Within six months, DATAGROUP developed a cloud-based software solution for 3,500 users for ZDF, which makes it possible to find media content across the board in an intuitive and easy-to-use way. Cloud development is well suited to creating individual and scalable applications that can be easily connected to existing legacy systems.
For an organization like ZDF, it is extremely important to find the right media content for a wide range of requirements as quickly and easily as possible, regardless of whether it is image, video or audio files. The existing archive system already offers many options for carrying out a very targeted search for different media types. Among other things, the increasing importance of other distribution channels such as the ZDF media library and third-party platforms is now leading to the need for cross-media searches. In addition, a new search behavior is establishing itself among users, shaped by the large search engines on the Internet: The ability to search the inventory associatively and intuitively is required.
ZDF therefore set up a project with DATAGROUP to add further user-friendly features to the existing archive system. The aim was to set up an intuitive search similar to that used by search engines and, in the long term, to make cross-media searches possible in order to be able to search for all media types via one interface.
Together, the decision was made to build the corresponding solution in the cloud. There were many reasons for this:
In traditional IT projects, the focus is often on technology. With the development of a cloud solution, however, the focus is on the processes. Due to the diversity and flexibility of the existing building blocks, the right expertise can be used to develop a system that adapts perfectly to the company's ideal processes and not the other way around.
In the ZDF project, DATAGROUP opted for agile development, which left a large proportion of the project time for input from the specialist departments. By developing in the cloud, solutions could be provided, tested and feedback incorporated quickly.
Many requirements and requests arose during the project as ZDF employees realized how many things are possible with the cloud. This was a project in which the customer got more in the given time than originally planned, so expectations were exceeded. Instead of having to cling to the technical aspects, they were able to focus entirely on the question: What do I need and want?
The result is a simple so-called faceted search, which does not require any pre-classification, but actively makes suggestions for further restriction after the search, e.g. by album, artist or title in the music archive. This intuitive search can be used without training or in-depth know-how, saving employees a lot of time and effort.
The cloud solution for the music archive is currently live at ZDF. This is to be extended to other departments, enabling a cross-media search. There is also the possibility of integrating further third-party services in the future, for example solutions that use artificial intelligence to analyze the mood of pieces of music and classify them. This would make it possible, for example, to search specifically for cheerful pieces of music.