As media operations grow more distributed, multi-format, and fast-moving, Media Asset Management (MAM) platforms have had to evolve to meet different infrastructure needs. From cloud-native workflows to hybrid environments, the way a MAM is deployed can significantly affect how teams work, scale, and support their content operations.
For teams evaluating how to roll out or transition their MAM, there are three core deployment models to consider: Bring Your Own Bucket (BYOB), Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC), and Fully Managed. Each offers a different balance of control, cost, and responsibility, and the right choice depends on your internal capabilities and business goals.
BYOB: Bring Your Own Bucket
With a BYOB setup, your team provides the storage and infrastructure, often via AWS, Azure, or on-prem hardware, and the vendor provides the MAM software layer on top. You retain control over where and how your assets are stored, and the MAM integrates with your existing cloud storage, compute, or networking stack.
Best for: Media teams with existing cloud investments or those who want to consolidate media operations within their current infrastructure.
Things to consider:
- Do you have in-house IT or DevOps to support this setup?
- Are you trying to maximise value from AWS/Azure/Google spend commitments?
- Will your storage architecture scale with content growth?
This model offers flexibility and long-term cost control, but it does require you to take ownership of configuration, monitoring, and maintenance.
BYOC: Bring Your Own Cloud
BYOC goes a step further, you host and manage the entire MAM application stack in your own cloud environment. The vendor supplies the software and support, but you’re responsible for deploying and maintaining the platform inside your environment.
Best for: Organisations with strict security, compliance, or data residency requirements, or those with dedicated DevOps teams.
This model allows:
- Tight alignment with corporate cloud policies
- Greater data governance and compliance control
- Deeper integrations with internal systems (e.g., SSO, billing, BI)
That said, it requires a level of infrastructure maturity. If your internal teams are not used to deploying and managing third-party applications in the cloud, the operational burden can be significant.
Fully Managed MAM
A fully managed model means the MAM provider hosts everything, software, storage, infrastructure, and you simply log in and use it. It's the fastest to deploy and requires no technical resources to run.
Best for: Teams that want to focus on content, not infrastructure.
Advantages:
- Rapid deployment (days, not months)
- No infrastructure overhead
- Support, monitoring, backups, all handled
This model is ideal for organisations that want to eliminate the complexity of infrastructure management. A trusted MAM provider brings the expertise, reliability, and flexibility needed to meet performance, security, and availability expectations without requiring you to build and maintain those capabilities in-house.
How to Decide
Start by asking:
- What’s our internal IT/DevOps capacity?
- Are we committed to a specific cloud vendor?
- How important is full infrastructure control vs time to value?
- Do we need to meet specific compliance or data residency requirements?
Each model can deliver a strong MAM experience, the difference lies in how hands-on you want to be.
Whether you're scaling up, modernising your workflows, or just exploring your options, we’ll help you assess what makes the most sense for your team and long-term goals.
If you're planning a move or just want a second opinion, let's talk.
