Cloud computing is proving to be an essential part of modern business infrastructure, outpacing the performance of legacy systems.
Need convincing? In a recent survey, a massive 68% of enterprise respondents said that their company was already using the cloud today, while a further 27% said it was part of their future plans. Of those businesses using public cloud infrastructure, 47% are using it ‘extensively’ for production purposes, while 38% cite ‘moderate’ use, and 15% ‘limited’ usage.
The cloud is influencing a wide array of verticals too, including how companies manage, secure and share high-resolution video content.
Legacy challenges resolved
Before modern cloud infrastructure, video presented an awkward paradox — large, cumbersome files that (once edited) needed to be delivered seamlessly and in as close to real time as possible. If that sounds impossible, it often was. Even large media organisations struggled to deploy competent internal management tools, as dumping terabytes of video files into existing Content Management Systems usually resulted in acute bottlenecking and network congestion.
Then came the difficulty of content server management, where a sudden string of viral video successes can rocket server demand from near zero to millions of concurrent users demanding multi-megabyte streams immediately.
Media management made easy
However, by using a cloud-based media management platform, most of these logistical challenges can be quickly overcome. Referencing video files in the cloud via an API is simple enough, so video can be smoothly integrated into internal production mechanisms, but without massive network bandwidth requirements.
In addition, sharing video content between globally-distributed internal departments is now a matter of forwarding a secure text link, not a multi-gigabyte folder. There is no chance of running out of storage space or delivery bandwidth in a cloud environment either, so the days of frantically phoning IT to spin up another server instance are long gone.
Standards to live by
Standards will always be a concern for enterprises, whether from a pure interoperability point of view, or from a data security and privacy standpoint. So, it is essential that transparent policies and underlying technical standards are in place for due diligence purposes.
Compliance with globally recognised standards, such as ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 (both of which Imagen is proud to hold) have been instrumental in overcoming adoption barriers for cloud services in general, and video cloud solutions in particular.
Policy policing made easy
While data privacy and security expectations have also been significantly upgraded in Europe by the implementation of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the fact is that expectations around the handling of personal data have been on the rise for some time.
Best practice safeguarding around video footage of children, for example, is no longer an option. It relies on effective tagging and referencing of content at a very granular level, a challenge that is significantly harder if it is not centrally enforced by robust and transparent policies. Creating and enforcing such granular policies is much easier in a centralised cloud environment than in a variety of workflows scattered across multiple jurisdictions.
You can read more about the challenges of video compliance and security here.
Evolution not revolution – Cloud is here to stay
Overall, the increasing adoption of cloud workflows has already changed media management significantly, and for the better — especially for those on the production side.
A media management platform like Imagen can help ease the load. Easier file and policy management frees up production and creative staff to work more effectively and to make the most of their core skill sets, rather than have their creativity hindered by admin tasks or network shortcomings. While this journey into the cloud is certain to evolve, it’s equally certain that this media genie is not going back into the bottle.
Interested to find out how a media management system provides a single repository for storing and managing video and multi-media files?
In a world that’s generating more than 25 quintillion bytes of data every day, manually managing digital assets is an outmoded and inefficient practice. Moving to a powerful media management platform as part of a digital transformation initiative can improve the way you work, streamline workflows and deliver additional revenue.
