Media Data Centers

Production and Distribution for Content & Service Providers

February 2012
Chris Hayes, Solution Architect Cisco Web & Media Organization
Tom Ohanian Business Development Manager, USSP Media
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 Media Creation and Distribution Model

Creation/Contribution, Production, Distribution, Consumption
Media/Video Applied To Data Centers/Cloud
Media Requirements, DC Advantages, Media Pod Concept
Use Case: Production Media Data Center - Studio Workflow Model
Proof of Concept and Performance Testing
Media Data Centers for Video Service Providers

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Source/Create

Contribution

Production/Post
Syndication

Distribution & Service Provider

Consumption

Direct to Home (DTH)

Primary

Secondary

Home

IP
Over The Air (DTT)

Post Production

News Gathering

IP

IP

Network

Telco (Wireline)

IP
IP

Sport Events
Cable

IP

Studio-to-Studio

Video Data Center

Internet
AP/Gwy
Wireless

Production
Media Data Center

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Media Data Center

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Contribution

Primary
Distribution

Studio
Studio
Final
Studio

Common core network

requirements & designs

IP/MPLS
Core
Mobile
Studio

Secondary
Distribution

IP/MPLS
IP/MPLS
Core
Core

Fixed
Studio

IP/MPLS
IP/MPLS
Core
Core

Home
Network
Access
Network

DCM

VOD
content
distributing
to scale

Super
Head End
(x2)
DCM
VOD

International &
National Content
Insertion

2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

National
Content
Insertion

Super
Head End (x2)

VOD

VOD
DCM / VQE

Local
Content
Insertion

Head End
(x10s)

VSO
(x100s)

Home
x millions
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 Content Providers and Broadcast organizations have traditionally operated 2-3

IT Infrastructures:
IT Network: Dedicated to Enterprise IT Applications and Operations
Production Network: Dedicated to Digital Media Content Production
Delivery Network: (e.g. contribution, aggregation / distribution / syndication)

There is a developing trend to collapse and operate these on one infrastructure,

differentiated by services.

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What kind of serious problems have you experienced in your move to IT based
production systems?
Others
Project management issues
Software integration issues
Media management issues

Consolidate
Infrastructure and
management. IaaS
Model.

File format and interoperability issues

File transfer issues
IT Network and Infrastructure issues
None
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Source: European Broadcasting Union

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Strict Media Redundancy Models

Unique Interfaces to Media Sources

Satellite

Off-Air

High Bandwidth Network Loading

L2/L3 Fabric

A single blade or link failure can impact millions of customers

Critical applications may require duplicate Media Workflows
on fully redundant components (N+N model)
Geographically diverse and load balanced Media Workflows
Storage redundancy and backup model span geographies

IP Multicast from sources pushed deep into data center

Multi-Path connections to acquisition products (Satellite, Off-Air)
Source Redundancy based on application control plane and
Media analytics (ETR-290 specs)

Media Workflows generate persistent traffic (24/7)

Typical IT link oversubscription models (10:1) do not apply
QoS models must support high volume, low latency,
priority traffic over redundant paths
Media load dictates unified fabric and 10G switching links

Unique Media Storage Requirements

Virtual
Storage
Pools

Heavily weighted toward NFS/NAS models (10G and FCoE)

IOPS and BW much higher per blade than many IT apps
TB Storage requirements rapidly expanding with new content
sources, delivery profiles, and device formats
Storage spans Media Archive (NL-SAS), Workflows (SAS),
high capacity database (Flash), and Origin Stores (Blended)

Media Application Diversity

Media Cloud Service Models

CPU intensive Media apps consuming complete blades and

bare-metal installs are common
Media apps with high transaction rates or fast database
access are common
Multiple classes of computing required: high compute, dense
memory, high I/O, and virtualized workloads

Private cloud.
Hosted media services enablement (e.g. post, xcode, edit,)
Electronic/Service Fulfillment
TV Everywhere delivered by Video Service Providers,
Content Owners, and Media Companies
Service Orchestration, Multi-tenancy, Security core features

The Media Cloud provides a fundamental change in the way Video entertainment and
applications are delivered. The Cloud-Ready Media infrastructure applies the most
advanced Data Center technologies to enable new Media business models.
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Appliances
Purpose built appliances
perform high performance
Media processing
Limited appliance life span
Locked into specific vendor
Locked into appliance
capacity and performance
Limited flexibility and agility

Appliances in Racks

Blades in
Media Pods
Media Applications mapped
to blades in Media Pods
Increased agility and service
velocity thru replicated
Media Pods
Massive reduction in switches,
cabling and management
points
Support many Media
application vendors on a
single Unified Media Cloud
Operations improved thru
Service Profiles, SAN
Boot, Stateless Servers
Blades in Media Pods

Virtualization
Virtualized Media apps increase
efficiency, scale, and mobility
Take advantage of Moores Law,
increased application density
with more powerful blades,
better density per rack
Virtualized Apps easily
replicated to increase scale or
expand to new geographies
Service Velocity increased,
deploy virtualized Media Apps
across replicated Pods

Virtual Apps and

Infrastructure

Media Cloud
Tap the power of the
Media Cloud
Replicated Media Pods,
across National/Regional
footprint, deliver proven
performance
Dynamic scale based on
consumer demand thru
service orchestration
Data Center Interconnect
(DCI ) of Media Pods
B2B Media-as-a-Service,
multi-tenant data centers
Distributed Data Centers
and Media-as-a-Service

Media Cloud

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Comparing 150 Unit Encoder Systems

150 Unit Encoder System Appliance Model

Preliminary Calculations
Appliance versus UCS Bare Metal install

150 Encoder System UCS Blade Model

The UCS Value Proposition for

150 Units of Encoder Capacity

Media Pods
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

35% Less Rack Space

89% Less Cables Per Rack
92% Less Cables Per System
95% Less Switches
Only 1 Management Interface
Compute Density of Blades will improve
Virtualization will Yield Even More Savings

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Benefits
Unified Data Center Elements
Compute

Cisco UCS B-Series

Cisco UCS Manager

Low-risk standardized infrastructure supporting a

range of Media applications and environments
Highest possible data center density and efficiency
Application flexibility, business agility: scale out or up,
across managed resource pools
Foundational Building Block of the Media Cloud

Network

Cisco Nexus Family

Storage

Unified Storage
10 GE and FCoE
SAN/NAS Bundle

Features
Complete Data Center in a rack
Performance matched with Media applications
Multiple classes of computing and storage in a Pod
Centralized management: CiscoUCS Manager coupled
with EMC or NetApp storage managers

Shared infrastructure for wide range of

Media applications
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One scalable, virtualized, and secure architecture

One data center infrastructure to manage
Access
Network
vPC

Cisco Nexus 5548

Unified Access Switch supports

GE, Fibre Channel, and FCoE

Cisco UCS 6200

Fabric Interconnect

Wire-once Fabric Interconnect

vPC

Cisco B-Series
UCS 5108 Chassis

Unified
Computing
System

(2) 10GbE
with FCoE
per Fabric
Extender

Cisco UCS B200 M2

Blade Servers

Ether Channel
2 x10 GbE

Unified
Storage

2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Cisco UCS B250 M2

Blade Servers

Fibre Channel
over Ethernet
2 x 10G

Cisco UCS 2100

Fabric Extenders

Fully redundant server I/O,

backplane, and network
connections

EMC VNX 5500

Unified Storage

Unified Storage supports

both SAN and NAS,
and virtual resource pools

Ether Channel
2 x10 GbE

Fibre Channel
over Ethernet
2 x 10G

High performance Blades

support multiple classes of
computing and dense memory

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VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus
VMware vCenter Standard

Cisco Unified Fabric

2 Cisco Nexus 5548UP with fabric services
(per 3 Media Pod configurations)
2 Cisco Nexus 1000V

1Rack Data Center Solution

36 Westmere CPUs (218 cores)
2 TB server memory (up to 4 TB)
40-Gbps interconnect (4x 10 GE)
512-GB SSD storage cache
50 TB storage

1 Flexible Media Infrastructure

Cisco UCS Platform
2 Cisco UCS 6248UP Fabric Interconnect
3 Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis
4 Cisco UCS B-250 M2 plus VIC
16 Cisco UCS B-200 M2 plus VIC

EMC VNX-5500 Storage

VNX 600GB15K SAS Drives
VNX 2TB7.2K SAS Drives
4 10-Gbps IP interfaces
8 8-Gbps Fibre Channel interfaces
2 10-Gbps FCoE interfaces
2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Plus headroom for more servers and

storage capacity
Two classes of computing supporting
dense memory and general
virtualized workloads

Maximum Server Density

Massive Cable Reduction
Unified Storage
Accelerated Provisioning
Built for Multi-Tenancy
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Scale out with standard and proven configurations

Predictable and highly efficient

Capacity and performance
Floor space, power, and cooling

Or scale up within a single Media Pod

Benefits

Reduce effort for design, deployment, and testing

Reduce infrastructure deployment cycle time by up to 50%
Manage resource pools, not individual systems
Traditional Application Deployment

Deployment with Media Pod

and Virtualization

50% Deployment Time Savings

2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Balanced Computing
and
Storage

More Computing
and
Shared Storage

Less Computing
and
More Storage

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Rapid Expansion of Media Services with Stateless Servers and Unified Fabric
Single Point of Management
Support Many Customers on a
common Infrastructure

Unified Fabric

Data Center
Management
Analytics &
Session
Control

Content Mgt
& Entitlement

VoD
Adaptive
Transcoders
Packagers

Linear
Adaptive
Transcoders
Packagers

Linear
Adaptive
Transcoders
Packagers

Content Mgt &

Entitlement

Data Center
Management

Add VoD
Steaming
Service

Add Linear
Service,
Grow VoD
Service

Grow Linear
Service,
add formats
and devices

2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

(PC / Tablet )

3rd
Customer

Stateless Servers
Service Profiles
Virtualized Apps

Analytics &
Session
Control

VoD
Adaptive
Transcoders
Packagers

(PC / Tablet)

Unified Compute
2nd
Customer

Storage Array

Media
Services

Media
Services

Storage Array

Unified Storage

Scale Out PoDs for

Additional Customers

(PC / Tablet / Mobile)

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Production Media Data Center (PMDC)

Applying Scalable Computing, Virtualization, and Fast / Dense Networking

for Broadcast, Media & Entertainment

MSB 1by12 SPBC Oct 09

gahale - Australia

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 PMDC is a Cisco project that applied Datacenter technologies (i.e., media pod) to

a real world studio production workflow.

PMDC is an evolutional architectural platform that applies datacenter

technologies to greatly improve performance, operational efficiencies and

workflow flexibility for media production and distribution.
Designed to introduce the concept of scalable computing, fast / dense

networking, and optimized and virtualized media applications.

Designed as an open platform to support media-centric applications from third

parties.
Heterogeneous Shared Tier Storage
Centralized Media Platform Operation and Management
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Optimized
Workflows,
Locally Attached Storage
and Purpose
Built
Computing
Take
this
Environment

And
Apply
DC
Principles
Requirements
Acquisition

Production Workcenters
Hi-Res Editing
Stations

Camera
File Import

News

Media
Clients

Long Format

Sports

Distribution
VoD Publishing

MAM Client
Local
Storage

Local
Storage
Browse Viewing

Real Time
Stream Ingest

B-2-B
File Import

Local
Storage

Local
Storage

Real Time
Local
Storage

Browse Editing
EDL Creation

StreamPlayout

Web/Online
Publishing

Local
Storage

Local
Storage

Access

Most transfers occur inside

the MDC

IP Media
Ready

Nexus 7k

DC Network
Nexus
5k

MAM
MAM
3rd Party
Computing
Workflow /
Metadata
Relational
Database

Dataflow
Management

Multilevel
User/Group
Security

MAM
Essentials

MXF Metadata
Management

Check-in
Check-out
Media Assets

Media Services
Conforming

QualityControl

Local
Storage

Local
Storage

Rewrapping

Transcoding

Local
Storage

Local
Storage

Unified
Fabric

IP Media Ready
10 GE DC Core

MDS
VSAN

Consolidated
SAN

Storage Services
Partial Retrieve

HSM

Online Storage
File System
FS Protocol System
Unified
Computing
Directors
Gateway

Nearline Storage

Data Tape
Archiving Storage

3rd Party Storage

Media File
Movement

Cisco UCS-C
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Production Workcenters
Hi-Res Edit

Real Time
Stream Ingest

Partial Retrieve

Camera
File Import

HSM

File System
Directors

FS Protocol
Gateway

Conforming

QualityControl

Local
Storage

Local
Storage

Rewrapping

Transcoding

Local
Storage

Local
Storage

MAM
Metadata
Relational
Database

Workflow /
Dataflow
Management

Multilevel
User/Group
Security

MAM
Essentials

MXF Metadata
Management

Check-in
Check-out
Media Assets

2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

News

Sports

Long Format

Local
Storage

Offsite Svcs &

Distribution

Single Point of Management

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Asset
(Golden)

.DPX
1.6 TB

Ingest

Verify

Signiant

Validation

Policy

MD5 Hash

Secure

Transcode

Forensic

Storage

Distribute

Cisco CTM

Civolution

Media Suite

Signiant

Analyze

Fingerprint

File Mover

Policy

Secure

Encode

Distribution
Servicing
SPs
Aggregator
Fulfillment
etc

ESXi

ESXi

ESXi

ESXi

Isilon NAS
*1-to-1 App-Host-VM Relationship Illustration Purposes Only.

ESXi

VM1
Signiant Agent

Ingest Asset

Infrstrcr Dir

VM2
Validator

UCSM/SP (VM3)
Inlet Encode

Workflow Mgr

Distribution
SPs

FP

.DPX

VM4
Fingerprint

X1

VM5
File Mover

VM6
Signiant Agent
Wipe LUN
or Equiv
(Artifact Ctrl)

Compute MD5
Hash

1 to N parallel
Encode

Civolution
FP Ref File

Outbound
Servicing

D-JRE Mover

Storage Mgr

NearLine/Archive

DPX

DPX

DPX

X1

X1
FP

2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

NAS or SAN/LUN

FP

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Asset
(Golden)

.DPX
1.6 TB

Ingest

Verify

Signiant

Validation

Policy

MD5 Hash

Secure

Transcode

Forensic

Storage

Distribute

Cisco CTM

Civolution

Asset Mgr

Signiant

Encode

Fingerprint

File Mover

Policy

Secure

Worst Case Process Workflow Sequential, Single Processing (~19 hrs)

*Baseline Workflow Concurrent, Multi Processing (~12 hrs)
Best Tested Workflow Platform Optimizations (~10 hrs)
10G-Enabled Ingest WF (~6.5 hrs)

Isilon NAS

**Times are estimated for execution time comparison. Workflow execution times are sum of individual process times.

Distribution
Servicing
SPs
Aggregator
Fulfillment
etc

PMDC platform easily scales to execute concurrent workflows with the same efficiency as a single
workflow.
For this use case, 4 concurrent workflows could be executed within a single UCS-B chassis with
existing fabric. And the platform scales linearly.

Ingest
Ingest
Ingest
Ingest

Verify
Verify
Verify
Verify

Transcode
Transcode
Transcode
Transcode

Fingerprint
Fingerprint
Fingerprint
Fingerprint

.DPX
1.6 TB

Isilon NAS

Storage
Storage
Storage
Storage

Distribute
Distribute
Distribute
Distribute

Performance, Scalability, and Operational Agility

Repurpose infrastructure and re-apply resources in wire-once environment in less than ten

minutes.
Address server sprawl and over-provisioned and under-utilized resources.
Significantly improve workflow operations both in terms of scaling and processing time.
10G NAS performance rivaling SAN throughput performance.
Effective resource allocation, virtualization and parallel processing.
Operating systems may exhibit limitations utilizing 10G fabric.
Many media applications not yet architected to take full advantage of 10G infrastructures. And

40G is near.

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Cloud Media Service

PrimaryDistribution

Contribution

Secondary
Distribution

Studio
Studio
Final
Studio

Mobile
Studio

IP/MPLS
Core

Fixed
Studio

IP/MPLS
IP/MPLS
Core
Core
Multi-Tenancy DC:
Distribution,
Syndication, and
Service Partners

Home
Network
Access
Network

VOD
content
distributing
to scale
DCM

International &
National Content
Distribution &
Servicing

2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

VOD

National
Content
Insertion

Super
Head End (x2)

VOD

VOD
DCM / VQE

Local
Content
Insertion

Head End
(x10s)

VSO
(x100s)

Home
x millions
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We are Evolving Todays MPEG Headend to a More Powerful Media Data Center
that can deliver next-gen Video services and cloud-based apps
Virtualization
Realization of virtualization
technology benefits for media
workloads: Mobility, dynamic
resourcing, automation, redundancy

1
Secure TV Partition,
Modular Resources
using DC Workflows

Nexus 7000/Catalyst

Step 1: Establish the

Infrastructure Foundation

Media traffic mgt, L4-7

Services in the MDC

2
Virtualized
Management Apps,
add improved scale

Unified Computing
System
Standard based, stateless,
10GE integrated and
virtualization ready
computing platform
providing flexible and
efficient Videoscape
transcode hosting

Media Pod for

Adaptive Bit Rate &
Cloud applications
(PC, tablet, Mobile)

ASR-9K & CRS-1

DC-PE nodes for
IP NGN Hand-off

Nexus Family & MDS Family

10 GE Ethernet Network as the
platform for scalable and unified
ABR Media Pod workflow
infrastructure.

4
CDN supporting a
national footprint
for TV & ABR
Streaming

2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Centralized
Management
Actionable by
automation
layers through
open interfaces.
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 Content Providers and Service Providers are constantly evaluating their requirements to

implement the most efficient means of creating, transforming, and delivering content.
Ciscos scalable, on-demand computing resources, network architectures which expand from

10gE to 100gE, and application virtualization provides data center transformation for digital
media and TV Everywhere initiatives.
For more information, please see:www.ciscoknowledgenetwork.com
Our next Cisco Knowledge Network session will be held on:
March 28
Topic: Content Decision and Recommendation Solutions

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26

Thank you.