[SatNews] Skyline Communications has announced that the company's flagship, next-generation, network management platform, DataMiner, has been deployed by Austrian Broadcast Services ORS to manage its advanced digital transmission head end, supported by Dimension Data, a leading global services and solutions provider.

ORS is a leading provider of broadcasting services in Austria, operating a state-of-the art DVB-T/DVB-T2 network, with distribution over satellite and cable. The cutting-edge DVB head end infrastructure encodes all incoming feeds and prepares the content for satellite and terrestrial distribution, including content protection via DVB-Simulcrypt. With the deployment of DataMiner, ORS is migrating its legacy NMS platform to the next generation of powerful end-to-end NMS technology that DataMiner embodies, providing a future-proof foundation for the management of its entire technology infrastructure. “ORS has selected products from different manufacturers to build the modern full-featured head end. DataMiner is already integrated with more than 4000 devices from over 450 different vendors, and is therefore unique in providing the freedom to broadcasters like ORS to choose the best-of-breed solution for each processing step in the service chain. By replacing the legacy NMS, they take away any restrictions in adding new technology and new products,” says Glenn D’Haene, Sales Director EMEA & APAC.
 
In this solution, the DataMiner Inventory and Asset Management component provisions the entire DVB head end, including video, audio and metadata, in a very dynamic manner. Furthermore, the ORS engineering and operational teams benefit from highly flexible views and user-defined control interfaces to monitor and control the infrastructure from an intuitive service perspective. Using off-the-shelf tools like Microsoft® Visio® for user interface design, and graphical editors for automation tasks, DataMiner gives ORS the freedom to configure the system to the needs of the broadcaster, without any custom software development. DataMiner is an off-the-shelf standard platform, currently deployed by more than 500 customers in over 100 countries worldwide, providing ORS with a very stable, proven and high-quality operational platform.

Using the DataMiner Inventory and Asset Management component, Dimension Data engineers designed and implemented the DVB data model and database structures. The data model represents all DVB data of transport streams, services and components to be broadcast via the specific distribution networks. Dimension Data also acted as a System Integrator throughout the entire project, including the setup and configuration of the DataMiner servers, the creation of elements in DataMiner representing all the devices in the head end, the monitoring visualization of these elements and their relations (by means of DataMiner visuals), the user interface design and implementation for control tasks such as provisioning of devices (by means of DataMiner visuals and the Inventory and Asset Management module), the development and implementation of DataMiner drivers and scripts to fulfill project-specific requirements such as scheduled and event-driven program switching as well as provisioning of head end devices. Finally, Dimension Data experts provided tailored trainings and documentation to the ORS engineering and operational teams.

Executive Comment

“Our system demands, amongst others, highly dynamic program switching, seamless bitrate adaptation of video that allows easy adding and removing of channels from the multiplex, PID replacement and synchronized audio component selections,” said Norbert Grill, CEO of ORS. “All changes in the service bouquet need to be executed without breaking any other service within the statistical multiplex, and of course without exceeding transmission bandwidth at any given moment in time. DataMiner guarantees a high quality of service to our customers, by implementing unprecedented consolidated and fully automated control of all equipment, transparently across all vendor boundaries, including sophisticated devices like Cisco’s DCM Digital Content Manager.”