Content owners and service providers need to deliver media to an ever-growing range of consumer platforms from OTT to traditional IPTV and Cable. This has led to a significant rise in the number of workflow automation projects in recent years. The era of Next Gen media supply chain has arrived.
Automating the Media Supply Chain: From Buy to Build
Projects today focus on driving elastic scaling and driving hyper efficiency in the automation of production and content supply chains. But unlike the automation projects of the previous 25 years, some organizations are now choosing to build rather than buy the capability. This is enabled by accessible Web service technologies. But how do you do it?
Building a Next Gen Media Supply Chain: Avoiding the Pitfalls
Designing, building, and operating a workflow orchestration platform requires significant resources. It is easy to get started with cloud Web services and get potent results quickly. But to ensure that the cost of the solution is not more than the cost of the problem, the project needs to start with a broad analysis of the overall goals .
The somewhat overused analogy between a media supply chain and a production line is useful here: the cost of delivering the finished product must include the cost of building and maintaining the conveyor belt.
PILOT Media: The Drag & Drop Workflow Builder
Our industry has suffered with some high-profile media management projects having suboptimal outcomes. PILOT Media was developed in response to these. The goal is for operations responsible for delivering on media supply to benefit from rapid deployment and more workflows – on-prem, in the cloud or hybrid. And, importantly, without risk.
PILOT Media provides a “low-code / no-code” approach to workflow development through a self-service ‘drag and drop’ workflow builder. It enables media operations professionals to quickly access the benefits of modern APIs and cloud-based services without needing to write any software. The PILOT Media user interface provides a workflow blueprint development tool that removes the need for a software development function.
Connecting the workflow orchestration capability directly with the operational expertise shortens the capability development cycle and delivers focused outcomes, quickly. This is a code-free Rapid Application Development (RAD).
A common justification for self-build is that a workflow or operating model is specific to a given media organization, so “no off-the-shelf platform will meet our business needs.” Indeed, many of the functions and workflows may be particular to a given business model, but these tend to be nuances representing only a fraction of the overall workflow.
Some development work may be needed for specific integrations, such as connecting to a legacy system that holds useful data.
When there is no alternative but to develop additional functionality, PILOT Media supports hybrid models through a fully featured SDK. ATEME can also provide the professional services to develop the software. Our SDK is for the development of Widgets, so any new software that is developed will run in a PILOT Media workflow alongside PILOT Media’s own component. This is much more powerful than simply calling an API – it is effectively extending the capability of the core platform in a safe and supportable manner.
The Best of Both Worlds
So, even in cases where development is necessary, Pilot Media will get you to 80+% functional coverage off the shelf and close the gap with bespoke code that runs in a warrantied framework. Truly the best of both worlds.