DAMsmart Selects XenData

DAMsmart, provider of automated content digitization and migration in Australia and New Zealand, has recently broken ground on the extensive job of digitizing and preserving 55,000 hours of the Australian Parliament’s original video recordings in 12 months.

As one of the largest outsourced video digitization projects ever undertaken, DAMsmart has enlisted XenData to create managed archive systems uniquely designed to address the mass digitization of the Australian Parliament’s archives in a short span of time.

Specifically, DAMsmart and XenData are accomplishing this project by configuring an IBM TS3310 LTO tape library, partitioned into two logical libraries. To maximize throughput, two IBM servers are being used, each attached to the tape library with each server attached to a separate logical library. XenData X64 Edition software is running on each of the IBM servers, creating two digital video archiving systems that work in parallel. Each of the digital video archive systems uses XenData’s replication capability to write to two tapes simultaneously, producing duplicate LTO tapes for data protection purposes.

Combined with XenData’s non-proprietary, open standard file format, DAMsmart is giving the Australian Parliament the flexibility to restore and future-proof all formats from original tape. To date, Parliamentary proceedings have been recorded on a range of formats including D2, Betacam SX and S-VHS. Comissioned by the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS), providers of broadcasting services to the Australian Parliament, this project will serve as the basis for future expanded access to the archive collection through the web.

"We’re pleased to be tasked with preserving the Australian Parliament’s videotape archive for generations to come, eliminating the risk of maintaining big physical media archives," states Joe Kelly, co-founder of DAMsmart. "Our partnership with XenData ensures us immediate ease of use, ease of management and reliability and enables us to deliver on the DPS’ requirements quickly and cost-effectively."

"It’s a great opportunity to be working with DAMsmart on this impressive project for Australia’s DPS," said Dr. Phil Story, CEO and co-founder of XenData. "We’re excited to collaborate with DAMsmart to deliver an intuitive archive solution which delivers high speed archiving to LTO tape and future-proofs file access by using the open standard tar format."