Abstract— The Media and Entertainment industry is in the midst of rapid evolution as movie studios and broadcast television productions move away from traditional analog formats to digital. Rapid advancements in display resolution and file formats such as 4k, Ultra High Definition, and High Frame Rate filming are placing additional stress on I.T. systems and increasing the demand for storage and network bandwidth. While many media organizations are already leveraging Internet technologies in their day -to- day operations, this paper will present concepts to improve the media creation process, creative collaboration, efficiency, and security via traditional network technologies, as well as newer advancements in cloud computing and software defined networking.

I. INTRODUCTION n December 2013, Paramount Studios announced that “Anchorman 2” would be the last movie

Paramount would release for traditional 35mm film distribution. This was promptly followed by the release of “Wolf of Wall Street” in digital format only. Other major studios such as 20th Century Fox and Disney have made similar announcements concerning all digital distribution models for future releases.1 While this was a historic moment for the Media Industry, digital distribution is only one avenue fueling the increasing need for network bandwidth and storage. As the creative process moves from 2K to 4K, and eventually 8K, the media industry will outpace the abilities of traditional storage mediums to deliver content in a timely manner and become economically untenable in traditional CAPEX models. A 2013 Coughlin Associates report surveyed SMPTE and HPA members on current and future storage needs for digital productions, highlight this explosive growth in storage.2 • Several petabytes of storage may be required for a

complete stereoscopic digital movie project at 4K resolution, and there is some production work as high as 8K.

• Within 10 years we could see close to an Exabytes of content created in a single major movie project

• Storage in remote “clouds” is playing an increasing role in enabling collaborative workflows.

• Between 2013 and 2018 we expect about a 5.8 X increase in the required digital storage capacity used in the entertainment industry

• Active archiving will drive increased use of HDD storage for “archiving” applications supplementing tape for long term archives

Film Length 2K 4K 8K 1 minute 14GB 28GB 71GB 5 minutes 71GB 143GB 358GB 60 minutes 859GB 1.7TB 4.3TB Required storage as resolution increases -12 bit color 24fps RGB 4:4:4 Creative collaboration is a key component across theatrical and television productions often, involving multiple geographical locations, artists and vendors. Regional and International tax credits continue to geographically disperse filming locations making working with these large data sets in a timely manner extremely difficult. This often results in manual intervention and movement of physical assets e.g. disk and tape.

II. MEDIA NETWORK EXCHANGE & GLOBAL MEDIA ON-RAMPS

Internet Service Providers (ISP) and Network Carriers have been leveraging regional network peer points to exchange traffic since the early 1990’s. This allowed for the rapid scaling of the Internet and providers to facilitate the movement of web content across networks owned by another carrier or ISP. As these regional peer points grew in size, they began to give the Internet a physical location due to the aggregation of fiber optic cabling, service providers, and network traffic. Today, Equinix is North America’s largest network peering provider, with key locations in Ashburn, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and New York. Equinix also maintains a substantial global footprint, with peer locations across Europe and Asia.

Media Network Exchange Concept Jason Banks – 2/11/2014

I

Cloud service providers are following a deployment pattern similar to the early network exchange points. With the major Internet Exchange Points (IXP) becoming the crossroads of cloud services, network providers, content producers, and content consumers. A July 2014 Gigaom article highlighted these trends in location aware cloud services, in order to address client concerns over user latency, data protection, and redundancy.3

These same network and cloud intersection points are becoming increasingly important to the entertainment industry as productions chase tax breaks in various locations and seek to leverage cloud services to reduce cost. Overlaying the current map of production film credits, we discover that many key shooting locations are within 1,000 kilometers of a major IXP, as well as the larger public cloud providers, such as AWS, Google, MS Azure, and Rackspace.

Tax breaks in relationship to major Equinix IXPs Media and entertainment can apply the same principals used in traditional network peering relationships to establish an ecosystem that facilitates the creative process and reduces data movements. Many of these regional locations already have substantial infrastructure in place to facilitate the uploading of data to vital co-location and network exchange points.

Additionally Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is reshaping how metro Ethernet and WAN services are delivered. With many providers developing methods to deliver metered, on-demand, elastic network services similar to the current cloud model.4 Teaming these advancements in a content-peered ecosystem made up of content producers and vendors will offer flexible network options bound by less restrictive network services contracts at a reduced cost, opposed to traditional year or multi-year network services contracts in shoot locations that are only used for a few weeks a year. Location Studios Exchange

L.A. U.S. West

6 Majors + L.A. Silicon Valley

New York U.S. East

Silver Cup, Steiner, Kaufman, Broadway Stages

Ashburn New York Chicago

U.S. South Pinewood, Raleigh Studios, Millennium

Ashburn Dallas

Canada Toronto and Montreal New York Ashburn Chicago

Major North America Studios in relation to closest Equinix IXP Advantages of Network and Entertainment Exchange • Optimal locations to take advantage of cloud

services • Optimal locations for remote work over PCoIP • Large ecosystem of services including network

providers, CDN, cloud vendors, and social networks

• Ability to bypass carriers and peer directly to the global Internet, opposed to purchasing point to point circuits

• Leverage IXP footprint for bulk data transfer between regional locations using the Internet

• Leverage cloud vendor networks to move content via locations and regions

• Potential to use secure federate storage to ease data movements between co-located partners and vendors

• As SDN evolves, underlying transport will become more data aware and networks more content aware

• Carrier neutral data centers and Internet Exchange Points (flexibility for studios and their vendors to garner services suited to business requirements)

III. REDUCING DATA MOVEMENTS & LEVERAGING CLOUD SERVICES

Growing data sets will require compute and storage to be co-located and accessible via low latency network connectivity over the WAN. Every 1,000km of distance will add approximately 5ms of additional network latency. Transferring data to and from cloud services will add additional network overhead as traffic passes through additional network devices to reach cloud storage. Teradici developed the PC-over-IP (PCoIP) protocol in 2008; the protocol provides lossless compression of video and sound over the WAN and has become one of the primary tools for remote desktops and artist workstations. Network latency has a direct impact on PCoIP’s ability to deliver seamless playback of audio, video and pixel level artistry. Research by video card manufactures have shown the ideal level of WAN latency is between 0 – 30ms.5 Remote workstations for visual artists will become the norm, as companies seek to maintain the control and security of theatrical IP and reduce the movement of large data sets. Industrial Light and Magic, for example, is already successfully applying these solutions between Los Angles, Silicon Valley, and Vancouver Canada.6 The ability to work remotely provides several advantages. • Reduce the need to move large data sets across the

WAN • Improves security by locking data to the content

owners data center and storage pools • Cost savings through using zero / thin clients

opposed to purchasing high-powered desktops for each artist

Network Latency

(ms)

Approximate Distance

(km)

User Experience

0-30 0 - 1500 Perception free 40-60 1500 - 2500 Minimal latency

60-100 2500 - 5000 Sluggish mouse; poor audio

> 100 > 5000 Visual slowness; audio dropout

Latency effects on PCoIP traffic Remote artist workstations are only one potential use case. As cloud adoption accelerates, cloud bursting for rendering, applications for dailies review, VFX collaboration, and archiving will all require similar WAN performance. By building a WAN latency map around tax breaks locations

and cloud provider data centers, the same intersection points correspond with the previously identified regional Internet Exchange Points.

Courtesy of Equinix – AWS latency in relation to Equinix IXP Combining best in breed vendors, cloud services, federated storage, and software defined networking, new I.T. architectures can deliver traditional services more efficiently and in new ways. Cloud provider backbones can be utilized to transport data between different cloud regions as well as business locations. Current products such as Front Porch’s Digital Diva and Lynx Cloud can automatically cache and replicate data across facilities. Co-location and federated private cloud storage, fronted by digital access management systems like 5th Kind, can be used to secure and share limited datasets with content service providers, providing audit trails and allowing content owners to maintain control over critical IP. By leveraging best in class datacenter providers and regional Internet Exchange Points to deliver optimal performance and tie the ecosystem together, we can produce architectures that combine public and private

cloud services, facilitate remote work, and improve security.

Example architecture combing public and private clouds

IV. CONCULSION Production content is growing at extreme rates across the media industry. While this poses potential issues for the Media Industry in terms of cost, efficiencies, and security, many technologies already exist to mitigate or minimize the ramifications. Applying these advancements in new and creative ways will be a critical component for industry success. The content ecosystem based around a media exchange presented in this paper is one possible solution. It seeks to address current and future challenges not only through technology but also by understanding the economics and production complexities shaping the business environment.

REFERENCES 1. Verrier, R. (2014, January 18). Paramount stops releasing major movies on film. Retrieved October 1, 2014, from http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/18/entertainment/la-et-ct-paramount-end-to-film-20140118 2. Professional Media and Entertainment Drives Storage Growth (Forbes) http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2013/07/28/professional-media-and-entertainment-drives-storage-growth/ 3. The next big front for cloud competition: Location, location, location. (n.d.). Retrieved October 1, 2014, from https://gigaom.com/2014/07/26/the-next-big-front-for-cloud-competition-location-location-location/ 4. The Metro Ethernet Forum Tackles the NaaS Challenge https://www.sdncentral.com/news/metro-ethernet-forum-tackles-naas-challenge/2014/09/ 5. Teradici IML case study http://www.teradici.com/docs/default-source/resources/case-studies/cs_industrial-light-amp-magic-final-7-14-14.pdf 6. EVGA PCoIP User Guide http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/PCoIP_User_Guide.pdf