MAY, 15, 2017 – Brain4Net, an innovative SDN/NFV based solutions vendor, today announced the advanced B4N SDN Fabric for Media. The solution ensures staged broadcast media networks modernization, transition to Ethernet technologies for multimedia traffic transport and SDN-based network infrastructure orchestration.
B4N SDN Fabric for Media is a comprehensive solution for television broadcasters, professional media studios and channels which provides enhanced scalability, increased productivity and reduced media infrastructure cost of ownership, as well as access to new attractive service-oriented models. Additionally, B4N SDN Fabric for Media is compatible with a variety of hardware equipment by different vendors to ensure optimized budget and avoid vendor lock-in.
“TV broadcasters, channels and professional video producers experience great demand in new generation solutions that add cost-effectiveness, flexibility and uncompromised productivity to uncompressed video processing in real time”, said Oleg Schapov, CEO of Brain4Net. “B4N SDN Fabric for Media is a comprehensive solution, which enables staged transition to service-oriented media network infrastructure and virtualized technical functionality as well as significant cost reduction of video content production.”
The first major release of B4N SDN Fabric for Media provides the following functionality:
- Broadcast media network topology with automatic on-boarding of switches and port configurations for IP-cameras and receivers
- Visualization of network infrastructure, streams and link load
- Seamless flow switching by using B4N Controller to control traffic flows with one click
- Adding sources/receivers and visualization of switching table
- Traffic load balancing and reservation
- Media gateway management from an administrator’s PC
The increasing speeds supported by ethernet and network throughout has
paved the way for the use of IP/ethernet to transport critical broadcast applications in a cost-effective manner, while delivering the same robust stability of legacy SDI routers. Utilization of ethernet switches and SDN technology streamlines the orchestration of broadcast streams, enhances infrastructure flexibility and allows quick adoption to new 4K-UHD formats.
From a technical perspective, B4N SDN Fabric for Media allows a smooth transition from classic SDI (Serial Digital Interface) based network architectures to modern service oriented IP/Ethernet and SDN based infrastructure.
B4N SDN Fabric for Media includes the following components:
– Bare-metal switches with up to 100GB/s per-port bandwidth capacity
– B4N Controller, B4N Service Platform component, which is in charge of video traffic streams orchestration (from video traffic sources (IP-cameras) to receiver)
– Traffic switching goes through several stages and relies on SDP (Session Description Protocol), necessary bandwidth and quality of service (QoS).
The specific service within the solution provides seamless switching of the encapsulated (IP / RTP) streams in accordance with the existing ST 2022-6, ST 2022-7, AES67, TR-4 and advanced ST 2110, TR-03, NMOS-DRS standards. The service uses AMWA (Advanced Media Workflow Association) and NMOS specification (Networked Media Open Specifications) compliant models. B4N SDN Fabric for Media also provides a possibility for native integration with media gateways that are sources of PTPv2 (Precision Time Protocol v2) time synchronization, and the integration of the transport network with virtual media content processing services.