In Broadcast - May 2014 - 36

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 31 - MAY 2014

N E W S

InFILE

Storing Up Your Assets
NAB provided an opportunity for visitors to take stock of the innovative and diverse archive
and near online storage solutions on offer...

By Philip Stevens
Contributing Editor

T

36

hose broadcasters and service
providers who are currently
undergoing a number of second or
third generation archive migration
projects are often motivated by the
natural technology lifecycle of the
chosen storage medium. However,
such upgrades should also be seen
as an opportunity to assess other
options for storing precious data.
The recent NAB offered vendors
of archive and nearline storage
a chance to show just what was
available in this increasingly
profitable market. And those
solutions vary considerably.
"There's been a shift in the way
that companies, especially in the
broadcast industry, use and access
data," maintained Laurent Fanichet,
Product Marketing Manager -
Big Data, Quantum EMEA. "Not
only has the sheer volume of
content increased dramatically,
but companies have recognised
that these assets can help gain
competitive advantages and even
support new revenue streams when
it comes to repurposing old content.
This is placing a demand on IT to
store this data forever and preserve
access so the business can extract
value at reasonable costs."

Laurent Fanichet,
Product Marketing
Manager - big data,
Quantum EMEA

"...The major innovation
is object storage
"
Object Storage
NAB saw Quantum showcase its
scale-out storage solutions and the
ability to store, manage and preserve
digital assets on the relevant
storage tiers - high performance
storage, object storage, LTO/LTFS
archiving and cloud.
"The major innovation is object
storage," emphasised Fanichet.
"It is only now entering media
workflows as content owners
grapple with Petabyte or greater
content archives."
Quantum provided a live
demonstration of "StorNext in

Nick Pearce,
Co-founder of
Object Matrix

"

...We are leveraging
the power of the
clustered, object based,
architecture to process
content post archival

"

the Cloud" - a StorNext-Lattus
Object Storage cloud-enabled
media workﬂow. This streamlines
collaboration between remote
groups, improves efﬁciency and
enables automation of common
ingest, transcode and delivery
operations as a seamless extension
of StorNext production workﬂows.
In the demonstration, content was
ingested into Quantum's StorNext
5 platform and quickly moved to
Quantum's Lattus Object Storage
cloud using the Levels Beyond
Reach Engine platform and
Quantum's StorNext Storage
Manager. The content in the cloud
can be edited locally through
StorNext 5 using popular editing,
proxy generation and ﬁnishing tools.
Editors can also work on content
directly without having to download
high-resolution originals.
According to Nick Pearce, cofounder of Object Matrix, his
company is leveraging the power
of the clustered, object based,

Harmonic's MediaGrid is scale-out storage building to provide Petabytes of
capacity and tens of gigabytes per second of throughput

architecture to process content post
archival. "The ﬁrst example, available
later in 2014, will automatically
extract metadata from content
in the AS-11 format and make it
searchable to any application using
the MatrixStore API. This is very
relevant to the broadcast industry as
it provides a secure and searchable
digital preservation platform for
anyone using that format."
MatrixStore scales from 12
Terabytes to multiple Petabytes,
while adding capacity is future proof,
with any node size capable of being
added to an existing cluster.
Both Quantum and Object
Matrix have recently entered into
partnership agreements with UK
based Cambridge Imaging Systems.
The combination of the Imagen
Media Asset Management and
Publishing system and Quantum's
StorNext 5 is designed for
broadcasters looking to create their
own VOD or catch-up TV service,
and production teams requiring fast
access to a shared media repository,
either onsite or online via a YouTubestyle interface.
The MAM system
and Object Matrix'
MatrixStore plugand-play storage
solution combine
to enable users
to archive digital
assets and make
them
readily
available
for
repurposing or
revenue generation.

Black Pearl

At the core of the StorNext Pro Solutions is StorNext 5

The
latest
development from
Spectra Logic is
Black Pearl - an

Brian Grainger,
Executive Vice
President of
Worldwide Sales and
Sales Operations at
Spectra Logic

"

...Over time, object store
will allow the workﬂow to
move the content from
high-speed, mid-tier and
archive tier storage

"

object storage interface for tape
that provides scalability into
Exabytes/Millions of hours. "This
offers a modern approach to
storing digital assets for both long
term and easy bring back," said
Brian Grainger, Executive Vice
President of Worldwide Sales and
Sales Operations. "Traditional
HSMs systems do not scale to
the size and need our customers
are seeking. Object stores driven
by the workﬂ ow are now being
investigated as the next generation
of data storage. Putting an object
store interface in front of the archive
or near-online storage is the step
forward for broadcast-related
infrastructure."
He maintained that Spectra Logic
offers the largest storage systems in
the world, with a single unit capable
of being scaled to 125 Petabytes
of uncompressed data - with the
facility for eight systems to be tied
together. These can be fronted
with traditional NAS/HSM/MAM
systems or with Spectra Logic's
new Black Pearl.
Like others, Grainger believes
object storage is the way forward.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

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