Last month, in the first part of our blog series on the Power of the Cloud, we discussed the importance of evaluating your organization’s business needs before exploring any technology projects – especially cloud-based technology projects. Whether it’s growing your business by launching a new OTT service or streamlining your organization by bringing down geographical barriers, all projects must be based on well-defined, shared business goals.

An equally important task is to identify the right partner(s) for your project. While many technology vendors within the media industry use the word “cloud” in their marketing collateral, few of them actually possess all the key ingredients required to envision, architect, deploy and maintain such forward-looking, media management solutions in real life.

At Dalet, our approach to the cloud is unique – like your workflow. With a quarter century tradition of innovation at the intersection of media and IT technologies, we have developed rock-solid foundations:

• award-winning technology platforms for media management and operations based on the last IT technologies and featuring targeted, user-friendly applications to address all types of media workflow functions
   
• full-fledge professional serviceswith regional teams that count some of the best talents in the industry
   
• broad ecosystem of technology partners, especially for strategic infrastructure and cloud technologies
   
• long-term relationships with customers and vast, diversified experience in the broadcast & media industry 

Building on these foundations, we are monitoring trends and new technology developments in order to continuously adapt and, most importantly, always provide as much value as possible to our customers. That’s why, almost one year ago, we revealed the company’s long-term vision of the ever-evolving content supply chain: Dalet xN!

Re-architecting business solutions in the cloud with Dalet xN

Far beyond a simple replication of existing infrastructure and media workflow, Dalet xN solutions exploit the new business and technological possibilities brought about through the advancement of cloud, virtualization, dynamic scalability and hybrid on/off-premise deployments, expanding opportunities and increasing the effectiveness of the media economy.

While the concept of migrating a workflow or specific element of one’s workflow to the cloud or virtualized environment itself is not revolutionary, Dalet xN solutions go beyond this by extending and augmenting cloud and hybrid environments to provide a truly dynamic and flexible business infrastructure. Whereas today many organizations offer a specific service or product that often puts limits on the type of workflow you can implement, Dalet offerings can be tightly integrated or loosely coupled to fit a user’s specific workflow needs.

Dalet xN solutions give you the power to reimagine your operations and invent the future, at the right pace!

3 key concepts, 3 core values 

When it comes to developing world-class, cloud-based media management solutions, three fundamental concepts rapidly emerge: infrastructure, operations and business. Dalet xN was built from the ground up on the three following core values:

Agile infrastructure	NextGen operations	New business horizons

Through smart management of physical and virtual technology, Dalet xN solutions allow content owners, creators and distributors to easily respond to resource needs and dynamically scale workflows, or parts thereof, at will.

Accessible administration and user tools deliver the ease of use that users have come to expect from virtualized and cloud-based services and solutions.

Intuitive mobile apps and web-based user interfaces combined with robust automation and advanced metrics reporting give users more information and more freedom to be creative at every level of the business, from artistic tasks to business direction.

No longer do users need to be tied to their desk. With Dalet xN, they can be more mobile, more creative and more informed.

 
With the ability to scale an enterprise workflow or components of it up and down at will, Dalet xN allows content owners to not only react to their changing environments, but to also innovate the many ways they interact with their suppliers, users or audience.

By lowering the cost of the initial infrastructure investment required for new projects and project expansions, operators can explore new revenue streams and rethink the way they work in their own media supply chain, opening doors to new opportunities.

From standalone point solutions to tailored deployments

A key differentiator of Dalet xN is the breadth of the offering. From affordable, on-demand marketplace apps, to hybrid, standard image solutions and native, enterprise-wide tailored deployments, Dalet xN solutions suit all needs. The frosting on the cake? All of these are backed up with world-class professional services and global support.

1. Standalone, Marketplace Apps

Collaborating with Microsoft Azure and AWS Marketplace, Dalet develops packaged, targeted and pre-configured applications based on its technology platforms. On-demand, scalable, powerful and payable by the hour, the Dalet xN apps democratize specific media operations once only available to media professionals with high-end equipment. The first two apps available are based on the Dalet AmberFin media processing platform. Both xN Standards Converter and xN IMF Maker help streamline international distribution operations, with intuitive interfaces, simple settings and all the power behind AmberFin.

2. Hybrid, standard image solutions

These standard or specialized solutions allow our customers to make creative use of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to add flexibility to their operations by moving individual services to the cloud. The mindset is usually about taking a progressive approach by identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies that can be addressed with cloud technologies, while preserving existing investments. Coherent subsets of workflows are moved to the cloud but keep a tight connection to the on-premise system. Use cases include business continuity / disaster recovery, dematerialized ingest hubs, and temporary cloud-based newsrooms (see here).

3. Native, cloud-based tailored solution

The third type of solutions are native, enterprise- wide tailored deployments, where the mindset is to completely rethink operations. Here, entire workflows are developed and/or moved to the cloud. Customers frequently ask us to create media management platforms that are highly extendable in terms of new services that can be added into the workflow, as well as the ability to scale the infrastructure in terms of number of users and volume of content processing on any given day.

Let’s take a look behind the scenes!

Take a sneak peek into some Dalet xN solutions used by our customers:

Multi-location review and approval workflow for a major TV network
Dalet deployed an agile Media Asset Management (MAM) platform for a wide array of internal content sharing, documentation, review and approval, which importantly had to accommodate contributions from staff in multiple locations. The full system runs on Amazon Web Services.

International, fast turnaround workflow for a global content supplier
Dalet provided a very low-latency workflow for content ingest, review and distribution. Dalet AmberFin nodes on Amazon Web Services can be turned on and off on demand. Bursts in demand that require intensive computing can be managed by using business rules controlled by the customer, helping them decide when to increase or decrease the processing power.

Online publishing with complex editorial / workflow for a news outlet
To manage a mix of original and externally acquired content and to prepare, package and publish growing amounts of content to online video platforms, Dalet deployed a sophisticated MAM-driven production system on a fully hybrid infrastructure.

Robust, cloud-based media management workflow for a leading stock footage supplier
To support Clippn in the highly dynamic market place for stock footage, Dalet deployed a complete, end-to-end cloud-based media production and management system in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), enabling Clippn to be highly responsive and scale their infrastructure on demand. Having the solution entirely in the cloud was a must for Clippn to handle its numerous contributors and geographically dispersed workforce.

Want to elevate your media workflow to the cloud? Contact us and explore xn.dalet.com!