American Forces Network Implements Front Porch Digital, Isilon, and Sony PetaSite

Front Porch Digital announced that the American Forces Network (AFN) Broadcast Center has implemented the company’s DIVArchive, DIVAnet, and DIVAprotect systems to support management, retrieval, and long-term preservation of video content.

From its Riverside, Calif., facility, AFN provides radio and television programming to approximately 900,000 U.S. service men and offers entertainment and information to personnel located in 177 countries and on Navy ships at sea.

At AFN, two DIVArchive systems connect a pair of Isilon IQ disk-based near online storage clusters to a matching pair of Sony PetaSite tape-based archives running IBM LTO-4 tape drives. The DIVArchive systems include 12 actors with six of the actors transcoding media from one format to another. The DIVAnet system interconnects the two independent archive systems, replicating files from one to the other to enable automatic file recovery in the event of an outage. DIVAprotect continuously monitors tape drives and media, then provides automated analysis of performance so that media failure can be avoided.

"AFN’s mandate is to provide ‘a taste of home’ to U.S. personnel and dependents the world over," said Mike Knaisch, president of Front Porch Digital. "Front Porch Digital’s content storage management solutions constitute a flexible, scalable, and cost-effective way to manage video programming content in support of that important mission."

Having established their place at broadcasters and media companies worldwide, Front Porch Digital technologies are now proving their efficacy in a wider range of environments. Government agencies, in particular the defense and intelligence communities, are accumulating ever-increasing amounts of video content that needs to be preserved and managed while access is retained. Responding to this governmental need, Front Porch Digital in 2008 established a listing on the Government Services Administration (GSA) contracting schedule through its collaboration with government contracting consultant FedResults of Herndon, Va. This step makes it easier for government agencies to implement Front Porch Digital’s products.

Recently, Front Porch Digital acquired SAMMA Systems, which enabled the company to add to its product line the world’s first semi-automated systems for the migration and preservation of videotape to digital files. Front Porch Digital’s content storage management solutions have been implemented by several government/DOD facilities, including Voice of America (VOA) and the United States Senate. Front Porch’s SAMMA solutions have been deployed at the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).