MSA Focus delivers comprehensive broadcast management for Malaysia’s leading broadcast network
ForeTV uses Microsoft environment to deliver enterprise-wide broadcast and commercial services
November 2009
MSA Focus, the leading international provider of specialist business management services for broadcasters, has implemented its enterprise product ForeTV in a five year, multi-million dollar project at Astro, the satellite service which delivers more than 130 channels in a number of languages from its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. ForeTV is a comprehensive suite of applications, built on the Microsoft .Net framework, which gives a broadcaster a single point of control over all its business functionality, including advertising, subscriptions, programme acquisition, ingest and scheduling.
The modern broadcast business has a lot of tightly interconnected business drivers. To succeed, it must minimise costs and maximise revenue on every channel and every programme. This ranges from achieving the best advertising rates for expensive content such as live sports to ensuring that movies are transmitted at the right times to win subscription audiences, within the licensed number of broadcasts.
Working with broadcast specific equipment such as play-out automation and media management from Omnibus and conditional access and electronic programme guide systems from NDS, ForeTV from MSA Focus provides a common and consistent user interface for all business functionality. This is achieved through the use of the .Net framework, with an architecture built on Microsoft server clusters providing high system availability through redundancy.
The ForeTV modular system also uses Microsoft SQL2008 for database access, and MS Workflow Foundation and web services to develop the user interface. When completed the system at Astro will have 280 users, working in English, Malay, Chinese and Indian languages. Tailoring of the system for Astro has been undertaken by the MSA Focus development centre in Malaysia as well as at its headquarters in the UK.
“We have 25 staff based in Malaysia, most dedicated to development, tailoring systems for the Asian market,” said Phua Lik Chin, head of MSA Focus in Kuala Lumpur. “As well as providing specific knowledge of the region, given the time difference, it means we can readily offer 24 hour support and turnaround in conjunction with the team in Britain.
“The result is that we have developed a system that meets Astro’s requirements, which has enabled us to rapidly achieve the live implementation of almost 30 channels across multiple geographic locations, and we are continuing to roll out these services at a rate of six to 10 channels a week,” he added. “Because we are working in a complete Microsoft environment, we can rapidly prototype new functionality, and end users are completely comfortable with the familiar Windows interface.”
“The success of this project is due in large part to the extensive investment we made in our Asian development centre in Kuala Lumpur,” explained MSA Focus operations director Martin Long. “We have highly skilled development staff in place, and we have given them the comprehensive Microsoft toolset with which they can implement, with precision, the functions and interdependencies that our customers require.
“Part of the Astro implementation, for example, has involved data migration from a number of different legacy systems,” said Long. “Through the use of the Microsoft SSIS tool we ensured complete data integrity and saved a lot of development and operational time.
“The Astro project has been an extremely exciting and successful one for MSA Focus,” Long concluded. “We have delivered on time and on budget thanks to the co-operation between our central development team in Wales, our Asia centre in Kuala Lumpur, and our technical partners at Microsoft.”
