* Comcast Media Center challenged by slow transfer of large network files
In recent newsletters we’ve discussed the need to continually evolve the network in order to respond to changing business requirements. We are going to use the next several newsletters to discuss how two companies – Comcast Media Center and the Ball Corporation, a supplier of rigid metal and plastic packaging – are doing just that.
In recent newsletters (Why your network must constantly evolve: Part 1; Part 2) we’ve discussed the need to continually evolve the network in order to respond to changing business requirements. We are going to use the next several newsletters to discuss how two companies – Comcast Media Center and the Ball Corporation, a supplier of rigid metal and plastic packaging – are doing just that.
Last week Network World produced its first IT Roadmap conference of 2008, in Denver. Jim moderated two tracks, one on network management, automation and control, and the other on network and application optimization. As part of the second track, Jim interviewed two IT professionals – Jamie Batmanglidj, senior systems architect for Comcast’s Media Center, and Curt Hastings, director of enterprise architecture at Ball Corporation. Both had recently deployed network and application optimization products. The next two newsletters will focus on the conversation with Batmanglidj.
Batmanglidj stated that Comcast Media Center is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast and that its primary mission is to “ingest, manage and distribute content coming from companies such as HBO and Showtime.” Since Media Center is a central hub for content ingestion and distribution, it is required to get content in and out the company in a very efficient manner. One of its key business challenges was the need to accelerate the transfer of huge files, which ranged in size from between 8GB and 12GB and were taking too long to transfer.
Batmanglidj pointed out that within his organization geographical dispersion is a term used to apply only to disaster recovery or some well-funded R&D effort. That model, however, has evolved to include systems that span across a country or even around the world. In particular, Batmanglidj stated that application architecture has become a hotbed of virtualization and abstraction technologies that allow a system to manage workflows across a huge number of devices stretching around the globe. This means that in most cases the organization’s WAN is expected to perform similar to the organization’s LANs. The next newsletter will detail the functionality that Batmanglidj deployed in the WAN to respond to the changing business and application environment.
The next IT Roadmap conference will be in Chicago on April 2. Hopefully many of you will be able to attend.
