Cloud computing is something increasingly central to all our lives-whether it's storage for our holiday snaps or online accounting at the office. When it comes to business, for multinational corporates, SMEs and even freelance individuals, the benefits are tangible, from cost savings and flexibility, to increased agility and scalability.
One of the main attractions of migration is throwing away those cumbersome servers and outsourcing that requirement. By reducing the need to invest in physical hardware, there's the potential to save a lot of money and make your operation leaner. But what about the benefits for the creative industries? Can the adoption of this technology improve productivity and creativity? Does it have advantages beyond those it offers the traditional private or public sector?
Here's a fact to put it into perspective: Cloud adoption in the public and private sector is growing and, according to the Rightscale 2016 State of the Cloud report, hybrid cloud adoption is on the rise, companies are moving more and more workloads into the cloud, and security is no longer the main challenge. In fact, according to the report, private cloud adoption increased from 63 percent in 2015 to 77 percent in 2016 with hybrid adoption jumping from 58 percent to 71 percent in the same period.
So what does this mean for industries like design, gaming and VFX that haven't quite yet taken the steps towards wider cloud adoption? Will the same benefits apply to the creative industries? The short answer is: yes. What's more, creative industries possibly have more to gain given the types and scale of projects that are worked on.
Creative industries have to do more with less. Increasingly, artists, creatives and designers are tasked with bigger, more complex projects, more iterations and variants, and much tighter deadlines.
It is here, in this fast-paced environment, that cloud can perhaps be of most value.
Where are the benefits?
In the broadcast, media and entertainment sectors, cloud computing has seen widespread adoption for content delivery over the last few years with the rise of platforms like Netflix and Spotify. And while its impact in media production is less widespread, it is making inroads.
One of the most obvious examples is rendering. In a typical post-production facility, local, static infrastructure is used to render vast amounts of material. Demand, however, is rarely consistent or predictable and, as a result, technology is often under-utilized. In the same vein, when postproduction houses are extremely busy, they don't have the resources to meet demand.
Here, cloud can step in and provide a new way to operate. By moving rendering to the cloud, or extending in-house resources to include cloud capacity, post houses are able to provision the computing power as and when it is needed. This enables smaller facilities to be more ambitious and bid on larger jobs, previously outside their reach - an undoubtedly democratizing situation.
This mix of resources is the basis of a hybrid IT environment, which according to Gartner, is the result of combining internal and external services, usually from a combination of internal and public clouds, in support of various business outcomes.
Beyond this move to use cloud to optimize resources, where else can it be used? And what other problems can it solve in the creative industries?
The wider scope of cloud
One of the major benefits of cloud computing is that it makes an organization more agile and better positioned to react to changing market environments. This occurs in a number of ways-from having more money to invest in new ventures, to being able to get products and services to market sooner. In the creative sector-be it gaming, VFX or design-cloud can be used to great effect in areas such as better data management, rapid iteration, boosting collaboration and improving security.
Security
This area was historically the major hindrance to wider uptake of cloud. As the saying goes, Cloud is just someone else's computer. Now, for the first time, according to Rightscale, lack of skills has surpassed security concerns as the top cloud challenge. The creative industries can, therefore, benefit from the experience of other industries when it comes to cloud adoption and better understand the issues-both real and perceived-around migrating workflows.
Of course following a number of high-profile breaches reported in the media, security will remain a question at the top of the agenda. However, given that human error has been found to account for, or contribute to, the majority of data breaches, there are ways to mitigate the risk, including user education, encryption and rights access. This-coupled with the facts that cloud software is better patched (so less vulnerable), that companies have clear visibility on their security practice and attack surface and that public cloud providers like AWS have dedicated teams of security engineers-means that just like with other industries, security need not be an obstacle. Taking all of this into account, moving to the cloud may even mean organizations become more secure.
Data management
As the broadcast, media and entertainment world moves into the realm of 4K, 8K and beyond, the amount of data involved is increasing exponentially. With vast datasets required to produce a television show or film, it becomes cumbersome to move that content around. Cloud can be used to centralize this data, enabling optimization, organization and distribution from a single location. It also means artists from anywhere in the world can access it, work on it and collaborate with one another in a virtualized studio environment.
The human element
Centralization of data helps bring artists together and promotes new ways to collaborate, such as running multi-user sessions, providing supe
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
20/01/2026
SVG Sit-Down: BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on the Future of Cloud, Remote, Softwar...
20/01/2026
From architecture to reality: What CBC's Milano Cortina 2026 workflows tell ...
20/01/2026
Milano Cortina 2026: Making the Winter Olympics and Paralympics workflow work fo...
20/01/2026
Countdown to Milano Cortina 2026: SVG Launches SportsTechLive Blog in Lead-up to...
20/01/2026
Grand finale: Rally Saudi Arabia pushes WRC to make the most of cameras and dron...
20/01/2026
State of Change: What's Happening in the Remote-Production Business?NEP Group, Game Creek Video, Dome Productions, Mobile TV Group, Program Productions exec...
20/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: A Look Back at SVG's Complete CoverageGo behind the scenes with ESPN, Game Creek Video, Van Wagner, and the champion Indiana...
20/01/2026
The Gotham, Film Independent, and Creators Coalition on AI Join Alliance
by Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director, Sundance Institute's Artist Programs...
20/01/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
20/01/2026
December, the first month of winter and the holiday season, has traditionally encouraged families to spend time together in front of the television. During this...
20/01/2026
During December, streaming's share of TV viewing in Mexico settled at 24.3%, an increase of 0.1 share points from the previous month.
Disclaimer: YUMI TV,...
20/01/2026
Christmas Day is Most-Streamed Day Ever with 55 Billion Viewing Minutes, led by...
20/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/01/2026
Disguise and ASB GlassFloor today announced a strategic partnership that turns the arena floor into a fully customizable interactive digital surface. This will ...
20/01/2026
Last summer, ITV celebrated the tenth anniversary of its popular reality dating show, Love Island. To ramp up the excitement of series 12 (launched in the UK on...
20/01/2026
Berklee's Mark Ethier Named One of SPIN's Most Influential People in Mus...
20/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/01/2026
Emergent, a provider of AI-powered media production solutions, today announced its presence at ISE 2026 in Barcelona, taking place February 3 6, where it will u...
20/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery Amend Agreement to All-Cash Transaction
Business
20 January 2026
Global
Link copied to clipboard
All-C...
20/01/2026
Back to All News
Now You Can Play a Role in Our Live Events With Real-Time Voting
Elmar Nubbemeyer
VP, Member Product
Product
20 January 2026
Global
Link...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: Indiana Football's Digital Crew Generate Hyp...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: Van Wagner Relies on Experience for Indiana-Miam...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: Game Creek Video Fields Premiere IP Compound for...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: For a Slew of Studio Shows, ESPN Turns Hard Rock...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: ESPN's Sweeping Live Game Production Leverag...
19/01/2026
The new L3Harris NOVA binocular system is the every-soldier goggle' - and the beginning of a new era for night-vison capability....
19/01/2026
The Majority of Those Surveyed Prefer to Buy Brands Who Advertise in Content Tha...
19/01/2026
Back to All News
Straight to Hell' Sets April 27 Premiere: Teaser Trailer,...
19/01/2026
New Workflow Enhancements for All Broadcast Pix Systems, Plus 4-Channel ISO Recording for Hybrid and Roadie Tyngsboro, Mass. - January 2025 - Broadcast Pix ann...
19/01/2026
Monday 19 January 2026
Sky News reinvents News at Ten for the modern audience with The Wrap
Sky News today announces The Wrap, a bold evolution of its 10pm ou...
19/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces the Series Nights & Days, Directed by Kamila...
19/01/2026
DPA Microphones is striking a new chord in piano miking with the debut of its DPK2015 Piano Stereo Kit, an out-of-the-box, plug-and-play miking solution that ta...
19/01/2026
DPA Microphones will present its 4099 CORE Instrument Microphone and redesigned...
19/01/2026
Trianel relies on Arvato Systems for future-proof data center operations
Moving to the cloud: Arvato Systems implements extensive IT migration project
Migrat...
19/01/2026
Celebrating 21 Years of the RT Choice Music Prize
RT Choice Music Prize
In association with IMRO and IRMA
Irish Album of the Year 2025 - Shortlist Announce...
18/01/2026
January 18 2026, 21:30 (PST) Dolby Cinema Arrives in Bengaluru: Dolby Laborator...
17/01/2026
Lightware, an industry leader in signal management, is helping to elevate the Google Meet experience with the introduction of an integration with Taurus UCX. Th...
17/01/2026
Clear-Com announced a strategic partnership with NETGEAR AV to offer four high-performance networking switches as original equipment manufacturer (OEM) solutio...
17/01/2026
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest contribution solutions, today announced a new U.S. distribution partnership wit...
17/01/2026
NUGEN Audio announces the latest evolution of MasterCheck, its industry-trusted optimization plug-in for cross-platform mastering and loudness verification. Des...
17/01/2026
BHV has announced that it will highlight its new SportsBox remote vision mixer and picture processor at ISE in Booth #4H900 marking its official introduction in...
17/01/2026
Clear-Com will return to ISE 2026 to demonstrate its latest intercom solutions for broadcast, live production, and AV professionals. Exhibiting at Stand #4P700...
17/01/2026
Grass Valley, a leading provider in live production solutions, will exhibit at ISE 2026 in Barcelona from February 3 6, presenting its vision for how modern Bro...
17/01/2026
Utelogy Corporation, the global leader in connected workplace management, monitoring, control, automation and analytics closes out a record-breaking 2025. The c...
Cloud computing is something increasingly central to all our lives-whether it's storage for our holiday snaps or online accounting at the office. When it comes to business, for multinational corporates, SMEs and even freelance individuals, the benefits are tangible, from cost savings and flexibility, to increased agility and scalability. 
