Media leader Globo uses Red Hat OpenShift for high-performance infrastructure

Globo, the largest media company in Latin America, sought to unify its diverse digital content teams with centralized data access and improved integration. Using Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated, a managed container platform, and Red Hat Fuse integration technology, Globo created a high-performance, flexible infrastructure platform for its many businesses. With this new solution, the company has reduced management time and costs while improving data processing and delivery speeds.

Benefits:

• Reduced IT management time and cost with managed, hosted solution
• Enhanced integration with standardized information delivery
• Achieved scalable capacity to process 85,000 messages per hour
• Maximized return on investment (ROI) with expert technical guidance

Globo is the largest media business in Latin America and one of the five largest media businesses in the world. Recently, the company began a unification project to combine the internal business organizations for its traditional and digital television products and services. This reorganization will help Globo support a broader range of experiences for customers.

Globo’s Enterprise Systems Integration team works to communicate with other business units in the company and supports content delivery, with a focus on improving integration between the company’s different departments and with other partners. This team faced a complex database and file exchange environment with point-to-point integration.

“We did not have a structured way of distributing information throughout the company. We needed to offer all departments a way to consume from different sources in a uniform way,” said Igor Almeida, Integration, Automation and Portals Manager, Globo. 

To reduce complexity, Globo sought to adopt a centralized application programming interface (API) and integration platform that could provide a core platform for governance of current and future integrations. To do this they used AMQ Broker.

After a request for proposal (RFP)  process with five vendors in 2016, Globo selected Red Hat Fuse, deployed in Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated, to create its cloud-native integration environment. 

“We needed an agile, robust solution to deliver rapid value for the business. Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated was perfect for our needs,” said Almeida. Red Hat Fuse, part of Red Hat Integration, is a distributed integration platform that connects everything from legacy systems and APIs to partner networks and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Red Hat OpenShift, an enterprise Kubernetes container platform, unifies IT operations on a complete platform spanning cloud and on-premise environments, including orchestration and management resources. OpenShift Dedicated, the high-availability managed version of Red Hat OpenShift, is operated and supported on private clusters by Red Hat. Globo’s new solution is deployed in Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“We thought that if we went with a traditional enterprise service bus solution, we would be doing the same thing we’ve always done, instead of moving forward and innovating,” said Almeida. “The option to handing over platform maintenance to Red Hat also attracted us, because a managed offering would reduce implementation and management effort.”

By starting with a simple model—setting up a VPN and release routes over Globo’s firewall—implementation of the new Red Hat solution was completed in around three months.

At the moment, the platform is used in several integrations between corporate systems, and is also being scaled for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and human capital management (HCM) with more than 500 new components.

Enhanced integration with standardized information delivery

Globo has used Red Hat Fuse and Red Hat OpenShift to automate and standardize information and content delivery across its teams and businesses, even when they use different platforms.

Using the Integrated Broadcast Management System (IBMS) as the default system for all the company’s channels has increased consumption of and its data exposure resources, and Red Hat OpenShift helps Globo provide consistent schedule and grid information and broadcast rights for its linear platforms, such as Globo channels and its Affiliates, Sportv, GloboNews, and other closed channels—in addition to digital platforms such as Telecine Play and Globoplay.

“Red Hat supports improved service governance and business organization. Rather than being owned by each department, corporate data is centralized for access through APIs and integration paths built with Red Hat Fuse,” said André Vilardo, Systems Architect and Integration Leader, Professional Service, Globo.

Improved data processing capacity with high-performance data streaming and microservices

With a cloud-native platform and robust integration capabilities, Globo has created a responsive, flexible environment for high-performance data streaming and microservices processing at larger scale.

Using Red Hat OpenShift to coordinate the flow of internal data—from programming grids and content rights to human resources and financial information—Globo can now transmit 85,000 messages per hour. More OpenShift nodes can be added to increase its CPU and memory capacity as more integrations and products are introduced.

Additionally, adoption of continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) and agile approaches has helped Globo complete 50 new deployments per week to enhance its data processing capabilities.

By adopting the managed, hosted version of Red Hat OpenShift, Globo did not need to hire new IT professionals to manage the platform or allocate resources from its infrastructure team. Current staff can remain focused on product delivery.

“The main strength of OpenShift Dedicated is the speed of deployment and platform adjustment. Red Hat has highly trained people who monitor our system 24 hours a day,” said Vilardo. 

To improve staff skills and take full advantage of its technology investment, Globo engaged a Red Hat Technical Account Manager (TAM). The Red Hat TAM offers expert insight into best practices and architectural changes for Globo’s specific needs and business challenges, letting Globo take advantage of their broad knowledge of cloud-native development, middleware, DevOps, integration, and more. The Red Hat TAM also helped organize workshops and test development for Globo’s teams with Red Hat system integrators.

“Our Red Hat Technical Account Manager shows ideal technical solutions to solve our challenges and helps us implement change to prepare for future work. Being so close from day one enables us to be on top of any issues,” said Almeida. “With this help directly from Red Hat, we can achieve a return on our investment much faster.”

To continue building on its success with cloud-native development, Globo is ready to add new services to its Red Hat OpenShift environment and take advantage of its high availability benefits.

“Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated gives us the flexibility to create, test, and deploy pipelines to provide high business value faster, while Fuse helps us connect anything quickly and easily. Together, the two are highly valuable tools for supporting our business goals,” said Almeida.