Creating NASDAQ’s Cloud-Based Virtual Workflow

Before I get into the meat of this article, I need to preface with a couple of comments. First, this is a case study about my own company’s solution for one of our major clients. I rarely write in these pages about my own clients and solutions, but when I learned that this edition was focusing on cloud-based workflows, I wanted to break my own tradition. 我要告诉你的故事是我在这个行业中经历过的最有趣的旅程之一, and it has direct relevance to this edition of the magazine.

Second, I wanted to comment on the term “cloud.“我很欣赏，在大众市场上，‘云’这个词已经成为一个通用的流行语，可以指任何在互联网上运行的东西. 同时, 在“创新者”圈子里, it is trendy at the moment to decry the word, opting instead for more specialized terms and definitions. I, too, have my own definition and understanding of the term. At the outset of this story, I thought cloud was a technical description. By the end of the 3 years this story spans, I have learned that in my estimation, 云实际上是关于所选择的架构可以为其最终所有者提供的服务和经济优势.

现在让我提供一些背景资料:网络广播是一种不断发展的技术，自从它首次出现以来，就在金融市场上找到了牵引力. 而大多数金融机构对他们的技术支出相当保守和深思熟虑, the spend made by their marketing and public relations (PR) teams on their own IT to manage their corporate communications has typically been more autonomous; it is seen as something that operates outside of the corporate firewall, 至少到主席的年度报告被广播到企业网络基础设施为止. 典型上市公司的IT主管和营销主管之间的这种内部紧张关系，经常导致谁有权使用公司网络的争论, 以及出于什么原因. The in-house AV teams are often thrown the ball to sort the problem out, and they often opt to outsource the webcast production service to their PR agencies, who subcontract professional webcast service providers.

在金融市场的网络直播服务提供商中，没有一家公司像我们一样，将自己定位得如此强大 纳斯达克OMX公司解决方案 (NASDAQ; for reference, NASDAQ OMX acquired the IR, PR, and Multimedia Solutions businesses of 汤森路透(Thomson Reuters), including its webcasting solution. With tens of thousands of live events held annually, 纳斯达克OMX公司解决方案是金融服务网络广播领域的800磅重的大猩猩，为其许多财富500强(和其他)客户提供公平的信息披露和投资者关系服务.

The Genesis of a Virtual Workflow

三年前, 在欧洲流媒体活动上，我与安德烈亚斯·海多廷(Andreas Heidoetting)进行了一次深夜谈话, global head of webcast technology, 谁对纳斯达克OMX企业解决方案网络广播基础设施负有一系列责任. 我们正在讨论运营其四个全球广播网络运营中心的各种工作流程, through which NASDAQ ran all its online events. We were thinking outside the box and focused on removing expensive, 大量手工操作的第三方编码呼叫捕获供应商(由于几年前收购了企业通信广播网络(CCBN)，对其产生了很大的依赖). Such a change could yield a potentially significant efficiency saving if we could deliver it.

本质上, the workflow was scaled to meet a peak demand, which NASDAQ hit on each quarterly reporting round, 此时，可能有数百个实时事件同时在整个平台上运行. However, generally the systems were running an average load nearly an order of magnitude lower. 整整一年, this meant a whole lot of expensive kit on standby and skilled operators who needed occupying.

头脑风暴会议发展成为一个最初的咨询项目，在这个项目中，我们分离出了无法在软件中模拟的关键技术, 相对来说比较少, and started talking about developing an entirely virtual workflow. 这很有吸引力, since you could launch such a workflow on a virtual platform, 在你需要的时候使用它, and then destroy it (getting rid of any maintenance and hosting cost).

之后，我和我的团队在 id3as (a professional services consultancy for streaming media), 我们为纳斯达克OMX公司解决方案(纳斯达克OMX公司解决方案)提供了一个可行的概念验证，该解决方案消除了对音频捕获接口的依赖，而音频捕获接口历来用于拨打分析师简报电话——这是他们网络广播的最大份额. 去掉这个之后, we had a workflow with internet protocol (IP) in and IP out; everything else was software-based.

We deployed this proof of concept on 亚马逊弹性计算云 (Amazon EC2), 虽然它很粗糙——因为整个过程都是通过远程桌面手动驱动的——但它证明了我们可以构建一个工作流来完成与数万个音频分析师简报相同的任务，这些简报是在现有的网络运营中心(NOC)内操作的。, without any requirement for physical servers, 电话线路, 或编码器.

Andreas had introduced Simon Ball, global head of webcast operations, 纳斯达克OMX公司解决方案, who was very engaged by this stage. 最终, there were a number of seeds germinating, and it was clear that by the time they came to fruition, 这里的机会是让noc退役，只支付它们使用的计算时间, with little or no underutilization.

We ran some spreadsheets, and the business case looked extremely attractive. While it would be inappropriate for me to discuss my client’s inner financials in this article, the cost savings were predicted in orders of magnitude.

拥有数百个编码器和管理计算机，运行在多个网络广播操作中心, ready and waiting for peak usage and yet normally 操作 at a small fraction of that capacity, meant underutilization was an expensive business. We subsequently changed that dynamic so that the only time any infrastructure was up, 操作, and costing money was when it was directly in use for client delivery and directly earning money.

不管它是如何完成的(我将在后面讨论该技术的一些关键方面)，无形系统的“云”会在需要时立即投入使用, 当它不再直接为企业赚钱时，它就被摧毁了(至少就拥有成本而言). 对我来说, 这就是云的意义所在:云应该真正指的是动态的经济和服务模型，而不是任何技术上的东西. It’s all about what it offers, not how it does it. 如果不首先提供经济/服务优势，任何以云计算提供的任何技术优势领先的人都将失去重点. Now that I have belabored that point, let us look at the relevant technology involved.

The Technology Behind the Workflow

那些正在管理工作流基础设施的人，比如纳斯达克OMX公司解决方案团队所操作的那些, and who are considering the cloud as a way forward, are probably itching to ask a few questions. While I can’t predict all of them and must be mindful of my client’s confidentialities, 以下是我们在去年的亚马逊开发者和流媒体会议上被问到的一些问题. 我将以此为基础，更深入地挖掘我公司的基础架构, id3as, 交付.

为什么选择亚马逊EC2?

In 2010, when we tested out the various public cloud operators that we were hoping to use, we had a mandate to ensure that the entire solution would be vendor-independent. 这意味着第一件重要的事情是，我们仅限于提供基础设施即服务(IaaS)的云提供商。. 在IaaS计算模型中, you pay for a virtual computer by the minute or hour and that’s it; it’s up to you to configure it to whatever application you require. This differs from what platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings such as Google apps or salesforce.Com可以提供, 你在哪里购买一系列预先配置的应用程序的访问权限，并且你适合他们的工作流程. IaaS也不同于软件即服务(SaaS)平台，如Amazon CloudFront或简单存储服务(S3)网络, which perform specific software functions that you can integrate into your own applications.