Broadcast Media Creation as a Service: Using Infrastructure-As-Code and the Public Cloud to Power On-Air Media Creation Platforms

Metadata

Publisher: SMPTE — White Plains, NY, USA
Doc Type: Journal Article
Content Type: Original Research
Abbreviated Title: SMPTE Mot. Imag. J
Volume: 129, No. 10, pp. 33–39
Abstract: Traditionally, the infrastructure required for broadcast media creation has consisted of specialized graphics workstations, high-performance storage arrays, complex networking, and video wiring, all of which are capital-intensive and expensive to maintain. Over the past two years, NBCUniversal has developed a cloud infrastructure model to provide on-air media creation as a service to its creative teams. Utilizing GPU-enabled cloud-based virtual machines, dynamically scalable high-performance cloud-native storage, and infrastructure-as-code methodologies, we are now able to provide full end-to-end media production workflows in the public cloud. With an automation-forward approach, we know exactly what is going to be applied, how it will propagate through the infrastructure, and what dependencies are involved. Elastic scalability of compute and storage eliminates over-provisioning (and its related capital investments) and provides the ability to dynamically add/remove resources as necessary. This paper aims to highlight the technical details of our programmatically reproducible solution as well as the challenges and benefits of media creation in the cloud.
Publication Date: 2020-11-01
DOI: 10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028
ISSN: Print: 1545-0279 | Electronic: 2160-2492
Link: https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028
Author(s): Kevin Fornito
bio
Kevin Fornito is the director of production infrastructure at NBCUniversal, responsible for the provisioning and automation of core infrastructure supporting live broadcast production. He has spent the past 12 years at NBCUniversal and is currently focused on the migration of production workflows to the public cloud, utilizing cloud-native, and micro-service architectures.
Chris Zembower
bio
Chris Zembower is a senior systems architect at NBCUniversal, focusing on hybrid cloud, automation, and orchestration for the production engineering group supporting live studio operations at 30 Rock. With more than 15 years of experience in media and technology roles, he has sought to introduce modern technology principles and DevOps-oriented tooling to broadcast and media workflows.
Steve Sneddon
bio
Steve Sneddon is the senior vice president of production engineering at NBCUniversal, where he oversees the design, build, and support of the technical facilities and infrastructure across NBCU’s live production locations in New York for MSNBC and the NBC Network, Telemundo Center in Miami, FL, and Universal City Studios in Los Angeles, CA. He has nearly 20 years of experience in large-scale broadcasting technology and has spent the last 15 years at NBCUniversal.
Keyword(s): Automation, Broadcast, Cloud, Configuration Management, GPU, Infrastructure-as-code (IaC), Media Creation, VDI
Copyright: © 2020 SMPTE

Source Data (JSON)

Full registry record with provenance metadata. Open directly: /api/doc/10.5594-JMI.2020.3024028.json

Reference this Doc

Plain text (ISO 690 compliant)

Preview:

Kevin Fornito, Chris Zembower, and Steve Sneddon; Broadcast Media Creation as a Service: Using Infrastructure-As-Code and the Public Cloud to Power On-Air Media Creation Platforms, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 129, Issue: 10, 2020); SMPTE, 2020. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028

Snippet:

Kevin Fornito, Chris Zembower, and Steve Sneddon; Broadcast Media Creation as a Service: Using Infrastructure-As-Code and the Public Cloud to Power On-Air Media Creation Platforms, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 129, Issue: 10, 2020); SMPTE, 2020. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028

HTML (ISO 690 compliant)

Preview:

Snippet:

<span class="citation">Kevin Fornito, Chris Zembower, and Steve Sneddon; <cite>Broadcast Media Creation as a Service: Using Infrastructure-As-Code and the Public Cloud to Power On-Air Media Creation Platforms</cite>, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 129, Issue: 10, 2020); SMPTE, 2020. Available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028</a></span>

SMPTE's HTML Pub

Preview:

Kevin Fornito, Chris Zembower, and Steve Sneddon; Broadcast Media Creation as a Service: Using Infrastructure-As-Code and the Public Cloud to Power On-Air Media Creation Platforms, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 129, Issue: 10, 2020); SMPTE, 2020
doi: 10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028
url: https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028

Snippet:

<li>
Kevin Fornito, Chris Zembower, and Steve Sneddon; <cite id="bib-10-5594-jmi-2020-3024028">Broadcast Media Creation as a Service: Using Infrastructure-As-Code and the Public Cloud to Power On-Air Media Creation Platforms</cite>, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 129, Issue: 10, 2020); SMPTE, 2020
<span class="doi">10.5594/JMI.2020.3024028</span>
</li>