KOBA 2017: Quantum to Showcase New Workflow Storage Platform

Quantum will introduce StorNext 6, a new release of the company’s workflow storage platform that showcases the company’s continued leadership in workflow-optimized storage. Quantum will also highlight its Xcellis workflow storage solutions, recently enhanced with lab-validated 4K reference architectures for facilities of all sizes, and including all-flash storage configurations that maximize performance for high-quality 4K streams including uncompressed formats.

In addition, Quantum will feature new shared-archive workflow architectures that enable distributed teams to collaborate worldwide through digital content libraries. Together, these enhancements give users better control over storage performance across the entire facility, enable exceptional efficiency and productivity for 4K workflows, facilitate seamless access to content for geographically distributed creative teams, and simplify use across operating systems.

There are a few new Quantum Products premiering at KOBA 2017. For instance, a series of substantive updates within the StorNext 6 platform demonstrates Quantum’s ongoing leadership in workflow storage — with a particular focus on enabling high-resolution workflows. StorNext 6 offers a new quality of service (QoS) feature that empowers facilities to tune and optimize performance across all client workstations, and on a machine-by-machine basis, in turn guaranteeing that more demanding tasks, such as 4K playback or color correction, get the bandwidth they need to maintain uncompromising video quality.

To address the challenges of global “always on” production workflows, StorNext 6 allows multiple instances of StorNext, located anywhere in the world, to share a single archive target. Users working at geographically distributed sites can create and store content to the archive, as well as browse and pull content from it. At the same time, the new FlexSync feature of StorNext 6 maintains continual synchronization of both metadata and content across two or more StorNext installations. By supplying an array of new data management capabilities within StorNext 6, Quantum gives users greater control and selectivity to maximize their use of storage on an ROI basis.

Following exhaustive real-world 4K testing, Quantum will unveil new 4K reference architectures, suitably scaled for facilities small to large. In the testing, all Xcellis solutions were validated under intense 4K workloads, reflecting industry-leading capabilities for streaming 4K to collaborative teams of content creators. The testing included characterization of large- and small-form-factor disk drives, a variety of array configurations and a full complement of compressed and uncompressed 4K formats. The resulting reference architectures have been tuned to deliver predictable-stream-count workloads for the full range of 4K formats.

Quantum will also demonstrate how Xcellis leverages the power of StorNext and the performance of all-flash arrays to get the most out of both technologies. StorNext is well-known for enabling users to maximize workflow efficiency. Flash also gains the benefits of StorNext optimization when it comes to meeting or exceeding the needs of the most demanding workflows, with use cases such as color correction or high-end compositing and finishing deriving the greatest benefit.

Quantum will showcase new capabilities that allow multiple StorNext-powered collaborative workflows located anywhere around the world to access the same archive target. As a result, any user within a StorNext environment can access, browse and pull files from the shared archive. With this game-changing new capability, a creative team member working in one city can create content that is automatically stored to the archive and immediately available for further work by team members working elsewhere without it being expressly shipped or explicitly transported to them.

Quantum will highlight its newly released FlexTier cloud-access feature, which makes it easy to integrate existing public cloud storage accounts and third-party object storage (private cloud) into a StorNext environment and into familiar media workflows. FlexTier currently supports Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, NetApp StorageGRID, IBM Cleversafe and Scality RING as archive tiers. As a result, content owners can get all the content access and visibility benefits provided by StorNext, protect their investments in private cloud object storage systems and public cloud storage services, and reduce the cost and complexity of cloud storage administration.

At KOBA 2017 within the presentation theater on Quantum’s stand, the company will provide hourly demonstrations of live multistream 4K and 8K color correction and editorial workflows. Showcasing the performance leadership of Xcellis and other Quantum storage systems, these demonstrations will give attendees a firsthand look at the remarkable performance levels that can be achieved with the optimal hardware configuration, supported by the powerful StorNext platform.