Currently, ARTE’s Internet content is watched primarily on the web (50%), but ARTE is experiencing strong growth in traffic through mobile technology apps (smartphone and tablet-35%), smart TVs and other OTT apps. As a whole, 85% of visitors to its websites are French or German and 12% come from the rest of Europe. ARTE intends to broaden its audience following the successful launch of its programmes in English, Spanish, Italian and Polish.
Up to 200 ARTE contributors upload content to the various systems. Around 10 different teams, from both within ARTE and externally, undertake the technical projects for the range of platforms under the supervision of ARTE GEIE, ARTE France or ARTE Deutschland.
This represents over 100 production and pre-production servers, 95th percentile bandwidth of around 500 Mb/s High traffic websites are placed behind a CDN acceleration system.
Websites operate mainly using open source software bricks based on Linux CentOS or containers hosted on kubbernetes.
The chosen operator must be able to manage the website hosting within the agreed constraints relating to security, (access control and logging, network partitioning, patch updates, backups, firewall protection, antivirus, anti-DDoS protection, etc.) responsiveness and scalability required of media sites.
The service provider will have to provide managed systems, for which it will validate and provide the basic elements of the application (operating system "OS" and software bricks "runtimes") and will ensure the supervision, maintenance, technical management and proper functioning within the limits of the application codes delivered by ARTE:
- “IaaS / Infrastructure as a Service" systems, which can also be considered as a set of basic PaaS, allowing the hosting of complex projects.
- A range of SaaS software solutions for use in projects.
- Managed Kubbernetes platforms, allowing storage, monitoring and automatic scalability according to application criteria, and containerisation platforms.
On the other hand, the service provider will have to provide unmanaged "IaaS / Infrastructure as a Service" systems, allowing the hosting of complex projects, for which the ARTE teams will ensure the administration and maintenance (physical or virtual "bare" servers).
The web host will supervise the systems and the proper functioning of part of the infrastructure.
ARTE wishes to benefit from support and guidance in open source technology and “DevOPS” methods that will help scale up the online deployment of its various projects.
Currently, the infrastructure is built using “Ansible” technology a "Helm" and a "Terraform" infrastructure is underway. The service provider will have to be able to create and maintain this entire infrastructure code base, to allow ARTE greater flexibility in its CI/CD development validation processes and their operation in production.
Finally, depending on the technical or legal constraints of the project, ARTE is also seeking to replace or duplicate part of its infrastructure by using "Cloud" services, chosen and ordered by ARTE ("Hybrid Cloud" solution). The chosen service provider will have to be able to accompany ARTE in these projects, to be a force for proposals and solutions, and to be able to ensure the correct configuration, monitoring and maintenance in operational condition within the limits of the application codes delivered by ARTE and the constraints of the ARTE contract with the chosen operator.