This is one in a series in which radio professionals from a range of backgrounds discuss how radio stations are using the cloud. It is excerpted from the free ebook “The Cloud Shines for Radio.
Ed Bukont is head of consulting firm E2 Technical Services & Solutions. He offers something of a cautious view about use of “the cloud” for radio workflows.
He agrees that it can lower capital costs and help you avoid the risk of obsolescence. Disadvantages might include less user control, possibly higher operating costs for bandwidth and issues with latency, storage and streaming.
“The ‘cloud’ is not an abstract. It is just somebody else’s computer and subject to the golden rule: He who has the data makes the rules,” he said.
“Content becomes data in the cloud. There is a cost to upload content and host applications; and then you have to download that content in some form. You upload a song and its metadata; that takes two instances of ingress and storage. When you play it back, it is likely going to three or more places as audio and metadata, so egress has six or more instances.
“The cost to ‘play back’ your content may exceed the cost to produce your content. Data centers are counting on the 24/7 rather intermittent on-demand nature of radio broadcast content egress as a profit center.”
How must radio engineers adapt, given increasing adoption of cloud technologies?
“I am not going to be popular for saying this. The term ‘radio” implies broadcast, and broadcast implies RF,” he replied.
“The cloud and the inevitable mesh of networks that connect content to consumer may involve RF (wireless) technologies, but those are broadcast technologies, per se. Radio engineers will control less of the RF capabilities going forward, even if there is a broadcast transmitter.”
[Related: “Cloud Technology Boosts ‘La Exitosa’“]
In his work as an integrator, he sees radio IT departments taking on aspects of broadcast and RF more often than he sees broadcast engineers taking on networked aspects.
“The most important skill now is to understand modern networks, as distinct from desktop applications — being conversant in their security, use of managed switches, higher-level protocols such as PIM Sparse and similar concerns. Learn the proper terms, their meaning, when to use them, when not to — how to not sound like a fool when you have a million-dollar project but you mention hub or switcher when you mean a Layer 2 or Layer 3 switch costing $17,000 and you need two of them plus a stacking harness. It matters just as much as knowing the difference between a 3CX15000A or D version of a tube.
“Knowing the pieces of a network, what they do, where they go, how to ask questions and get support are the challenges for a radio engineer to broadcast content. Increasingly, proper certification of the individual is necessary to get support or access to products.”
Best practices include hardware firewalls, multi-factor authentication and off-site backups.
“Know what not to fill in on an address. You don’t need a gateway or DNS address on most walled garden networks. Companies such as NetGear offer excellent extensive training for free on their products, and being networked, much of that information is common to the protocols being used, regardless of manufacturer. Take advantage of all the free network training and consider paying for some. Own the end of the network that you control.”
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