Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) IP and IT solutions, both on-premise and in the cloud, promised great flexibility for broadcasters’ future operations. But to realize the operational benefits at scale it has been essential to automate provisioning and configuration of various resources, including media systems, network and computer infrastructure. The Automation & Provisioning project group provided a way for participants to share best practice, learn from one another, and to provide a stronger voice in a rapidly changing industry.
This group was part of the Strategic Programme on Infrastructures & Security.
EBU Activities
The Automation and Provisioning project group provided a way for participants to learn about relevant technologies that can be applied to media operations, what this means for procurement and integration, and what skills they will need. Working together let Members benefitted from their shared experiences to demystify what was often an unfamiliar field, and to provide a stronger voice to a rapidly changing industry.
A wide range of APIs and tools were emerging for the automatic provisioning and configuration of resources such as media systems, network and computer infrastructure. Many of these have been developed to help provision cloud services, often using a “configuration as code” approach using industry-standard DevOps tools (e.g. Ansible). This presented EBU Members with several challenges, including being aware of relevant good practice, choosing the right technologies, integrating multiple automated parts (orchestration), migration of existing workflows and training.
The group studied the models and approaches that Members were considering, including their models for migrating operations to on-premise/public cloud services, and identify common terminology and requirements. The project surveyed suitable tools and approaches, as well as the new skills and development opportunities that these brought, and published recommendations that would be helpful for both broadcasters and vendors.
Challenges and objectives
- Demystifying automation and orchestration
- Covering automation at different levels: workflow, system, infrastructure
- Investigating DevOps as well as infrastructure and configuration-as-code approaches and examples
- Surveying and reporting on infrastructure models for different functions
- Documenting cloud migration strategies across the EBU membership
- Contributing to cross-functional training to address the knowledge and skills gap in the industry