Starting an EC2 instance in AWS is rather simple, right? Just log in to the AWS Management Console, find the EC2 instance you need, and change the instance state to “running”. Behold, in less than a minute, you have successfully accessed your application… Then why would you need DataMiner to manage your EC2 instances?
Reality check 1: things aren’t always as easy as they seem
Let’s do a quick reality check: do you always remember your AWS account ID, IAM username, and password? OK, so you’re logged in. Now you’ve got to select the correct EC2 instance… but do you always know exactly which EC2 instance you need? Probably not. But once you’ve managed to select the right one, you can finally get started on the job!
Or can you? What about the (media) application you run on this instance? Likely you’ll need to change its configuration, for example, to let your multiviewer application on this EC2 instance know which IP streams to receive.
Another hurdle passed, but here’s the next one: how do you monitor everything once it’s all up and running? And who is going to stop the EC2 instance again when you don’t need your multiviewer anymore? Sure, you can stop the EC2 in the AWS console—I hope you remembered which EC2 instances are yours; it would be a shame to accidentally bring down your coworkers’ instances—and AWS will immediately stop charging you, which is great! However, can you guarantee that nobody else is still using the application running on the instance that you just stopped? In reality, people will often simply forget to turn cloud instances off again once they have finished their job.
So many questions, so many things to consider…
Reality check 2: you can always count on DataMiner
We know it’s a lot! But here’s a little secret: DataMiner enables you to pass these hurdles with ease: from making sure you use the right applications to automatically spinning down the applications when your production has ended.
Check out this use case demonstrating how DataMiner manages your AWS EC2 instances and configures your media applications for each instance.
Please note that you need to be logged in to access our use case: in the top-right corner of the screen, click LOG IN and authenticate yourself with your corporate email address.
Manage the complete life cycle of your events
But managing your EC2 compute capacity and cloud applications is just one of many examples that you will come across in an agile, virtualized and cloudified world.
Imagine you run a weekly live production in the public cloud, together with a few on-prem devices such as SDI-to-IP gateways (e.g. RIST, SRT, ZIXI) for the ground-to-cloud connectivity. A single EC2 instance won’t be enough, you will have to deal with multiple cloud instances to implement your vision mixer, audio console, GFX inserter, multiviewer, video servers, and all the rest.
With so many EC2 instances to keep track of, you really need to properly manage your cloud-based productions, which is easier said than done:
- To keep costs under control, you need to plan things ahead of time, making sure you have all resources available at the right time with the right configuration.
- You need tailored user interfaces for every team so that they can easily manage administrative data and book all resources.
- You also need an automation and orchestration engine that automates your workflows and processes and turns all cloud instances off again once your production has ended. In short, you need DataMiner!
In short, you need DataMiner! Check out how DataMiner Low-Code apps and the DataMiner Object Model (DOM) allow you to manage the complete life cycle of your events* and productions.
* Please note that you need to be logged in to access our use case: in the top-right corner of the screen, click LOG IN and authenticate yourself with your corporate email address.