Project Profile: BBC DMI – EM3 EM3...Additional Project Info The team delivering at the BBC is made up of IBM Interactive, Core AIS, Software Group, IBM India and a number of other

© 2009 IBM Corporation

Project Profile:BBC DMI – EM3


Business Context – how is TV/Radio made today?

Long-form (Documentaries, Dramas; i.e. not News/Sports) content is typically produced by many geographically disparate teams, using different technologies and methods of working.

The BBC is a great example, because it is big – 22,500 employees spread across the world and the UK.

At an individual process level, the technologies used are advanced/high-tech, but the entire process is not “glued” together – they are disconnected business processes.

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Digital Cameras& Storage

Emails & Spreadsheets,Storyboards

Digital tapesfrom the archive

Non-Linear, digital editing

systems on PCs

Horrible Java Apps& Written forms Transfer by F/W drive

to broadcast partners

Store on tapes and log in old & manky

Informix system


What is DMI?

The Digital Media Initiative is a transformation programme within the BBC to move it from a tape & analogue based distributed business to a fully digital and online one.

All users of the system will start to do this entire business process online, in a fully digital way.

They will access the system via a web/integrated interface and upload/download content as they need it.

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The product that the BBC are creating is called Fabric


Potted History

The BBC engaged their 10year IT outsource partner, Siemens to lead the programme delivery.

2 years in and lots of money spent (reported as ~£40m) there was a messy divorce and the BBC took the programme back in house

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IBM’s role in DMI

IBM had a few technologists working within the Siemens programme and IBM technologies had been chosen by Siemens and the BBC for the first instance of the DMI project.

The BBC approached IBM and asked us to take in house the Enterprise Archive component of the programme, labelled EM3, Enterprise Media & Metadata Management.

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Project Scope/Timeline

IBM has been engaged on EM3 since January 2010, currently planning to complete the project scope by September 2011.

The programme has issued 15 change requests to add additional elements of scope into the solution, all based on the same architecture.

The scope currently encompasses;– Archive

The ability to find and retrieve all the content that is in the BBC archive via a complex search system– Stock

The ability to search and manage the physical tapes that the BBC stores (all 6.7m of them!)– Loans

The ability to have a system managed process for loaning the above tapes to all the business units around the BBC– Publications

Searching and managing the publications (broadcasts) of the programmes stored in EM3– Contributor Management

Searching and managing the actors/directors/presenters etc. associated with the programmes.– Rights

Calculating the potential rights implications of using an asset in a particular territory– Production Reporting

Workflows to allow for reporting and form filling to occur online

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Solution Architecture

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The application

All of EM3 is accessed through the web browser, using a secure certificate

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The BBC’s complex taxonomy structure has been embedded within the system

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The publication records for the last 100 years have been migrated

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At live, web-browser quality clips can be previewed in the web interface for all items stored in the archive

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Metadata on many different aspects of the BBC’s archive is stored and accessible

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The BBC’s transmission history is captured and viewable

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Additional Project Info

The team delivering at the BBC is made up of IBM Interactive, Core AIS, Software Group, IBM India and a number of other countries

All development is taking place on the IBM Dev/Test cloud (8 environments of about 15 boxes)

The system integrates with a number of BBC existing IT systems, allowing information and data to flow between the existing legacy estate and new systems from Fabric

The Fabric system is a crucial pre-requisite for the BBC to move staff into the tapeless BBC North location in Salford, Manchester

Open Source and IBM Enterprise tooling has been used with each other

For the final release EM3 will be made available on the iPad for users in the tape warehouse

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Project Profile: BBC DMI – EM3 EM3...Additional Project Info The team delivering at the BBC is made up of IBM Interactive, Core AIS, Software Group, IBM India and a number of other