Digital content strategies are the key to the future business models for most media companies. Building smart mobile and Web applications to support anywhere, anytime distribution of content will rely upon a corresponding network shift, to a software-defined, hybrid cloud environment that will maximize optimization opportunities and cost efficiencies, while serving customers better and in more personal ways.
Software-defined networking (SDN) layered on virtualization within the data center can enable new business models such as IoT, cloud, personalization and digital content, while sparking agile service innovation. It’s this that Mike Benson, CIO of DirecTV (News - Alert), quested after when he began virtualizing servers in 2008.
DirecTV, as a pay-TV provider, has made TV Everywhere and streaming access an important differentiator for its satellite packages. To deliver that adequately, it needs to be able to plan for spikes in content demand from second-screen devices like computers, smartphones and tablets around certain big events, like boxing matches. Having a software-defined strategy gives the ‘SatCaster’ an on-demand capability for spinning up necessary network resources.
"Unified hybrid cloud is our strategy," Benson said at a recent industry event. "We've moved from manual, rigid delivery to software-friendly delivery."
Similarly, Tribune Media's David Giambruno relied on SDN to help Tribune Media survive its split with Tribune Publishing last year. Giambruno has had to establish a new IT environment to support more than 200 applications and 7,000 employees, because the publishing arm took the existing infrastructure with it. He decided to go with SDN and virtualization.
"I wanted to take the infrastructure out of the way, and let people do whatever business process transactions they require on any device," Giambruno told CIO.com.
Since then, he has implemented 1,200 virtual machines, supported on 70 physical servers, which he says allowed him to easily move applications between the organization as needed.
"It's way simpler bringing up new infrastructure and copying my apps [virtually] rather than picking up literally thousands of servers and moving them [to the new company]," Giambruno said.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson