NAB Show: OpenDrives Open Ecosystem Solution Vendor-Agnostic/Software-Driven Data Ecosystem for Enterprise-Scale and General Purpose IT

OpenDrives, Inc. announced its latest software features as part of its Open Ecosystem solution.

Powered by Atlas Core, the centralized hub for accessing, managing and moving data with a single pane of glass administrative view, the Open Ecosystem bridges software, hardware and services to facilitate workflows and workloads that require flexibility, modularity and scalability, with a fully vendor-agnostic framework.

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“The true value of data materializes when users and applications are actively working with it, so it’s critical to move data rapidly to the right users and apps upon request,” said Sean Lee, chief strategy and operations officer. “Whether it’s high-volume live broadcasting workflows to the tune of petabytes for millions of global viewers, or data-intensive workloads to accommodate a large user base in a primarily remote-first enterprise, our ‘Open Ecosystem’ was created to unlock data’s true value.”

The company leverages open protocols and standards to future-proof the entire data lifecycle, no matter the size, scale or location. New integrations with solutions partners, including Creative Mobile Solutions (CMSI), EVS, Western Digital and Signiant, provide the Open Ecosystem to liberate data.

Open Ecosystem unlocks enterprise-scale data storage functionality
The firm has scaled from providing NAS solutions rooted in media and entertainment to powering the Open Ecosystem built for enterprise-scale general purpose IT.

Previewed at NAB Show 2022, the full-suite solution includes:

• Atlas Core – underlying software functionality that powers multi-vendor, multi-cloud solutions with a seamless framework that connects partner solutions quickly and simply.
• Atlas Cloud Plus – managed service solution for enterprises needing to adopt a hybrid cloud strategy to accelerate workloads in the cloud without the operational headaches.
• Ultra hardware platform– scale up, scale out storage built to match individual complexities and performance demands with a 2U form factor.

Software capabilities with S3 sharing, SMB and NFS and containerization
The company also announced the release of capabilities behind the latest software features from Atlas Core, including:

• S3 shares – create a local or distributed file system and then serve the filesystem as an S3 bucket endpoint; applications and clients can share the same data in the same filesystem using both object and file protocols.

• Templates for SMB and NFS shares – specify customizations for SMB/NFS shares to suit any environment and speed up deployment of any future provisioning.

• Mount management – access or reshare files or remote systems through common open protocols such as NFS, SMB, USB, and S3. S3 cloud partnerships allow customers to select AWS, SpectraLogic Black Pearl or Wasabi.

• SED management – take control of security measures with full management of self-encrypting drives with Atlas support of TCG standards, including Enterprise and Opal2.

• Expanded containerization – choose from a growing, open marketplace of pre-configured, containerized applications. Hashicorp Vault (cloud security automation), Archiware P5 (archive, backup, and cloning) and Resilio (real-time syncs) have been added.

• HD/HDX modules – add these high-density options to the stack when massive scale and cost efficiency are a priority. Available with the company’sOptimum and Momentum hardware series.

• Cluster management – experience expanded clustering and management abilities for any scale-out and/or HA requirements.

Storage management in action for large-scale live broadcasting
For Fox Sports, a rapid shift to IP, remote-first workflows and 4K and 8K has put heavy demands on workflows. The firm has provided the data framework to streamline this. The Open Ecosystem drives connections between multiple vendor applications that leverage open standards and protocols within a workflow and provide speed and simplicity to guarantee a live broadcasting experience, end-to-end.

“Most storage vendors don’t have all the technical capabilities to be truly hardware or software agnostic. Media organizations need excellence in execution across their storage and cloud solutions,” said Tom Coughlin, analyst and consultant, Coughlin Associates, Inc. “No one company has all the answers for this complex ecosystem. Using open standards and open APIs, so that media organizations can choose best-fit vendors, provides needed flexibility.”

Fox Sports has tripled throughput rates when switching to the Open Ecosystem for NASCAR. Capital and operational expenditures dropped when combining software integrations, such as containerization and virtualization, with 2U form factor hardware. It recently tested the Open Ecosystem for its US Football League reboot and will implement the system at scale for Qatar 2022.

“Our data functioned seamlessly under two-petabyte stress with multiple HelmetCams, up to 16 microphones per team and our Megalodon camera,” added Callahan. “OpenDrives has given us the open and agnostic infrastructure and the confidence to power the 80 live feed cameras and 8,000 mile location-to-editing room distance for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.”

Primes enterprise for unfettered data movement and access
The company is evolving past a singular focus on engineering performant on-premise storage toward a broader emphasis on creating software-based solutions that facilitate unfettered movement and access of data between and across data environments. It is building out its vision for an entire data environment designed around open standards and open integration: the Open Ecosystem.

“An agnostic multi-vendor, multi-cloud approach provides the pathway to optimizing data. But it will be interoperability and true ‘coopetition’ among solution providers that will make data movement borderless,” added Lee.