Large media organisations don’t end up siloed deliberately. As technology advances, new infrastructure layers can be added one piece at a time. An individual department ends up sizing its systems independently, and teams under pressure adopt tools that solve an immediate problem without factoring in overall efficiency. Stack enough of those decisions on top of each other over the years, and the result is an organisation running several different operating models at once.
Built for Peak, Stuck at Peak
A lot of that fragmentation goes back to how infrastructure has traditionally been provisioned. The storage throughput, workstation performance and system capacity tended to be sized for the largest workload a department might realistically face, even if that level of capacity sat underused for long stretches in between. Once that model is in situ, it’s difficult to undo. Each silo has its own version of “built for peak,” and in many cases they weren’t designed with the others in mind.
Cloud infrastructure has changed what’s technically possible here. Compute, storage and network resources can flex around what an individual team or project needs, rather than being fixed to a highest case estimate. But that flexibility only closes the gap between departments if it’s applied, and most organisations haven’t rebuilt every silo at once. The good news is they don’t need to. Not every workload behaves the same way, or requires the same resources, companies can adopt cloud workflows iteratively, enabling phased transformation across the business.
Moving Content Between Silos
Silos create both inconsistency and movement. Content gets copied between systems, departments and storage tiers, so that different teams and applications can have their own version of it. That habit made sense when infrastructure was static and disconnected. In a more distributed environment it can escalate quickly; duplication creeps in, assets fragment across locations, and in hindsight it’s difficult to be certain which copy is the right version.
This becomes more challenging the larger and more distributed the organisation gets, particularly where content ownership, permissions and infrastructure responsibility already sit across multiple departments or external partners. The more moving parts, the more the duplication of both content and effort increases.
Standardisation vs Flexibility
When dealing with silos there is a temptation to consolidate, by rebuilding the storage architecture and migrating assets into one environment. But there are different ways of tackling this challenge. Relocating large, established content estates carries cost implications, so rather than making sweeping changes it can sometimes be more effective to work with established storage systems.
By storing content in the most cost effective way for its use case, and bringing the tools and services to those assets, you can create a more connected system without moving large volumes of content. The organisation keeps operating without the disruption of trying to change everything simultaneously and avoids incurring significant egress costs.
Connecting Content Silos
At 7fivefive, instead of eliminating every silo (which is often impractical) we focus on making what already exists more accessible to the rest of the operation without duplicating or relocating it. The sustainable move is to connect existing systems, so workflows can reach the content assets without needing them to physically live somewhere else.
That’s a different kind of transformation to rebuilding infrastructure department by department, and involves working with the business you have. Silos are a natural outcome of a media company that has grown and adapted over decades and can be addressed incrementally. The organisations that manage silos most effectively tend to treat transformation as something ongoing and phased.
At 7fivefive that’s the approach we often bring to projects, helping organisations connect and modernise infrastructure in the way that is right for them.