Automating media processes in a service oriented architecture

This paper describes how an infrastructure can be built for automating workflows in content production using a service oriented architecture (SOA). We fully adopted the SOA and the business process management (BPM) vision in which stand-alone services provide modular functionality, service invocations are being orchestrated by a process engine, and human interaction is possible in the business processes through human tasks. We aimed at increased efficiency and control, shorter setup times, and increased flexibility. Our architecture is illustrated with a use case in which we automated a process that deals with the intake, review, transcoding and publishing of user-generated content.