services. to the consumer
• Available “forever” deep catalog content
IBM’s commitment to digital supply chain
The IBM SOA software group framework management
To support the digital supply chain, IBM Software Group IBM structures a digital supply chain that is customer-centric,
has developed the IBM Media Enterprise Framework built responds to new consumer behavior, and is smarter or opti-
on SOA architecture using IBM software. Cloud computing mized using business intelligence and analytics. The IBM
provides a way to virtualize the service executions, security Media Enterprise Framework shows IBM’s strong commit-
and infrastructure. Media Enterprise framework can work ment to its clients by taking a “we’re in it together” approach.
with the cloud in realizing the capabilities, such as business Cloud offerings often fail because clients do not perceive that
analytics and optimization, media, metadata and information the cloud provider understands or cares about the client’s
management, multi-channel enablement, business process business. IBM’s commitment includes becoming an integral
transformation, security and infrastructure management. part of the design and delivery team.
The Media Enterprise Framework can be used as a delivery
platform to help manage the services in each of the capabilities.14 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
Leading the evolution of media clouds: as simple as an in-house, in-sourced, on-premises managed
What should I do? service model to a full hybrid cloud that is fully integrated with
Media companies must understand where they are in the media company’s enterprise systems. There are several
developing their digital supply chain and how they can best reasons to begin with the archive:
utilize SOA and cloud computing to augment and improve it.
The application of technology to enrich the digital supply • The archive is not in the production-critical path; therefore,
chain and to improve competitive advantage will depend upon there is less risk to current mission-critical processes. At the
a wide range of factors. However, a generic strategy for a media same time, there are likely to be hidden treasures in the
company might include combinations of these elements, all of archive, or, what retailers used to call “deep catalog.”
which are related to digital supply chain, and all of which IBM • Most media companies store copies of their assets. Some
has a history of successfully delivering to media clients: media companies are applying approved asset preservation
and disaster recovery budgets to justify private cloud archive
• Build digital archives (convert analog assets to digital assets) initiatives.
and store digitized assets on-site and off-site, applying best • Most media companies have a mix of analog and digital
practices in storage and asset management. content in their on-premises archives. Some of the digital
• Develop an enterprise-wide strategy for standards-based content may be stored off-site as part of the disaster recovery
metadata creation, discovery, use and exchange. and business continuity policies.
• Protect assets using encrypted communications • Media companies can develop their metadata strategy
(authentication, authorization) and the encryption of content. (metadata creation, discovery, use, and exchange) in a
• Provide separate portals for B2B and B2C to support deliberate and controlled pace rather than being driven by the
branding and consumer experience. demands of live events and live content.
• Provide e-commerce and storefront capabilities with an ad
insertion capability. IBM GA cloud offering use cases and
• Support subscription and pay-per-view models. media and entertainment specific use cases
• Maintain control over the cloud’s content delivery resources It is important to separate media and entertainment use cases
by preventing rogue applications from over-consuming into two groups: (1) generic use cases, or, those use cases that
resources. can be used regardless of the industry environment, and (2)
• Integrate enterprise legacy and backend systems with external media and entertainment-specific use cases that address
cloud services. specific needs in the media and entertainment industry.
Generic use cases may provide value to those media companies
The journey begins at the same spot for every media considering how best to “wade into” cloud computing, or those
company—digitizing content, to create the new digital supply looking to implement a cloud to demonstrate cost savings and
chain. IBM recommends that media companies begin with provide the organization with valuable hands-on experience
their digital archive as a means of building a pilot to explore and understanding of cloud challenges and benefits. For
the use of a private or public cloud. Deployment models can be example, IT organizations of media companies can
immediately implement the generic use cases to demonstrate
and test the value of cloud computing in supporting workloads
optimized for IT, such as testing of applications and software.IBM Sales and Distribution 15
Figure 3. Media and entertainment sub-industries and cloud
use cases
See the first column in Figure 3, which identifies several clients access to IBM compute clusters (IBM System x®, IBM
generally available IBM cloud offerings: BladeCenter®, IBM System p®, and IBM System Storage®)
on an hourly, weekly or yearly rental basis.
• IBM Smart Business Desktop on the IBM cloud subscrip- • IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM
tion service helps clients virtualize desktop computing cloud is designed to help enterprises reduce operational costs
resources, and provides a logical, rather than a physical, and large amounts of capital outlays, improve cycle times
method of accessing data, computing power, storage capacity for faster time to market and improve quality with virtually
and other resources. instant, security-rich access to a standardized test and
• IBM Compute on Demand infrastructure offering, provides development environment.
• The IBM Smart Analytics Cloud is a solution offering to16 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
enable delivery of business intelligence. This offering uses desktops, designed to help you quickly back up, restore,
IBM hardware, software and services to offer a complete archive and maintain access to critical data on demand.
solution enabled at the customer site. • IBM LotusLive™ iNotes® is a secure cloud-based messaging
• IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud offers a storage- service that provides essential email and calendaring
virtualization solution designed to support a company’s capabilities. IBM LotusLive iNotes can be integrated
storage optimization efforts. It can help alleviate data storage alongside existing enterprise messaging solutions or operated
challenges by enabling quick implementation of a scalable, standalone to reduce overall cost of ownership.
global file storage system with flexibility in deployment and
management options. Media and entertainment-specific use cases
• IBM Smart Business End User Support self enablement Media and entertainment sub-industries and cloud use cases
portal is an Internet-based solution that enables end users also provides basic cloud use cases for television and radio
to resolve their support issues due to a leading-edge know- broadcasters, movie studios, the games sub-industry, and
ledge database that delivers a comprehensive, personalized, publishing. Those use cases that can be met by current IBM
multichannel experience in multiple languages through a offerings have been color-coded in dark-blue, those use cases
single easy-to-use interface. for which IBM offerings are imminent have been color-coded
• IBM Information Protection Services is a range of managed in light-blue, and those use cases that IBM will include in
services. It includes both on-site and remote data protection future offerings have been color-coded in white.
capabilities for your data center servers, applications and
databases, as well as protection for email, laptops and
Figure 4. Common cloud managementIBM Sales and Distribution 17
IBM’s goal is that our cloud offerings will be based on a • Business intelligence and analytics—a gaming cloud may
common cloud platform that provides a foundation for generate billions of transactions in a day. There is simply no
value-added services, including but not limited to: way to make sense of trends, purchasing patterns, and do
forecasting without business intelligence and analytics. IBM
• A public cloud with multiple service “on-ramps” for clients, has world-class capabilities in designing and implementing
hosted in key centers worldwide BI-based digital supply chains.
• A common infrastructure to provide computing and • B2B monetization—integration of content distribution
storage resources processes with back-office and business intelligence processes.
• A common platform, business support services (BSS) and
operational support services (OSS) to operate and manage Note that all of these use cases will depend heavily on the
the cloud implementation development of an enterprise and, to the extent possible, a
• A full range of IBM and partner services standards-based, extra-enterprise metadata strategy. Without a
• The implementation and hosting services to build “private sound metadata strategy implemented as early in the digital
clouds” for strategic outsourcing (SO) data centers and supply chain as possible, the less visible and useable digital
other clients content may become.
IBM believes the following digital supply chain use cases IBM also envisions the following future use cases in media and
hold the greatest value for cloud computing in media and entertainment:
entertainment in the immediate future:
• Fully integrated B2B/B2C business models: Integration
• Digital archive—off-site content disaster recovery with with commerce, supply chain management (SCM),
potential to evolve into B2B and B2C business models and enterprise resource management (ERP) and customer
new revenue streams. IBM has a proven record of providing relationship management (CRM) systems. IBM has a global
digital archive as an outsourced and managed service. team of integration specialists who integrate enterprise,
• Production support—an extension of archive to support legacy, and cloud-based systems using best practices in
on-going production processes. IBM designs WAN and SOA-based integration.
LAN infrastructures and works with partners to provide • Digital cinema end-to-end workflow support using cloud:
cloud-based production support. Centralized ad insertion, securing the production through
• Broadcast facility resiliency—content archived to provide post-production workflow with Key Delivery Message
real-time broadcast failover in the event of a broadcast (KDM) management for dailies and distribution to theatres.
facility outage. • Real-time streaming analytics (based on IBM System S):
• High-intensity processing—clouds equipped with special Cloud-based capability of analyzing many inbound real-time
high-intensity processing (grid computing) required to sources of audio, video, text and metadata to support real-
expedite rendering, watermarking, transcoding and time business model adaptation and collaborative planning
encryption processing. forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) processes in digital
• Derivatives manufacturing—transcoding, encrypting, etc., supply chain.
and final packaging content for push or pull distribution. • Intelligent dissemination of content using push models and
smart content: Clouds maintain atomic content (pre-wrapped
with rights pointers) and associated metadata, as well as the
analytics to target consumers.18 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
Table 2. Media and entertainment-specific use cases and deployment models
Use Cases Sub-Industry Sub Use Cases Deployment Model(s)
Digital Archive All On-site Digital Archive Private
Off-Site Content Disaster Recovery Private
Overflow All Storage Public, Private, Hybrid
Processing Private, Hybrid
B2B Monetization All Derivatives Manufacturing Private
B2B Distribution Private
Order Fulfillment Private
High Intensity Processing TV, Studios, Games Rendering Private, Hybrid
TV, Studios, Games Transcoding/MXFwrap/ MXFunwrap Private, Hybrid
TV, Studios, Games Watermarking Private
TV, Studios, Games Encryption Private
Publishers Text Analytics Private, Hybrid
Broadcast Facility Resiliency TV Real-time Analytics (System S) Private, Hybrid
BI/Analytics All SCM, CRM, ERP integrations Private, Hybrid
Streaming Analytics TV Private
Live Events Studios, Games Private, hybrid
Digital Cinema Studios KDM Management Private
Studios Digital Dailies Private
Text Analysis Publishers Private, Hybrid
Semantic Search Publishers Private, Hybrid
B2C Distribution All Private, Hybrid
Smart Content All Private, HybridIBM Sales and Distribution 19
Figure 5. Sub-use case off-site preservation of content
Media and entertainment-specific use cases and • Private clouds are better than public clouds when tight
their deployment models controls are required.
Each use case has a likely deployment model or set of • Public clouds are best when distributing massive amounts of
deployment models based on the level of content protection, content to consumers over the Internet is required.
security requirements and degree of processing required within • Hybrid clouds are best when content aggregation,
the deployment model (Table 2). management and distribution workflows need to be
contiguous to support the digital supply chain.20 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
Digital archive can be deployed equally well as an on-site, Digital media archive sub-use cases
on-premises private cloud or as an off-site private cloud. IBM recommends that media companies start with their
Storage overflow has been implemented with great success archives. Figures 5, 6, and 7 show an elaboration on this
using the public cloud model. Depending upon how custom or use case in the form of three sub-use cases: (1) off-site
sophisticated the processing requirements are, high-intensity preservation, (2) off-site production support and (3) B2B
or high-performance processing can be performed in a private monetization of content.
or a public cloud. Generally, those content processes related to
content protection and usage tracking, such as encryption and
watermarking, respectively, are best performed in a private
cloud where strong governance and oversight are important.
Figure 6. Sub-use case off-site production supportIBM Sales and Distribution 21 Figure 7. Sub-use case B2B Content Monetization
22 Cloud Computing for the Media and Entertainment Industry
Global evolution of media clouds once, however, from what we
In a recent survey conducted by IBM and NHK, the national have observed in major media companies around the world,
broadcaster of Japan, it was revealed that each of the 12 media the highest priorities are digitizing content and protecting it.
companies are managing their assets and long-term archive
along a roadmap or continuum that is moving from enterprise Note that each deployment model has its own business models,
to private cloud to hybrid cloud (Figure 8). There is nothing benefits, assets, technical and business activities, and its own
that precludes using all three cloud deployment models at set of key decisions.
Figure 8. Evolution of media cloudsIBM Sales and Distribution 23
Enterprise deployment model • Technical activities:
• Business models: –– Digitize: New revenue models, particularly mone-
–– On-site preservation of assets tization, are based on having digital content. Even
–– On-site production support: Pre-production research, licensing models benefit from digital content since the
search-browse-preview of archived content, and digital master can be used to produce many identical
repurposing of preserved content. copies for re-broadcast.
• Benefits: –– Encrypt: Within the enterprise, encryption may or may
–– Strong control of content and systems manipulating not be used; in some cases content is encrypted since it
content will be sent to external B2B consumers. (An example is
–– Continuity of knowledge (institutional knowledge) the AES 128-bit KDM encryption included in the digital
• Assets: cinema initiative specification.)
–– Content is likely to be both analog and digital in the –– Log/Catalog: Content cannot be located if there is no
enterprise deployment model. metadata associated with it. Cataloging is the more
–– New content today is likely to arrive in digital formats formal, information science activity associated with
and be relatively easy to ingest. preserving and archiving content.
–– Legacy, videotape-based content, may or may not be in • Critical decisions:
the process of being digitized. –– What seasonal and cyclical peaks and variability
–– Many digital asset management (DAM) vendors provide should be taken into consideration? What are the
archive-as-you-go capabilities, saving content to the temporary bandwidth and storage requirements that
archive once the content has been ingested, once must be addressed that the current infrastructure
finished shows have been approved to air, and while may not be able to handle?
content is actually being aired; in addition, these DAM –– What content are candidates for cloud storage?
systems provide low resolution proxy generation and –– What performance service level agreements (SLAs)
logging and cataloging capabilities to generate and are required?
enhance metadata. –– What security SLAs are required?
• Business activities: –– What content protection and/or encryption
–– Creation of a baseline or balanced scorecard: Represents are required?
the value of the enterprise model, associated costs, –– What is the expected ROI or cost-benefit?
including capital and operating expenses and benefits,
particularly with respect to production support (pre-
production research, repurposing, and so forth); degree
of security and content protection, which will help
provide the justification for making the transition to a
cloud deployment model.
–– The baseline information consists of workflow analysis,
content audit and activity-based cost analysis: What do
we have? How it is processed? And, how much does it
cost to create content products and metadata?You can also read
