Analysis: Private cloud practice of Beijing Network broadcasting and TV station

From the second half of 2013, the media and new media analysis. Is the traditional media a outworn or a bold change in the face of the new media, which is increasingly thriving through mobile interconnection and social networking? IPTV counterattack is the whole industry a solo show, but only small-tip angle? Chance, invited to Beijing TV station Suzhou Street site of the new media work base, and Beijing TV New Media Center deputy Director Chiu and Cloud software CEO Zhang Fubo talk about the Beijing Network radio and television station cloud platform practice, close observation of radio and television enterprises private Cloud project construction, experience and future development direction.

BRTN, take the initiative to embrace new media changes

Radio and television industry, the "Triple Network integration" (Broadcast network, telecommunications network and the integration of the Internet) will not be unfamiliar. But until the real advent of mobile interconnection and social times, traditional media have been mired in the throes of transformation.

Beijing Network Broadcast Television (BRTN) Live Room (upstairs for the operation team in real-time monitoring)

In the big exhibition Hall of the Beijing Network broadcast television station (BRTN), the reporter is very stunning to "bTV big media" app. According to the staff, BRTN has set up a project team with each television channel of Beijing TV station, joint operation of the channel Web page and the corresponding content distribution to the new media platform, has now formed "1 brands (BRTN) + 4 platforms (PC side, TV, micro-bo, mobile client) + 12 Product project Group" Operating mode. And Beijing iptv+ also upgraded, providing such as Custom theater, Youku zone, HiFi Cinema (5.1 surround sound, 3D), in-depth topics, karaoke, TV registration, education online, life services, such as personalized services. More interesting is, through the keyword real-time search, PC-side, TV, micro-blog, mobile client all content can be directly displayed, so that users can see live, on-demand and fragmented content of the program, and can fully express their views and participate in the program interaction.

The foundation of all this is Brtn Cloud Foundation support platform.

Chiu to reporters: from 2013 after the Spring Festival began Brtn Cloud Foundation support Platform (Private cloud project) deployment and implementation, only 3 months of time, completed the platform to build, successfully realized the original design. Currently, 32 blade servers, 1 fibre switches and EMC storage comprise a 30TB computing and storage resource pool. Before the old server is still running transcoding, fast coding and other applications, of which nearly 40% of the resources can be freely scheduled. Now, 5-10 operational staff can achieve the previous 50 people to maintain 200 server workload. In the "Spring Festival party" and "two reports", BRTN only 8 minutes to achieve the collection of user information, published users watch the behavior of the entire process of analysis report. "It was completely unthinkable before. ”

Architecture Design of Cloud Foundation support platform

The design concept and project overall structure of BRTN Cloud Foundation support platform can be clearly seen in the picture. which：

Beijing Network Radio and Television (BRTN) Cloud Foundation support Platform Architecture diagram

IaaS involves X86 servers, small machines, network resource pools, storage resource pools, Windows, Linux, Aix/hp-ux operating systems, and virtualization platforms such as Hyper-V, ESXi, XenServer, and KVM.

PAAs covers the two parts of the basic services of the IT infrastructure service in the broadcasting business. The former is. NET, MS, Oracle, MySQL, DB2,J2EE middleware websphere/weblogic. The latter has more industry-standardized attributes, management services, editorial services, scheduling services, process-driven, solicitation services, EMB, ESB, and so on.

The top tier is SaaS, including application modules, editing application modules, synthetic transcoding application modules, distribution and Migration application modules, search application modules and other applications.

And these three layers need seamless convergence of the foundation is the cloud Platform management system. Asset Management, backup management, monitoring management, user management and resource management, as well as automated process management, service flow management, and self service portals on this basis.

"Although this picture is now very clear, but 1 years ago, our hearts are vacant." Using the Cloud platform architecture, or the first time in the radio and television industry, we did a lot of work before planning. From the most basic physical architecture system, software architecture system to cloud management platform architecture system, only testing for six months time. We have also communicated with many foreign enterprises, the formation of foreign molding and display form are good, but personalized development and application scene adaptation is too much, in consideration of the subsequent custom development of service fees, is not the election. In the communication with international peers and international service providers, we have combed our own business form and clarified the direction of planning. Finally, we chose the sky Cloud software. This stage is very valuable, because as a large system engineering, each map, each link and details are very complex. To build a pool of computing resources, 3-4 system integrators are needed to collaborate. We never mature products began, and finally bit by bit polished into the present platform. ”

BRTN Cloud Foundation Support Platform is the first successful landing of cloud service model in the broadcasting industry. Through the Cloud Foundation support platform, BRTN now a variety of business resources, user resources, equipment resources can achieve unified management, the new service model will also provide business units and partners with efficient cloud services, not only enhance the management efficiency, in reducing energy consumption, save room space, and other comprehensive benefits also outstanding performance.

Heterogeneous virtualization integration is the biggest highlight of cloud platform

It is noteworthy that the BRTN Cloud Foundation support platform, including Hyper-V, ESXi, XenServer, KVM and other virtualization platform has been achieved unified management. This is not common in the spread of companies outside the Internet.

Operation and maintenance Team monitoring chart

When it comes to such choices, Chiu and cloud software CEO Zhang Fubo are deeply impressed. As we all know, the simple use of a virtualization technology, will inevitably be locked by the service provider, and there are security risks, and in the future upgrades and services, and so on, the initiative and the right to speak (upgrade service fees, etc.) are very few. If you can implement the heterogeneous management of multiple virtual technologies, such a referee's master control will not only better mobilize the underlying virtualization resources, including heterogeneous storage, network, servers, and can achieve unified management, and thus reduce the maintenance workload. The key is to cut costs substantially.

Although due to technical constraints, few companies have taken the initiative to do so. But Chiu and Sky cloud software are determined to work together to break through this difficulty. "It's not as difficult as it might seem. Brtn after months of groping, the integration and management of heterogeneous virtualization technology has been successfully implemented, which has provided the platform with strong delivery ability according to business matching model, which satisfies the elasticity (performance expansion), agile (efficient deployment) of business new system, and reduces the overall goal of online business deployment complexity.

When it comes to the difficulties of project implementation, Chiu believes that it comes mainly from two aspects. The first is the pool, not only for personal use of the pool, but also the application of the pool. The second is the cell. Combine application system with cloud platform. This requires the original business system to be redesigned and redesigned. For example, the quick weave, the original need to support 200-300 fast, but now need to make n units. Editors can simultaneously achieve two-and-a-and-subtitle editing through direct access to the notebook. Especially in the new media, more than 80% of the workload can be completed by the second and the subtitles, efficiency improved a lot. Again, for peak online can dynamically adjust resources, peak in the past, the system can automatically recover resources. At present, most of the applications are running on the virtual machine, even if there is a special application needs physical machine support, will be unified under the cloud Platform management.

BRTN Cloud Foundation support Platform, in essence, this is the radio and television private Cloud project. Users can request, obtain and view related resources through the web, which is a private cloud operating environment for internal users, and provides services for production systems in the radio and television industry. The benefits are clear that once-solidified business processes and resources become more flexible and available, and some resources will not be used by individual channels or programs, but as modules that can be invoked flexibly. Different modules are assembled into platforms that meet the vast majority of production business processes, such as revenue services, resource management, and transcoding scheduling, which can be quickly assembled and invoked by various applications.

"In the traditional mode, these services are loaded in different physical machines, a system, just IP revenue system, it takes half a day to be ready to come out, some of the temporary program needs, a longer time." And now, through the cloud platform, a few clicks, 20 minutes can be published successfully. The two sessions, but also let us deeply understand: the cloud platform to support the importance of business. Once a week in advance to prepare the broadcast environment, now 1-2 hours ready to complete. "In Chiu's view, today, maybe just set up a data center, but in the future, for radio and television application adaptation business, quickly match the resources to the business, and the business matching mode to do customized interactive function, rapid implementation of the radio and television services to the basic platform resources flexibility agile deployment needs, such as editorial service, scheduling services, process services, transcoding services, distribution migration, source management, user management, monitoring management, asset backup and so on. And then, on the basis of the built Infrastructure resource Platform (IaaS), we provide PAAs and SaaS services through automated processes that ultimately enable the unified deployment of resources, unified operations, and unified operation and maintenance.

Next stage, large data analysis

From the point of view of technology and application, the BRTN Cloud Foundation support Platform is more implementation of IaaS. And in the future, BRTN cloud strategic planning direction is what?

Real-time data collection wall for PC end, TV, micro-blog and mobile Client

Q: To achieve the integration of three networks in real-time analysis of data, calculation and storage requirements, storage levels and time rules?

Chiu: This is the 2014 planning project. The cloud platform is the underlying resource and the implementation platform for unified management, but on top of that, there will be countless applications. One project is a large data analysis system based on the cloud platform. Including data mining and analysis, cloud storage, system gathered into services. What we need to do is to store the interactive information of 4 platforms (microblogs, micro-letters, web sites, and TVs) (even if it is not relevant to our business) and implement the analysis. The future of media development is essentially data. Only by establishing an effective large data service system can we guide enterprise development, change business model and provide accurate service through historical data.

Q: As a benchmark of cloud computing practices in the broadcasting industry, is it considered that private cloud products should be used as a service on the public cloud platform for more peers or businesses?

Chiu: Yes. See cloud computing and large data areas of the radio and television companies not only our family, Beijing has a lot of homes are doing. We are also discussing whether through the media technology architecture services to achieve resource integration and unified data management, so that more industry enterprises focus on how to make rich content, rather than invest more in the basic resources. Now, Beijing is already in the planning, believe that the implementation of the system is feasible. In the future, it depends on the overall change.

Q: Outside the private cloud, is the pattern of mixed clouds considered?

Chiu: The public cloud is suitable for different scenarios in different fields. In order to ensure absolute safety, traditional television uses closed systems. But we need more than one network, so it is an open system. Only on the live level, we are not migrating to the cloud. From the platform design point of view, we use the technology of redundant redundancy. Perhaps, the future on the coverage level will use some public cloud services.

Q: What plans have been made for future large data analysis?

Chiu: Large data level, not only technology, but also from the media development. Media, the new media, personalized services will gradually increase, although the broadcast in the recession, but the future will be roughly stable in half. The essential attribute of media is the need to interact directly with the user. Cloud + Large data is the direction of future media development.

Q: Sky Cloud has helped Brtn realize the unified management of cloud platform. What technologies will be involved in large data?

Zhang Fubo: There will be a combination of Hadoop and database, underlying underlying resources. Most of the traditional enterprises in the cloud have built their own application system based on the non cloud architecture. The most important thing now is to help them migrate to the cloud, especially the cloud of application and operations.

Written at the end:

Faced with the impact of new media, radio and television industry has taken the initiative to choose the integration and change. Perhaps in the eyes of internet companies, Beijing Network Radio and television station private cloud practice is only a small building, but "Trinidad, Bujikuibu," Brtn's practice for the same consideration from the non-cloud architecture to the cloud architecture of traditional enterprises, it is important. Especially in the application level of virtual technology.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)