VRT: public broadcaster for radio and television
VRT - the public broadcaster for radio and television in Flanders - needs little introduction. They provide high-quality offerings in the information, culture, education and entertainment sectors. This both on radio, television and online.
VRT has abroad brand portfolio for which it is autonomously responsible. Each brand is tailored to a specific target audience: VRT, Canvas, Ketnet, VRT NWS, Sporza, Radio 1, Radio 2, Studio Brussel, MNM, Klara, and VRT max.
Web application to send music to VRT
In need of a uniform way to receive music.
Musicians and record companies can submit music to VRT. In this way, they ensure that VRT plays it on one of its channels. However, there was not yet a uniform system for delivering that music. The result? Music was being sent to VRT in every possible way: from forwarding it by mail, to physically bringing it in on a USB stick.
There was a need to change this way of working. First, because music was often delivered multiple times, so they had a lot of duplicates at VRT. In addition, technical information about the music was often missing. And finally, it was often not clear for which station or employee the songs were intended.
This is whyVRT engaged Kunlabora to develop a web application. Via the app, artists and record companies can deliver high-quality music in a uniform way to the various VRT stations.
From Service Blueprint to Technical Design
Kunlabora started the project with a Service Blueprint to identify the context, functional and operational requirements. A Service Blueprint requires close collaboration between both parties.
Thus, an impact mapping was created so that the Kunlabora team could better empathize with VRT's needs. This is a strategic planning technique where the focus is on achieving the desired impact. Next, the relevant business processes were modeled, and a context diagram was created. This is a software development technique where a high-level diagram is created to give a clear overview of the scope and boundaries of the system. In addition, a context diagram shows how the system fits into the broader context of its environment.Thus, an overview of the requested functionalities and desired operational qualities of the solution is drawn up.
Once all that information was gathered, Kunlabora set to work on developing an initial technical design. To do so, they used a container diagram. This allowed them to model the operational and infrastructural side of the solution. During that design phase, important choices were already made to shape the architecture of the solution. These included - among other things - the following technological considerations:
- A monolithic architecture where the application is built as a single entity OR microservices where the application consists of many small independent services that communicate with each other?
- An event-driven system where the flow and logic of the application is determined by events OR no event-driven system?
- What data do we store and what database do we need for that.
In short: the above way of working required close collaboration between Kunlabora and VRT.
The benefits for VRT
Thanks to the application, artists and record companies now deliver their music faster and in a more qualitative way to VRT. All delivered music is automatically forwarded to their internal music library.
All technical information is filled in automatically. The dropdown choices and typeheads limit the options of the technical fields. This way they are filled in more correctly. Plus: users are notified when they try to send a duplicate.
The new wayof working makes it clearer to users what information VRT expects from them.This ensures that music ends up at the right station faster, the music genre isclearer ... In short: a big efficiency gain for both VRT and the users.
Challenges during the VRT case
Because of the limited scale of the project and the requirement to control costs, AWS was chosen. A major advantage of AWS - and cloud hosting in general - is the ability to scale infrastructure flexibly, combined with a pay-as-you-go pricing structure.
A major challenge was the storage and processing of large volumes of music files.On the one hand, an awful lot of music was being sent to the tool. That large amount of data was underestimated. At the start of the project, the estimate was that albums contained about 20 songs, but multiple albums were loaded with 100+ songs.
On the other hand, the user must select the right artist through a typeahead.There was already an expectation that this was going to be a large list of artists, but the reality far exceeded that expectation. VRT provided a list of as many as 280,000 artists. Plus, that list was updated several times a week with new data.
In short: there were several challenges that needed a creative solution. Through close cooperation with VRT, these problems were quickly solved.
Smooth cooperation with high involvement
From the start, the cooperation ran smoothly between VRT and Kunlabora. The communication was open and transparent. A bonus was VRT's high involvement: their team searched intensively with them for the ideal solution.
The first delivery of the project is a fact. For now, VRT is very satisfied with the application, but they are still waiting to see how the artists and record companies receive the project. The application is intended for a large group of users. This makes it difficult to estimate how satisfied this diverse audience will receive the application.
Therefore, to reinforce the smooth cooperation, it was agreed to evaluate the project in a few months and incorporate the users' feedback.
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