BYU-Idaho Taps Front Porch Digital for A/V Productions Department

Front Porch Digital, a global leader in cloud-based content storage management (CSM) solutions, announced that Brigham Young University-Idaho (BYU-Idaho) has installed a DIVArchive CSM system and a DIVAnet multisite content distribution solution in its A/V productions department, which provides video services for the entire campus.

In addition to recording a weekly devotional, the department records events and other productions throughout the campus for educational purposes, then stores the files in DIVArchive. It uses DIVAnet to connect with other BYU campuses and church facilities within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which owns and operates BYU-Idaho.

“Every production center on campus went completely tapeless about three years ago without a good digital archiving system in place. We’ve tried a few solutions but always had storage and retrieval issues, to the point where users didn’t want to move their files out of active storage because they just didn’t trust the archive,” says Luke Hale, digital systems engineer in the BYU-Idaho A/V productions department. “Our Front Porch Digital systems have alleviated all of those problems. The systems are built for broadcast and designed to prevent downtime, which is critical in a situation like ours. With Front Porch Digital, we finally have a reliable storage architecture that people will use.”

DIVArchive met BYU-Idaho’s critical requirements for reliability and discoverability with plenty of space to enable the university to keep its active storage clear. An important factor in the installation is DIVArchive’s seamless integration with BYU-Idaho’s media asset management (MAM) system.

“For us, everything is driven by the MAM, and our DIVArchive system is a powerful backend engine that drives all of our storage and discovery,” Hale said.

Another critical requirement for BYU-Idaho was disaster recovery. DIVAnet provides a way to transfer high-value assets to disaster recovery locations off campus that also use DIVArchive. At the same time, it gives BYU-Idaho a way to connect with other campuses and churches to share media for production purposes.

BYU-Idaho has integrated DIVArchive and DIVAnet with all elements of its production, building many of its video workflows with DIVArchive as the foundation. Every piece of video that will be used on the website, in a course, at events, or elsewhere, touches the DIVArchive system in one way or another.

“BYU-Idaho’s A/V department is instrumental in enhancing the learning environment for students and preserving the LDS church’s messages,” said Dave Polyard, senior vice president of sales for Front Porch Digital. “In DIVArchive and DIVAnet, the university has a reliable storage architecture that users can trust, as well as a means of moving content to disaster recovery sites to ensure its critical assets are protected.”