As an industry, we’ve now ticked box one of “how to build IP infrastructures” by reliably streaming video, audio and metadata over enterprise IP networks. Now, we need to greatly simplify IP broadcast infrastructures to improve their operation and integration.

This series seeks to clarify what is meant by Software Defined Infrastructure, how its fundamental design philosophy is key to the next evolutionary step for broadcast, and how it can benefit broadcasters.

We discuss the fundamental differences between virtualization and microservices and how microservice based systems go hand in hand with Software Defined Networks in the design and implementation of truly scalable systems.

Microservices are at the heart of effective SDNs employing the benefits of scalability, reliability, resilience and very high levels of security. But to effectively use them, broadcasters must have a deep understanding of how they supersede the alternatives of simple virtualization.

The next phase of our IP enabled, software defined broadcast infrastructure journey is going to be one of delivering simplicity and integration through microservices. Broadcasters have little appetite for vendor lock-in, and for IP to become the success it promises, we need to look more closely at how we make it work operationally, so that simplicity and integration become as easy as maintaining a high-quality internet mobile phone connection when walking from the office to the park.

Building Software Defined Infrastructure contains 16 articles which are all available individually:

Article 1 : What Is Software Defined Infrastructure?
What Software Defined Infrastructure is, what infrastructure models it enables and a discussion of on- and off-prem cloud infrastructure.

Article 2 : Virtualization Vs Microservices
How virtualization and microservices differ, and workflows where virtualization and microservices would be used or avoided in terms of reliability, flexibility and security.

Article 3 : Virtualizing Idle Time
Our partner Lawo discuss why “software-defined” as an approach should be considered a prerequisite in any forward-looking, IP-based broadcast environment.

Article 4 : Software Defined Infrastructure Components
How microservices form the basis of Software Defined Infrastructure and why they provide much better solutions for broadcasters, especially when considering scalability, resilience and security.

Article 5 : Shifting Data
The fundamental principles of how data flows through local and remote processing systems are central to designing software defined infrastructure.

Article 6 : Asynchronous & Synchronous Media Processing
One of the key challenges of building software defined infrastructure is moving a fundamentally synchronous media like video to an asynchronous architecture.

Article 7 : Focus On Agility
Our partner Lawo discuss how just when broadcasters and AV providers are starting to put their heads around the Second Wave of IP, industry pioneers are already contemplating the next big infrastructure thing. It promises to be even more compact and faster than before.

Article 8 : Ground To Cloud
New efficient and flexible workflows like remote production and multi-site teams mean using IP to transport media between sites, and this brings its own challenges to flexible infrastructure design.

Article 9 : Network Monitoring
The fundamental principles of how data flows through local and remote processing systems are central to designing software defined infrastructure.

Article 10 : Observability In Microservice Architecture
Building dynamic microservices based infrastructure introduces the potential for variable latency which brings new monitoring challenges that require an understanding of observability.

Article 11 : Making It Happen
Software-defined hardware still has its uses in broadcast, but the real value for power users lies in hardware-agnostic processing apps—provided they meet the need for speed, availability, and agility.

Article 12 : Monitoring Microservices 
Breaking production systems into individual microservice based processors, requires monitoring over IP via RESTful APIs and a database system to capture the results. 

Article 13 : Systems & Data Flows
For broadcasters seeking to build robust workflows from software defined infrastructure, key considerations arise around data flows and the pro’s and cons of open and closed systems.

Article 14 : Zero Tolerance Security
Software based systems bring immense flexibility but they also bring increased vulnerability and inevitable trade-offs between flexibility and security.

Article 15 : The Core Of The Matter
Our partner Lawo discuss how containerized, hardware-agnostic processing apps seamlessly adapt to a variety of generic server models - with little or no code tweaks. This has countless benefits. 

Article 16 : Effective API’s 
Examples from IT and gaming show that the reliable exchange of data between applications from different vendors, often comes from commercial collaboration around establishment of clearly defined protocols.