A Platform for Constructing Distributed Asset Management Systems

Abstract

Television's transition to digital requires management of 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. It is unreasonable to assume that software vendors will give up control of their own asset management in favor of 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 Content Share Platform is to enable this collaboration. Neither a monolithic database nor an end-user asset management system, the platform is a set of active software components, called agents and brokers, that permit application software to include standardized data exchange interfaces. These present a layer of abstraction that allows multiple applications to share information about assets in a peer-to-peer environment without giving up control. This ultimately permits systems to grow as a facility grows and gives an organization the opportunity to expand with minimal architectural impact.