In Broadcast - March 2015 - 54

54

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 3 | March 2015

InMedia

Archives - Automating The TwoTiered Approach
By David Atkins, Technical Director

O

ver the past few years, much
has been said about the relative
beneﬁts and disadvantages of storing
data on spinning disk and tape.
The conclusion to any research into
the subject is usually something on
the lines of 'each has its merits and
drawbacks'.
One of the problems with this great
debate is that when it comes to data
storage, there is no one-size-ﬁts-all
approach. Data storage for backup
requires a rather different approach to
data storage for archiving. The length
of time you need to store the data is
different in each case as is the speed
at which ﬁles need to be retrieved.
Much depends on the size of the
organisation and the amount of data
it generates. This article will focus on
data storage for archiving.

More and more broadcasters are
adopting ﬁle-based workﬂows which
use data stored on spinning disks. This
is hugely time-efﬁcient as it means
ﬁles can be accessed in just seconds.
However, the business of broadcasting
generates a colossal amount of data.
Video ﬁles will more than likely be
associated with audio ﬁles in one
or more languages, not to mention
subtitles and swathes of related
documentation such as scripts and
images.
Around the time of playout, it's
obvious that all of these ﬁles should
be instantly available on disk, but
keeping such data in near-line storage
indeﬁnitely is expensive. Disk storage
is expensive and spinning disks
constantly using power costs money.
It also generates huge amounts of heat

so you have to pay
more to keep your
disks cool. One other
issue is that spinning
for long hours at
high speeds creates
maintenance costs
through wear and
tear.
So
despite
the
huge advantages that
spinning disks offer
broadcasters, their use as
the only means of data storage in an
organisation will result in massive
costs, and that's where tape comes in.
It's not that long ago that tape
was starting to look tired and oldfashioned, something from the
early steampunk days of computer
technology. But signiﬁcant advances in
technology mean that tape has come a
long way and offers many advantages
when it comes to archiving data.
A major selling point of a tape
library is the ﬁnancial beneﬁt. Tape
is relatively cheap and because tapes
spend most of their time ofﬂine, they
consume far less power. In addition,
tapes do not require power-hungry
cooling systems.
A tape library also offers incredible
reliability. Whilst a scratched tape
can mean damage to a bit of data, a
scratched disk can be the death of
hundreds of ﬁles. Tape can also boast
a lifespan of more than 30 years.
It's clear that spinning disks and
the tape library both offer many
beneﬁts to broadcasters. The trick is
to combine both formats in such a way
that they work together to create the
best possible storage and retrieval
solution.
Suitcase TV Archivist
Archivist from Suitcase TV is a
powerful, automated and highly
scalable solution to archiving. It is fully
equipped to adapt to ever changing
workﬂows, scaling and evolving as new
requirements are identiﬁed.
Automated Validation & Duplicates:
Content written to tape by Archivist is
validated using checksums to ensure
data and system level integrity. This

Archiving - tape or disk?

method is also used when reading
from tape to verify that correct data
has been written to disk. A duplicate
is created for backup purposes so
there are always at least two copies
of an asset in the library. Archivist
can produce as many duplicates as
required automatically and validates
the content each time.
Smart Content Restoring: Integration with scheduling systems allows
the application to perform automatic
content restores. Archivist ensures
content is restored to disk from tape
before the scheduled times. If the
content is likely to be required again
in the near future, the content will
be kept on disk until it is no longer
needed, at which point it will be sent
ofﬂine. Restore jobs are run automatically, and content is always where it
is needed while providing users with
an at-a-glance view to check whether
content is online or ofﬂine.
Automated
Cartridge
Data
Management:
Preventing
empty
space going to waste on tape provides
more room for content and faster
turnaround on restoring content.
Archivist ensures maximum efﬁciency
by moving content from half-ﬁlled
tapes to ensure all tapes are ﬁlled to
the assigned capacity. As new versions
of content arrives for archiving and
older versions or out of date content
is removed, an automated process is
triggered, which reclaims cartridge
space, and populates the library with
blank tapes. The speed of disk and the
reliability, longevity, and low cost of
tape are a powerful partnership which
no broadcaster can afford to ignore.
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.suitcasetv.com/index.html http://www.truelens.co.uk http://nab15.mapyourshow.com/6_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?ExhID=1315 http://www.truelens.co.uk
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