Thread: How important a role does Architecture play in the media sector?

Being one of the architects on a service delivery platform for a telecommunications company that delivered both content in the forms of information, audio and video (live cable TV on a mobile phone), the role of architect was extremely important, particularly in selection of server related software to manage streaming, pay for content, subscriptions and billing, and the integration with the various backend systems.

In any IT application related solution, the role of architect is not merely someone who provides a technical view of things, but also acts as one that can communicate solutions to both business people and IT people (all the way through to infrastructure and networking). If a project is dealing with a complex environment, the architect is an absolute necessity as this bridge.

I have worked for a media buying company, not for the media production one. I can say that properly set mixture of Business and Technical architectures provide for enormous completive adventure. We were able to construct a semi-automated environment where manual processes were controlled by fully repeatable automated processes and services, which allowed creation of new combinations of media channel streams of advertisements in a matter of weeks (and IT delivered faster than Business). The key architecture was SOA with elements of BPM and EDA.

Hi,
Telecom Services and media are very "dynamic" domains in that the business requirements keep changing fast and the technology impact on the Business operations is very high. Hence IT systems i.e. BSS / OSS are very crucial and need to reflect the changing business models and the impacting market forces.
Also the IT requirements would also vary based on the type of the Service Provider, the market , the regulatory environment they operate in.
Hence the role of a Architect becomes all the more important - Solution Architect to really understand the business and really come up with a IT Landscape and IT strategy which complements the business strategy.
Enterprise and Data Architects who look at the overall system landscape and also draw the Integration strategy within and also outside of the enterprise.
all these roles are very crucial in telecom and Media CSPs
Regards,
Jagadish Baddukonda