Case Study: twofour54 Deploys Spectra Logic Digital Storage Solution
Story Highlights
twofour54 uses Spectra Logic digital storage solution to deliver world-class production services to media and entertainment clients. twofour54 is a government-backed media-services provider based in Abu Dhabi. As one of the largest media- and entertainment-services companies in the United Arab Emirates, twofour54 offers its Middle Eastern and North African clients a tax-free media zone to produce content locally and nurture the Arab media industry. Its offerings include production and postproduction services, creative-talent development, and media-business–setup services. With more than 400 partners, twofour54 provides its network with a sustainable platform for the creation of media.
Media production in process at twofour54
“Spectra Logic understood our digital-archive challenges and recommended a storage solution with a simple workflow, perfectly tailored to our needs,” says Yusuf Buti, head of technology and engineering, twofour54. “The Spectra BlackPearl coupled with the T120 tape library and native LTFS support provides us with a scalable, easy-to-use solution with the speed of access we require, at an affordable price.”
The Challenge
twofour54 and its clients generate massive amounts of content on a regular basis, fueled by substantial volumes of video being shot, increased camera resolutions, and higher frame rates. The volume of data generated will continue to grow exponentially over time.
twofour54 previously used a Sony PetaSite with LTO-4 drives and Front Porch DIVA to archive the content. Meeting future capacity and performance needs necessitated an update to its storage platform. The organization required an open-standard (non-proprietary), simple, and fully integrated solution within the Avid environment that would accommodate seamless access to its assets, regardless of size, format, location, or time.
As a postproduction-services provider, twofour54 not only creates and archives original content and finished Avid and non-Avid assets for internal projects but also provides similar services for clients. It offers clients the option of storing their projects on various mediums, including LTO tape. To fulfill this offering, twofour54 searched for a standard LTFS-based solution that could deliver finished assets and would be readily available and broadly adopted across the industry, while fitting into clients’ workflows.
The Solution
twofour54 chose a Spectra Logic solution through Avid. The Spectra BlackPearl converged storage system — with its intelligent, integrated policy engine — and the Spectra T120 tape library met all of twofour54’s storage criteria. The BlackPearl enables seamless data management, replication, and easy access to archived media; the T120 provides large-scale capacity and native LTFS-formatted digital tapes.
twofour54 uses Avid Interplay | Archive to manage and send archive jobs to BlackPearl, which then writes two copies of files in LTFS to LTO-6 tape media using intelligent integration policies. One copy is ejected from the tape library to deliver final content to twofour54 clients. Source material and non-Avid assets are archived to BlackPearl using the BlackPearl Eon browser and Cyberduck BlackPearl-certified client.
Combined with Avid Interplay | Archive, BlackPearl allows twofour54 to effortlessly manage large volumes of media content directly within Avid Interplay Access. Spectra Logic’s BlackPearl integration with Avid Interplay | Archive, along with the Eon browser, meets all of twofour54’s archive and finished-asset–delivery needs.
Environment Snapshot
- SpectraBlackPearl
- Avid Interplay | Archive
- BlackPearl Eon browser
- Cyberduck BlackPearl-certified client
- Spectra T120
- LTO-6 drives and media
- Windows- and Mac-based edit suites
- Cisco 4500X and Cisco 6509E switches
Why Spectra?
- Tight integration with Avid Interplay | Archive
- Native support for standard-based LTFS
- Cloud-based architecture, use of RESTful APIs
- Ease of use and simple integrated workflow to deliver content
Solution Recap
To meet the demands of data growth and long-term retention, the Spectra BlackPearl converged storage system enables users to easily store massive amounts of data forever at virtually no cost. Designed for organizations for which data is a significant part of their operations, BlackPearl allows data to move seamlessly into tape and disc storage in a way not previously possible. BlackPearl enables users to deploy tier storage that is cost-effective, easy to manage, and scalable to exabytes of data. With BlackPearl’s simple RESTful Spectra S3 interface and embedded media-management software, organizations store all of their data forever at costs as low as pennies per gigabyte.
Designed to meet the backup and archive requirements of the most demanding small and medium-size organizations, the Spectra T120 library is easy to use, manage, and maintain. It also integrates with Spectra’s BlackPearl, enabling users to easily store massive amounts of data forever at virtually no cost. The T120 scales from 30 slots to 120 slots, providing a storage capacity of 1.8 PB of compressed data with LTO-7 media. With the ability to install up to 10 half-height LTO-7 tape drives, the T120 offers compressed-data–transfer rates of up to 25.5 TB per hour. The T120 ensures the highest level of reliability with component redundancy and offers an exceptionally high-performance tape storage solution.
