GB Labs Addding Clustered Nearline Solution for Broadcasters

With the new Cluster Head, GB Labs reveals a secure and scalable data silo.

Suitable as a massive – up to 30PB – nearline solution for broadcasters, archives and content owners, Cluster Head provides archivists, quality control teams and media processing technicians instant access to media files over standard Ethernet networks.

Configured as a tier 1 online platform, it has the power to deliver 4K speed, enabling large workgroups to collaborate on editing projects.

Data is safeguarded. In addition, RAID-5 and RAID-6 protection secures each storage node and each storage cluster respectively. The system, equipped with 10GbE and 40GbE connectivity, supports real-time data replication between multiple clusters of storage.

“For global content owners, 24/7 availability is critical and any data loss whatsoever is unthinkable. This new GB Labs solution is incredibly well protected with the option of real-time backup and data synchronization. Despite this focus on security, it makes no sacrifice in terms of performance, scalability and usability,” said Ben Pearce, sales and marketing director, GB Labs.

With data protected at the node and cluster under RAID-65, Cluster Head is a robust solution with high fault tolerance. By installing multiple clusters, entire storage nodes can be kept for parity to safeguard against any node failure.

Cluster Head ships with the company’s Heart Beat software that constantly analyses each node to warn of imminent or actual system or storage issues.

For file management, the solution is compatible with third party media asset management systems including Cantemo Portal, Metus MAM and CatDV. The storage supports mixed OS environments and various NLE software packages, such as Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Grass Valley Edius Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro.