Nevion Publishes New Whitepaper

Nevion, a Sony Group Company, has published a new whitepaper exploring the different ways in which live media flows can be orchestrated in IP-based production facilities.

It explores the benefits and drawbacks of automated routing, and makes the case for media-aware SDN (Software Defined Networks) for all but the smallest networks to get the most from IP.

Orchestration of media flows, covering device and network control, is increasingly taking place in IP-based local area networks (LANs), where it is fundamental to maximise performance, efficiency and scalability.

The whitepaper assesses different orchestration approaches. For example, automatic routing (e.g. using on IGMP/PIM protocols) allows the network to decide itself how to route media flows. While this offers simplicity, it presents drawbacks in terms of managing bandwidth efficiency, speed of switching and security.
Instead, more organisations are adopting SDN routing, with an orchestration system making informed and media-aware routing decisions by maintaining a comprehensive view of the whole network topology and the IP media flows that operate across it.

The paper goes on to cover the many advantages of an SDN routing approach, which offers improved security, flexibility and centralised control, but this approach comes with its own considerations. This includes potential compatibility issues with legacy broadcast controllers, bandwidth management, network and service correlation and service assurance.

Alongside key considerations related to device orchestration, the paper also looks at the implications for media orchestration within IP live production infrastructure. Not all orchestration systems offer the same capabilities. For example, in a hybrid approach combining cloud and on-premises resources, orchestration and broadcast control technologies need to meet the challenge by routing media flows across ground and cloud.

www.nevion.com