LTO Technology and LTFS: Changing the Game in Production
Large Hollywood Post Production Firm
SITUATION: The firm needed to create a reliable long term archive from XDCam disks that were being used to capture live reality TV. The XDCam disks were expensive, in short supply and the firm wanted to reuse them instead of archiving to them or to TAR tapes that were difficult to use.
FORMAT CONSIDERATIONS: Self describing tape media, easy to use, OS cross platform compatibility, easily portable, easy to duplicate for off-site protection, lower cost than current methods, open standard.
RESOLUTION: LTO tape drives and library, Linear Tape File System.
RESULTS: LTFS created self describing tapes that can easily determine tape contents with browser. LTO technology and LTFS are an Open standard and provide cross O/S platform compatibility to go from Linux to MAC to Windows. Offers long term reliable archive and is cost effective – about 100 XDCAM disks can be stored on 1 LTO tape. Saves considerable space, allows reuse of XDCAM disks and improved data protection with 2 LTO tape copies keeping one copy offsite.
A Worldwide Formula One, Grand Prix Racing Company
SITUATION: The company faced the problem of increasing data storage requirements and increasing R&D information, as well as business critical application data. Also a primary concern was their shrinking backup window.
FORMAT CONSIDERATIONS: Speed, reliability, open-format. Additionally, lower media costs driven by a competitive, open environment were attractive.
RESOLUTION: Ultrium format based library system.
RESULTS: Critical business data protected three-times faster. More comprehensive backups. Room to grow.
Electronics Research, Development and Service Provider
SITUATION: Significant data growth in a heterogeneous environment (NT, Sun and HPUX); Back-up included direct attach tape solutions.
GOAL: Create an enterprise-class data recovery system to support its rapidly growing service and SAP implementation.
FORMAT CONSIDERATIONS: Capacity, roadmap viability, reliability, performance.
RESOLUTION: Ultrium format based library connected via a SAN offering the necessary scalability required.
RESULTS: Met the goal of creating an enterprise-class data recovery
A Leading Entertainment Company
SITUATION: Enhance the entertainment firm’s tape archive and production process for creating, storing and retrieving digital media.
GOAL: To create a comprehensive digital asset management solution designed to enhance the daily production process of a long-running daily television show, and transferring its current analog tape archive of nearly 20 years of footage to a fully digitized collection that includes descriptive information about the video footage, enabling easy search and retrieval capabilities.
FORMAT CONSIDERATIONS: Speed, capacity, cost of ownership.
RESOLUTION: Using an ultra-scalable tape library incorporating LTO Ultrium drives, the entertainment firm digitally stored and retrieved all of its film archive much faster, more efficiently and less expensively.
RESULTS: The solution would provide the company with the ability to quickly search and query its massive archive of digitized file footage. The show’s producers would then receive low-resolution files matching their search for browsing purposes, and subsequently retrieve high-resolution files for final editing and broadcast.
