In Broadcast - October/November 2011 - 86

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Quantum StorNext – Meeting the Tapeless Challenge
Transitioning to tapeless workflows, sharing digital content quickly, and managing the ever increasing volumes of content cost-effectively are challenges facing broadcasters and post houses alike. Modern Production Workflows demand fast access to SD, HD, and now 3D content for editing and repurposing and so any solutions must appropriately incorporate performance, capacity, and preservation of these digital assets; all against a backdrop of affordability and minimal management overhead as these solutions grow. Many solutions today incorporate an asset management application, be it a MAM (media) or a DAM (digital) as part of an integrated workflow addressing both production and archive requirements. By providing a seamless integration between these asset management solutions and the underlying technologies, affordable and scalable solutions can easily be provided. Scalability of storage has to cover both performance and wTVision’s automation and playout system – Channel Maker capacity; the most cost Efficient and effective storage its StorNext Data Management effective means of achieving this solutions should be a transparent Software. StorNext File System is to implement a tiered storage aspect of the overall workflow. (SNFS) provides immediate and model. This allows content to be “Reliability and usability have simultaneous file access to a stored on high speed but more been transformed since we centralised storage pool by the expensive Fibre Channel disk where deployed the digital workflow company’s editing suites. SNFS ultimate performance is required solution. We haven’t experienced offers heterogeneous file system or on tape or lower performance any downtime and our productivity support for Windows, Linux, UNIX commodity disk where lower has increased significantly. Our and Apple Xsan clients, providing performance but higher capacity is confidence in the system has the flexibility and reliability desired required. certainly risen by 100 percent,” by the studio. The file system Mike Horan, SAN Support Engineer, can easily be scaled to provide Lime Pictures. throughput up to 10’s of Gigabytes The ability to store large volumes per second. of digital assets cost-effectively Luca Cattaneo, Systems while maintaining the ability to Engineer, Mediaset, said: recall the entire file or a partial file “StorNext File System plays a is critical for efficient production or significant role in enhancing our news workflows. broadcast workflows and reducing The use of tiered storage complexity. It acts as a hub for our systems can also provide for the content storage, with acquisition, automatic protection of content ingest, editing, and playout all by maintaining multiple copies taking place transparently but on different storage tiers and at all via a consolidated storage different locations environment.” In a typical installation a post StorNext Storage Manager production studio is faced with supports the requirements of a fast turnaround on production. a digital archive with intelligent They need to support multiple storage of files across a costreal-time ingests as well as effective tiered (disk and tape) simultaneous production access storage environment. Editing teams for viewing, logging, rough cutting, can quickly browse for relevant editing and grading. Storage costs content to perform proxy editing and bandwidth requirements are with hi-res files being seamlessly on the rise due to the increasing retrieved once selected. volume of HD content but budgets StorNext Distributed Data remain the same. Movers help with the transparent The studio would like to movement of content between implement a cost-effective tiered storage tiers, protecting valuable storage environment, enabling content while reducing storage editors to browse and access costs. For the editors, it is irrelevant relevant content regardless of where the content is located; they its location. The storage solution retain the ability to easily access must easily integrate with existing and retrieve the required assets. editing, transcoding and Media StorNext enables the studio to Asset Management systems. select the applications of choice Managing ongoing storage costs for their workflow whilst supporting while protecting existing digital the performance and capacity workflow investments is critical. requirements and protecting their Quantum addresses these key assets. post-production challenges with

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In Broadcast - October/November 2011

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