A Platform for Constructing Distributed Asset Management Systems

Abstract

With television's transition to digital comes the requirement to manage a variety of distributed assets. A facility-wide management system must oversee these assets even if the creation and storage systems already include smaller-scale management tools. We believe that it is unreasonable to assume that software vendors will give up control over their own asset management in favor a completely centralized system. Therefore, the greatest chance of success is through tools that allow a variety of systems to collaborate. The objective of the ContentShare Platform is to enable this collaboration. Neither a monolithic database, nor an end-user asset management system, the ContentShare Platform is a set of active software components, called agents and brokers, that allows application software to include standardized data exchange interfaces. These interfaces present a layer of abstraction allowing multiple applications to share information about their assets, in a peer-to-peer environment, without giving up control. This ultimately permits systems to grow as a facility grows and allows an organization to expand with minimal architectural impact.