Sun's New Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture Speeds Time to Deployment and Lowers Risk for Media, Entertainment and Broadcast Companies

Sun's New Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture Speeds Time to Deployment and Lowers Risk for Media, Entertainment and Broadcast Companies

The global media and entertainment business faces great challenges from the digital revolution, as its entire product creation, distribution, and inventories systems all become completely converted from analog systems (tape, vinyl, celluloid) to digital media. While the industry overall traditionally resists technological change, the pressure for digital adoption is coming from the two extremes of the value chain: the content creators and end consumers. With the success stories of all-digital film production (e.g. Star Wars Episode 2 released in May 2002) and rabid consumer use of PC's and handheld digital devices to access and store digital content (primarily music and videos), it is inevitable that all content will eventually become digital. The large distribution and aggregation centers - the studios, networks, and cable operators - have shown the most resistance to this change. Importantly, they comprise the two largest winnable market segments for Sun: "Content Management" and "Digital Distribution." Without a dominant market leader at this time, there is an opportunity for Sun to become the leading platform for managing and distributing digital content.

Sun's new Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture was developed through a close collaboration with WGBH, the preeminent broadcast content provider in the PBS network, and several essential best in class media technology partners including Sony, Apple, Harris, Artesia, Grass Valley and Virage. This collaborative effort makes this solution a highly visible and viable alternative to competitive offerings, especially IBM's Digital Media Factory.

Sun is the only vendor to offer an end-to-end Reference Architecture for the Media, Entertainment and Broadcasting Industry that is tried, tested and tuned. Sun uses open interfaces and industry standard components so customers are not tied to an "all-Sun" system or "Sun-only" components. They are free to choose from a wide variety of applications and middleware that best meet their requirements.

The Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture provides a roadmap and fully tested system for media companies to use as they initiate plans to design and deploy the next generation digital media infrastructures that provide easy integration with existing IT and content computing environments. By deploying the Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture companies can more quickly and efficiently acquire, organize, distribute and reuse its valuable digital assets, allowing them to outperform competitors in speed to market and quality of delivery.

The Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture is based on the TEAMS suite of Digital Asset Management Software from Artesia Technologies, deployed on SPARC(R) processor/Solaris(TM) Operating System platform using Sun(TM) Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) architecture and other key technologies from Sun such as Sun MC and Sun Cluster 3.0 for high availability. Other ISV's include Harris Automation Solutions, Sony Electronics Inc., Telestream, Thomson Grass Valley and Virage, Inc.

The initial Reference Architecture is based on Sun Fire V480R, V280R servers and Sun StorEdge(TM) T3 arrays, however, it is anticipated that much larger systems will be utilized for production deployments. Like all Sun Reference Architectures, it is a tested, tuned and characterized architecture that allows customers to quickly build and deploy the required infrastructure using best in class components and proven architectural building blocks.

Sun's initial end-to-end Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture has been specifically developed for the Multimedia, Entertainment and Broadcasting Industry. Over time Sun intends to announce industry specific Digital Asset Management Reference Architectures for a number of other vertical industry segments.

Sun is the leading solution vendor in designing and delivering complete, proven architectures for specific applications which provide for increased revenue and TCO. No other vendor provides their customers with complete solutions which can be deployed as quickly and easily as Sun's Reference Architectures.

Because a standard architecture and deployment methodology for Digital Asset Management does not currently exist within the Multimedia, Entertainment and Broadcasting Industry, Sun's Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture offers companies a unique approach for realizing the benefits of Digital Asset Management in a short period of time and with minimal risk.

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