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Rhys Lewis, chief enterprise architect at the BBC, explains how it is addressing the constraints placed on collaboration by systems architecture

The distinctions between broadcast technology and IT are blurring. This convergence has countless repercussions for the UK’s national broadcaster, the BBC, not only for the format of its output but also for the design and integration of its internal systems.

In the long term, the corporation hopes, the convergence of broadcast media onto IP-based platforms will ease the flow of media around the organisation, and therefore promote collaboration. But there are a number of systems architecture hurdles preventing the full potential from being realised. Navigating these hurdles is one of the key responsibilities of the BBC’s Architecture Council, established last year.

According to Rhys Lewis, the council’s chairman, the absence of common metadata standards to describe media files is a serious constraint on the BBC’s ability to move media between systems. “The interfaces between media applications are very tricky, which makes the movement of files inefficient and prone to keying errors,” he explains.

The council is steering the metadata component of the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative, the project to replace tape-based systems with digital alternatives, to make sure that the adopted standards will not limit plans to integrate systems together in future.

A further example of an architectural initiative designed to promote collaboration is the move towards a ‘perimeterless’ approach to security. “At the moment, the internal network has a very solid firewall between us and the rest of the world,” explains Lewis. “As we move to a more collaborative working arrangement, both within the BBC and with partners such as independent producers, that firewall gets in the way.”

To address this, the council is examining ways to make each individual application authenticate the user, Lewis explains. “That has huge implications for some of the applications we run because they are just not built to do that. So our approach is to set the security standards now and migrate to them gradually, so that any future applications that we buy will conform to those standards.”

Another constraint on collaboration within the BBC’s media production organisation is the disparate nature of the production systems. “We have tended to put our equipment in operations rooms in different buildings rather than in a central data centre,” explains Lewis, adding that one reason for this is that “video in particular is very intensive in terms of networking.”

This is inefficient, however, and the council is examining how it might move systems into centralised data centres, a move that would allow it to reap the benefits of server virtualisation. “Not only would this help us create a more efficient BBC by cutting cost,” says Lewis, “but also a more collaborative BBC because when you join systems together you can share both media content and metadata much more easily.”

Worlds collide

As IT and broadcast systems converge, so too must the personnel with the skills to develop and maintain them. Broadcast engineers and software engineers are increasingly required to work together at the BBC, says Lewis, and a degree of cultural integration is often required: “They may all be technologists, but they do speak different languages and approach problems in very different ways.”

One culture clash concerns the reliability and long-term viability of systems, says Lewis. “In the broadcast world, we are used to developing systems for the long term,” he says. “In web development, you build the latest gee-whizz things into your website, but that means that the underlying infrastructure is building up in complexity, and because of that it can become less reliable. The challenge is to build more reliable web infrastructure, and part of that is reducing complexity.”

This convergence of skills, Lewis hopes, will give rise to a more versatile and sustainable technology function at the BBC in future. “Learning from each other has its challenges, but I think it will be productive in the longer term.”