OWNZONES Changes the Media Supply Chain Game

Digital transformation trends within the current cloud-driven business landscape have caused a major shift toward cloud migration among companies and enterprises worldwide. Moving from physical servers onto a cloud-based infrastructure such as OWNZONES is no longer a mere advantage – it has become a vital need.

And for good reason.

The companies that opt for moving their databases in the cloud are provided with an architecture that is:

• More accessible
• More scalable
• More versatile
• More cost-effective

This is best presented in the study estimating that by the year 2020, 83% of all workflow within enterprise-level businesses will take place in the cloud. Naturally, CTOs of large media supply chain companies follow suit in order to stay ahead of the curve and initiate growth. By migrating their projects, media libraries, even entire infrastructures to the cloud, they are optimizing their server utilization and cutting costs.

This is especially true for the media supply chain industry. By moving to cloud-based solutions and platforms like Dan Goman’s OWNZONES, studios and other content processing and streaming companies are able to speed up their workflows, significantly reduce their Time to Market (TTM), cut both operating and capital expenditure, and thus inevitably boost their overall ROI.

Ownzones is a company that offers cloud-native solutions for studios that seek a powerful platform to help them manage, process, deliver and monetize their content quickly and efficiently.

Some of the most tangible and practical benefits of using a cloud-native solution like Ownzones include:

• Users can access their media anytime and anywhere
• Users have complete control over their data
• Full server scalability accounts for better optimized infrastructure and streamlined workflows which leads to a boost in productivity and creativity of each team member  
• The pay-as-you-go model allows for better cost optimization
• Top-tier security features, protection and certificates that come with public cloud providers eliminate the need for manual security maintenance
• More reliable Quality Control due to automation and AI utilization    
• All time-consuming and complex maintenance tasks are obviated (including server update/upgrade, software upgrade/update, etc)

 

Pivotal Pain Points with Physical Servers that OWNZONES Tackles   

Legacy servers, though still quite usable, feature several insurmountable pitfalls in terms of production, monetization, and globalization of media content. Studios with gargantuan on-prem video libraries packed with files that require processing are facing major efficiency, storage and workflow issues. The problems with low scalability and lack of accessibility of the physical server environment hinder frictionless and streamlined media processing, prolong delivery timeframes, slow down overall workflows, and make adapting to new formats more convoluted.

And then there’s also the notorious cost issue.

With legacy servers, there are massive CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) involved, resulting in studios having to pay substantial amounts of money upfront in order to keep up with their estimated peak workflows. The main problem is that these investments (that rarely go below seven digits) are inevitably being wasted on end-of-life on-prem systems that require incremental updates and physical upgrades every 3 to 5 years.

With Ownzones solutions, all these pitfalls are elegantly avoided.

 

OWNZONES’ Dynamically Scalable Cloud-Native Solutions

The company recognized all the aforementioned issues with on-prem servers and saw the opportunity to develop a scalable and cost-efficient cloud-native solution in order to help studios manage, deliver and monetize their media content via their versatile products like Connect and Discover.

By utilizing their platforms, media supply chain companies are able to:

• Easily and seamlessly migrate their databases and media libraries to the cloud
• Access, process and deliver their content with unparalleled speed
• Tackle globalization successfully  
• Streamline each tier of their workflow
• Shorten the TTM margin
• Effortlessly tackle globalization issues that physical servers have
• Reduce CAPEX and OPEX costs
• Increase their ROI

With their next-generation platform that is based on cluster technology, Ownzones makes sure all the software pieces work in unity to form a self-preserving utility-hive that is able to store, process, scale and deliver content of any type and size.

Here are some more tangible key advantages that come along with this type of technology:  

Reduced Processing Time due to IMF Utilization – One of the most pertinent aspects of OWNZONES future-proof services is their IMF (Interoperable Mastering Format) utilization within their component-based workflow. IMF allows for a much faster creation of different content versions, while it also provides users with a significant reduction in storage needs. Within the on-prem environment, studios typically need up to several hours to produce and process media files, while with a cloud-native platform and IMF, this task can be reduced to mere minutes.

Below is an on-prem VS Ownzones use case depicting numbers for the processing of 1000 titles:

 

17x Shorter TTM – Since Time to Market directly influences how quickly a company would generate revenue, the opportunity to make a product available faster can make all the difference. This is where streamlined workflow and automated QC come into play. With cloud-native technology, TTM can be reduced from 8-12 weeks (for on-prem servers) to 3-5 days.  

Horizontal Scalability – Unlike their physical predecessors, dynamic cloud-based servers are horizontally scalable. This means that Ownzones platform is optimizing the number of server instances that are being leveraged for a particular project, thus making sure their client isn’t overpaying for the servers.

Easier Updates, Upgrades, Security and Maintenance – Within cloud-based platforms, the company is always running the freshly updated and optimized version of the software. This eliminates the need for manual maintenance in terms of updates and standardizing security layers. With public cloud operators like AWS, Azure, Microsoft and Google Cloud, companies and studios can comfortably rely on built-in security mechanisms, which completely shifts the entire workflow paradigm and streamlines system performance and financial management.

 

OWNZONES Partners and Clients

Dan Goman and his team make sure their customers are getting a top-tier media management utility by joining forces with leading brands within the media supply chain industry, that currently include: AWS, Netflix, Microsoft, Dolby, GrayMeta, Virtual Post, Fotokem, etc.   

But perhaps the most vivid way to portray how Dan Goman’s Ownzones makes content management, processing and delivery easier for clients like MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer), 420TV and Magnolia Selects is to check out what Jeff Cuban of Magnolia Selects had to say about their cost savings induced by utilizing the cloud-native platform: Ownzones’ Connect:

“With Connect, we are combining all of our assets into a final deliverable, and it’s happening in minutes. We are really excited about what they are doing. The cost savings are immense, it has reduced our costs by 40% in a lot of cases, which is significant. It is not cheap to deliver an asset, and when you deliver thousands like we do across subscription channels, across transactional platforms, in the aggregate and the sheer volume, it saves us a ton of money.”

 

Closing Statement  

We hope this article managed to at least give you a hint as to why the process of cloud enablement is so pertinent to the future of the media supply chain industry. Companies like Ownzones are approaching this notion from both standpoints – the one of service providers, but also closely examining the unique needs of their users.

This enables them to successfully tackle all the major bottlenecks of physical servers and come up with a future-proof cloud-native service that is pioneering new media supply chain standards and directly bending the curve other companies are trying to stay ahead of.