GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Cambridge Newcastle Edinburgh Oxford Glasgow Manchester Cardiff Soton London Belfast DL RL Hinxton

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October GridCast Using the Grid in Broadcast Infrastructures BBC Ron Perrott Queen’s University, Belfast Belfast e-Science Centre British Telecom

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October The Grid Scenario: The BBC Nations BBC NI, BBC Scotland and BBC Wales BBC Nations provide customised services in each nation Television programmes are distributed to BBC Nations from BBC Network (London) using dedicated leased ATM circuits.

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Grid Infrastructure Technical –High-bandwidth network connections inter- connect broadcast locations. –Network bandwidth means geography is less of an issue. Organisational –Less centralised

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Overview To develop a baseline media grid to support a broadcaster –Manage distributed collections of stored media –Prototype security and access mechanisms –Integrate processing and technical resources –Integrate with media standards and hardware To analyse Quality of Service issues –Analyse remote content distribution infrastructures –Analyse remote service provision –To analyse reactivity, reliability and resilience issues in a grid-based broadcast infrastructure

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Characteristics Stored media files are Gbytes and increasing –1 hour ~ 200 Gbytes; distributes 1 petabyte /year Management and distribution is significant technically Metadata – location, timings, artists, storage formats etc. is an integral part of broadcast structure Content is a valuable commodity – access, modification, copying must be controlled High levels of quality required

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October High level view of the Infrastructure

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Broadcasting Grid Services Each Broadcast site is defined by its collection of available services Control services Content services

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October A Virtualised Infrastructure

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Scenario A Network Schedule is defined –This schedule is the framework for Nation schedules Network Schedules are distributed to BBC Nations –Usually via BBC Nations formulate their schedule A Schedule is Broadcast –By programming local network and content control automation

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Model of Broadcast Automatic distribution of broadcast schedules –Management of schedule archives –Automatic notification Content is copied from archives to local content storage –Content distribution defined by schedule

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Broadcast grid issues Business change –A revised organisational model. Services and resources –Each broadcast location gains control….no network schedule. Resilience –Resource sharing and no single programme repository –A BBC Nation can be anywhere! Reliability –Use resources available in other BBC sites or from 3 rd party suppliers Cost –Better use of resources and less need for backup resources –Less dependence on particular vendors or suppliers Customisation –Schedule, local resources, local capabilities Interoperability –Business model facilitates sharing with other broadcasters

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Broadcast Schedule Services Services to control the exchange and modification of schedules Management of a distributed collections of broadcast schedules Services to plan transport of content between sites Services to deliver stored media to local sites Services to manage collections of stored media Services to distributed content to facilitate resilience Services to prepare content for broadcasting

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Progress Assessment Software Development Good experience of GT3 Understanding of grid service model GT3 shifting sands has been good and bad Network Infrastructure –Essential network infrastructure in place BBCNI---BeSC link in place Janet link complete soon

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Model: Grid Service Operation A schedule is registered with schedule (network) management service Schedule is automatically distributed to (nation) schedule management –Local controller receives notification of schedule availability Nation Controller registers (nation) schedule with local schedule management Transport services develop a transport plan for content movement Scheduled transport service moves content as defined in transport plan

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Grid Service Operation Index services track grid sites and available services Discovery services locate available copies of broadcast content –Services for nearest, or least busy or … Discovery services identify best transport service to use –Cross mounted file systems, 3 rd party or ftp-type transport. Transport services move work flows associated with content –The necessary operation(s) when content is delivered

GridCastUK-Japan N+N October Grid Service Operation Transport planner incorporates a model of network load –High cost at peak times and low cost at off-peak –Other models in development Content archives are managed as replica archives –Content locations are tracked….content can be withdrawn Content archives permit automatic replication –For resilience and/or QoS Public and private services facilitate operation with public and private networks –Co-ordinating security policies with internal BBC policies