NAB: Reeldata Replaces Hardware Infrastructure at Production Studios

Reeldata, Inc. announced that several media production facilities have implemented its integrated storage system, allowing them to update storage infrastructure and accelerate performance while reducing the amount of hardware and power consumption in their data centers.

The system, which will be featured at the 2019 NAB Show, combines technologies from various partners – storage software from Rozo Systems SAS, sports video asset management from Dixon Sports Computing, enterprise cloud-based file-sharing and storage aggregation from Storage Made Easy, a hybrid storage platform from Western Digital Corp. loaded with Reeldata Technologies’ MediaDB production database, and switches from Mellanox Technologies, Ltd.

Media DB: Asset Management Solution

“Thanks to our carefully chosen combination of storage software, our customers have increased their storage space and performance so that files can be moved between storage spaces at high speed – all with a system that’s comparable to some high-end fiber storage systems, but without the high-end price tag,” said Jeff Spalla, co-founder, Reeldata. “And it’s not uncommon for a facility to get rid of 10 or 20 racks of hardware in the rack room and replace it with just one or two racks, freeing up space in the data center and slashing power and cooling costs.“

Many media companies have old storage infrastructure that is nearing end of life and using far too much power and rack space in the data center. Also, old systems run out of storage. Both problems make for slow asset loading and retrieval. Customers want to increase storage density and accelerate performance among their various storage tiers but often lack the glitzy Hollywood budget to replace the old system with fiber storage.

Reeldata’ integrated storage solution has made it possible for top media companies to eliminate 10-20 racks of hardware in each of their data centers while adding 8 or more petabytes of raw storage – enough to handle existing libraries as well as add an additional 20 to 40TB of data per day for the foreseeable future. With this type of system, media companies can add more storage over time. The solution works in conjunction with a company’s production tier, or working space. A typical workflow is to transcode the video files, load them onto off-the-shelf storage hardware, and migrate the data back and forth from the production center so it can be retained in an active state for six months before archiving. The system can accommodate more storage quickly.

A high-speed, cloud-based storage system that runs on commodity hardware, company’s integrated system helps overcome the problem of legacy systems that store data on multiple servers in multiple locations. In that scenario, different departments might be using their own version of the files, meaning that there might be a large number of redundant files in the system, or different versions might be stored in one place but not another. By unifying object storage in one cohesive system, the solution eliminates the redundancy and/or splintering that can happen with a hardware-based library and makes assets easier and faster to locate.

Also, the integrated system uses a new kind of erasure code just as some of the more expensive object-storage systems do – meaning that there’s no object redundancy, which saves significant amounts of storage. This methodology is different from traditional RAID-based storage common in older systems, which were made for an era when data stores were smaller and could function with redundant drives for backup storage. If a drive was lost, users could replace it, but the opportunity for file loss was greater. Erasure code breaks the data up into pieces and spreads it across the entire system, so the mathematical possibility of losing a file is remote.

Reeldata integrated storage solution encompasses following products: 

• Rozo: Storage software
• Dixon Sports Computing: Sports video asset management
• Storage Made Easy: Enterprise cloud-based file-sharing and storage aggregation
• Western Digital: Hybrid storage platform loaded with Reeldata’ MediaDB production database
• Mellanox: Switching systems

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NAB: Rozo Systems Showcases Media and Entertainment Storage Solution
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March, 27, 2018 | Press Release