National Geographic Global Media Selects Spectra Logic LTO-4 Library

National Geographic Global Media has selected a five-frame Spectra Logic T950 with LTO-4 drives and more than 6,000 tape slots to store all of National Geographic’s high-resolution digital content as it is migrated from primary disk using SGI’s DMF software. The T950 archive will also store a backup copy of the low-resolution proxy data on tape for long-term access.

Since the implementation of the T950 digital tape archive, the broadcast division of the National Geographic Society has:

• Improved uptime with proactive monitoring to allow scheduled maintenance
• Tripled performance speeds with LTO-4
• Dramatically reduced data center floor space requirements

“High density was our biggest requirement for the new digital archive solution, as National Geographic was under pressure to maximize the limited square footage in our data center,” said Stavros Hilaris, VP and CTO for National Geographic Global Media, about the company’s switch to Spectra Logic technology. “The T950 lets us store large amounts of content –up to 350,000 hours of HD video—or more than eight petabytes of data—to substantially grow our digital video archive in the industry’s smallest footprint.”  

National Geographic also leverages Spectra’s Media Lifecycle Management (MLM) software and Auto Drive Clean, two features of Spectra BlueScale software. With these features, the library self-manages drive cleaning and reports tape health to guarantee continuous archiving operations and to eliminate media-related errors.

“BlueScale’s additional management and partition flexibilities are a huge benefit, and the included Auto Drive Clean feature has been invaluable, as our current software does not handle cleaning duties,” said Kyle Knack, National Geographic Global Media’s manager of infrastructure systems. “Spectra’s MLM helps us identify aging media and hot spots.”

“Spectra Logic is committed to the Media and Entertainment market and is dedicated to providing the most innovative, cost-efficient archive solutions to customers and partners,” said Hossein ZiaShakeri, Spectra Logic’s SVP strategic alliances and business development. “We are proud to demonstrate our commitment to this market through recommendations by customers such as National Geographic.”