About Building Software Defined Infrastructure

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 will publish in 4 parts. Details of all four parts can be found HERE.

About Part 4 – Integration

Part 4 is a free PDF download which contains four original articles:

Article 1 : Systems & Frameworks
The difference between open and closed integration frameworks and their relative merits. The concept of east-west datacenters and the implications for broadcast infrastructures.

Article 2 : Zero Tolerance Security
Why zero tolerance security is paramount for broadcasters and why some security checks cause headaches, such as packet inspection on the NIC.

Article 3 : 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 4 : Effective API’s
How APIs operate and why they solve some of the problems of having to wait for standards bodies to publish protocols and methodologies, thus greatly speeding up time to market and deployment of new features.