Some large organizations have multiple MediaCentral zones, which can be located in a single facility or geographically distributed over several facilities. Prior to MediaCentral v2.0, each zone functioned as an individual workgroup. Users had credentials for only a single zone, and there was no way for a user signed into one zone to search for assets in other zones.

Starting with MediaCentral v2.0, administrators can configure two or more MediaCentral zones to work together in the following workflows:

Multiple zones are connected (or federated) through the MediaCentral Platform bus. For information about configuring multiple zones, see the Avid Media | Index Configuration Guide.

Multi-zone user management is a workflow in which a single user authentication database is used to manage users across multiple MediaCentral zones. An administrator signed into one zone can manage users and roles for all other zones. Although users are centrally managed in a multi-zone environment, a user’s roles can vary from zone to zone. Multi-zone user management makes the administrator role easier when faced with a complex multi-zone environment.

A user needs to have at least one role in a zone before the user can sign into that zone. For more information, see Creating and Deleting Roles.

The User Management Service is configured with a master zone and slave zones. If the master zone becomes unavailable for some reason, users can continue to sign in and work, using a slave zone. Note, however, that in this situation, databases in the slave zones are automatically switched to read-only mode. Thus, there is no way to work with the database (for example, adding new users or changing roles until the master zone is available again. When this happens, databases are automatically switched to Read/Write mode.

A user signed into one zone can search for assets across a multi-zone environment. Although users work and create sequences in their local zone, they can find media assets in remote zones, then obtain them and include them in their local work. There are two types of search available:

Multi-zone search gives storytellers broader and faster access to media assets across the network, to tell better stories faster. For more information, see Search and the Central Index.

Multi-zone media asset delivery lets you trigger the transfer of a remote media asset to a local zone. You can search Interplay Production databases across all zones, view remote assets, and deliver them to your local Interplay Production workgroup.

Multi-zone media asset delivery makes all media assets on the network no more than one step away from being assets that can be used in local projects. For more information, see Delivering Assets and Media to a Local Workgroup.