- This is where I think
this can't be in there but just for you guys.
I'm Bev Kite.
I'm the CIO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences, otherwise known as the Oscars.
The mission of the Academy is to recognize
and uphold excellence
in the motion picture arts and sciences.
And inspire imagination and connect the world
through the medium of motion pictures.
The Margaret Herrick Library contains items
from as far back as 1928.
They began collecting almost immediately
as an organization.
The motivation for digitizing
is providing access to these incredible materials
that the Academy has.
It has about 10 million items in its library
and over 100,000 items in its film archive.
It's a lot of movies, it's a lot of moving parts.
The awards submission processes were largely
in disparate systems
and the screening processes
were largely through DVDs.
So that was a difficult process
for the Academy members
and was not really something
that was forward-thinking.
We wanted to build an app
to get the best possible experience
to our members and really get members involved,
engaged, watching the movies
and being able to vote.
It was the perfect timing,
the combination of wanting
to actually stream the assets,
expand our streaming platform,
expand the support on multiple different devices
and that's what led us to move up to the cloud.
The Azure migration itself I think
was about six to eight months of planning and effort.
We were a big .NET Microsoft shop.
So our backend systems were SQL Server, IIS, .NET,
definitely App Services.
We're taking full advantage of those.
We kept most of that as we moved this into the cloud.
When we looked at what technology we wanted to use
to develop the apps,
we really felt that Xamarin
was a good approach for us
because we have that existing API infrastructure in .NET.
In Azure, we're able to improve our DevOps processes
so substantially and use slots
to actually switch out a build
and put in place a new build.
So minimal downtime.
We get a lot of positive feedback from our members
and it's been really fascinating
because we have actually seen members stream
when they are shooting movies
in locations all around the world.
I'm so grateful
for the relationship we've had with Microsoft.
It's just been an amazing journey.
All of my team is so proud of what we've accomplished.
We're very focused on doing
the best we can by the membership.
Maintaining this legacy,
making sure that what we produce
is beautiful, powerful, secure, usable
and highly available.
- And the Oscar goes to...