any content anywhere anytime - bitpipedocs.media.bitpipe.com/io_10x/io_101262/item... · create,...

ddn.com©2011 DataDirect Networks. All Rights Reserved

Any Content Anywhere AnytimeOptimizing Content Storage Infrastructure to Power Next Generation Media Workflows

DDN | Whitepaper

ddn.com©2011 DataDirect Networks. All Rights Reserved 2

Table of Contents

Introduction 3Challenges and Opportunities 4DDN Consolidates Fragmented Workflows 5Create, Produce and Distribute Any Content, Anywhere, Anytime 7 Post Production 7 Broadcast 8 Animation 9 Web and Content Distribution 10Storage Platforms 11 xSTREAMScalerTM 12 NAS Scaler 12 Web Object Scaler 13Customers Trust DDN 13Any Content 14Anywhere 14Anytime 14Conclusion 14


IntroductionThe content explosion is well underway and shows no signs of slowing down. IDC predicts that digital content will grow

40X between now and 2020. This is being fueled not only by the digitization of film, print and video, but also by the general

population who are now video producers too, using today’s camera enabled mobile devices. This convergence of broadcast,

film, production, Internet, telecom and the consumer electronics industries presents enormous opportunities for Media and

Entertainment organizations. They can apply innovative thinking to traditional business models in a way that creates new

revenue streams.

Production

Transmission

Conventional Outlets

Post-Production, Transcoding,Distribution & Archive Web & Cloud

Portals

Viral Media

Convergence Creates Opportunities

However, significant operational challenges still need to be resolved before these organizations can devise workable business

and monetization models. These include the proliferation of devices and the requirement to migrate from analog’s limitations

to align with the capabilities available across all dimensions of the digital supply chain. From content acquisition and

archiving, to production, to packaging and distribution, this is requires a fully automated process orchestration.

This paper examines how media organizations are deploying DataDirect Networks (DDN) solutions to solve these operational

challenges and capitalize on new streams of revenue.


Challenges and OpportunitiesWhether organizations are producing a full-length feature film, reporting breaking news, broadcasting live sports, or hosting

and distributing content through the cloud – the digital workflow can be broken down into three main components. These

are content acquisition, content production and content distribution. Each initiative relies heavily on storage and presents

its own challenges. Organizations that understand these challenges and future-proof their business for tomorrow’s growing

requirements will gain a competitive edge in this converged landscape.

Ability to Deliver in Multiple Resolutions

& Formats

Complex DataManagement and

Infrastructure

Fragmented &Ine�cient Production

Work�ow

Massive BandwidthRequirements

Compose &Color Grade

Add SpecialE�ects & Render

Encode to Various Formats

Store and Archive

ContentAcquisition

ContentProduction

ContentDistribution

Traditional

Viral

Exponentially Growing Storage

Requirements

Challenges of the Digital Work�ow

Amount of Contentis Exploding

Distribution andMonetization

Challenges

AVI

DIVX

XVIDVOB

1. Traditional workflows have typically been managed as independent silos, with video content being transported

inself-contained systems. This creates fragmented and inefficient workflows, requiring layers and layers of storage

infrastructure and copies of data that also need to be managed throughout the production pipeline. Artists that

need access to a common pool of storage must spend time navigating IT tools, data sets and file systems rather than

concentrating on producing creative work.

2. The amount of content being created, archived and served, coupled with the massive increase in the resolution and

formats of content, requires enormous quantities of storage and bandwidth. And, with the next wave of stereoscopic

3D programming now emerging, performance and capacity requirements have more than doubled.


3. Keeping media assets readily available and globally distributed must be

balanced with cost. Rapidly encoding and widely distributing content is

the path to monetization. However, traditional storage technologies are

limiting the ability of organizations to repurpose and monetize their

digital assets.

Understanding and overcoming these challenges can present an enormous

opportunity for media organizations to gain a competitive edge in this highly

converged and rapidly changing landscape.

DDN Consolidates Fragmented WorkflowsToday’s digital supply chain consists of multiple types of storage systems in order to satisfy the differing workloads. Content

acquisition typically requires the ingest servers to be connected to a real time, high performance Storage Area Network (SAN)

to ensure an uninterrupted ingest of video streams. At the content production stage, steps like color grading and correction

are generally bandwidth intensive and demand high speed, file-based access; while steps like animation, visual effects (VFX)

and rendering are I/O intensive, requiring random access to lots of small files. The delivery of completed content needs a

geographically distributed, Cloud based Content Distribution Network (CDN), with the ability to stream content in real time

and handle spikes in demand for popular content. Various solutions exist in the market to handle these individual workloads.

However, storage administrators are burdened with managing the systems individually, creating duplicate copies of content

and dealing with these tasks throughout the production pipeline.

Increases in High Resolution Content

Studios AreProjecting A 10X

Increase InRequirements

Almost Overnight

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0

Requ

ired

Stor

age

Band

wid

th (M

B/s)

HD

HD Compressed

HD Prores

HD Unco

mpressed

2K Unco

mpressed

4K Unco

mpressed

Are10X10Xe In

entsght

Complex Data Management and Infrastructure Results in Reduced Opportunity

Long-Term

Archive

CDNIngest Servers

SANPlayoutServers

Web ContentServing

Real-TimeBroadcast

NAS

Nearline

An Industry Divided

Streamline Work�ow, Keep Artists Busy and Hit Production Deadlines

Consolidated StorageInfrastructure

Ingest Servers

PlayoutServers

Web ContentServing

Real-TimeBroadcast

Consolidation with DDN


DDN is the one company that delivers storage platforms to consolidate this workflow, from content creation to distribution

and archive. With more than a decade of experience architecting information solutions for the world’s most content and

performance intensive media environments, DDN enables media organizations to build a more collaborative workflow,

delivering the ability to distribute content to multiple functional areas across the organization and to the wider ecosystem of

external production companies, outsourcers, and business partners.

Partner focused, DDN is aligned with the world’s leading digital media application partners and system integrators to provide

integrated workflow solutions that are optimized to accelerate workflows.

Our partners include –

Cloud

Create, Produce And Distribute Any Content, Anywhere, AnytimeWhether designing an integrated post production system, broadcasting a live sporting event, rendering a 3D animated

feature film or distributing content for end user consumption, DDN is the solutions provider that can shatter technical

barriers and create new opportunities to accelerate digital workflows. Let’s understand these workflows and how customers

are using DDN solutions to automate their digital supply chain.

Post Production

Post Production can be one of the most time consuming and cost intensive functions in the media creation process. In

large studios, it can entail hundreds of artists and editors working simultaneously on terabytes of digital content to perform

operations such as color grading, correcting and adding special effects to thousands of encoded files. In recent years, each

step in the post production process has required a different kind of storage. Ingest requires a high performance SAN, color

grading and composition requires bandwidth intensive Network Attached Storage (NAS), special effects requires random


access to small files whereas the finished content needs to be stored on nearline storage and eventually archived. Having

these islands of storage with duplicate copies of content has produced an inefficient workflow where the weakest link

determines the overall post production performance.

xSTREAMScalerTM from DDN provides organizations a cost effective way to consolidate these islands of storage and streamline

the workflow.

• Reduce production timetables and hit tight deadlines by producing high quality content faster

• Prepare studio infrastructure for next-generation resolution and revenue enabling content

• Maximize ROI by increasing the utilization of digital workstations and eliminate lengthy file transfers keeping your

creative professionals more productive

• Reduce costs by minimizing system and data management resources

4GB

USB

High Streaming Bandwidth

Hig

h Sp

eed

Inge

st

Small Files /Random

Access

Scanner

Media Server

DataWrangler

Final Cut Pro Workstations

2D Nuke Workstations

1Gig/10GigEthernet

1Gig/10GigEthernet

1Gig/10GigEthernet

1Gig/10GigEthernet

3D Nuke/Maya Workstations

3D Render Nodes

Film Recorder Film Print

Smoke Clients Flame Clients ClipsterClipster


Broadcast

A broadcast workflow, whether it is for live events, sports or breaking news, consists of content acquisition, production

and playout/transmission via various multi-format and multi-platform outlets. Similar to post production, each step has

typically needed a different type of storage. Content acquisition requires a high performance SAN to ensure uninterrupted

ingest. Content production requires access to a high performance NAS system with access to multiple operating systems

like Windows, Mac and Linux. Finished content is typically stored on nearline and proxy storage to be encoded into multiple

formats that today’s multi-device audiences demand. Finally, the playout servers need access to a real time, low latency

SAN to ensure uninterrupted play-to-air. Traditional workflows have required islands of storage to be maintained, increasing

management overhead and cost.

xSTREAMScaler provides organizations a cost-effective way to implement an advanced workflow to manage every stage of

the content lifecycle, and profit from new revenue streams in both traditional and emerging business models.

• Scale your services and drive new revenue growth by streamlining the production and delivery of content

• Broadcast in next-generation resolutions and to any device to maximize revenue and reach

• Reduce turnaround time for live events and win incremental business

• Reduce Total Cost of Ownership by minimizing system and data management resources

Playout Video Server

Video Server

Dalet Catalogue Dalet Conversion Servers

Play-out automationDalet On Air

Ingest Workstations Craft Editing

High Speed File Storage

Low Latency SA

NHig

h Sp

eed

SAN

Desktop Logging, browse& pre-editing

DaletPlus clients

Dalet Interweb clients

Vid S


Animation

The creation of animation and visual effects for film and video has become increasingly complex. Both Directors and

audiences are expecting vast improvements in character and scene complexity, realism and image quality. Today’s 3D

animated movies have thousands of objects in each frame of animation, which may take a dedicated computer anywhere

from a few minutes to dozens of hours to render. During peak production, the CPUs that perform the rendering can generate

over 250 Billion data requests. The ability to deliver animation projects within tight deadlines and budgets can make or break

a studio’s bottom line.

NAS Scaler from DDN is designed to handle the stringent requirements of animation, visual effects and rendering

environments to deliver high quality animation and special effects that delight customers.

• Maximize ROI by ensuring that workstations and render farm hardware is not lying idle

• Keep animators busy and hit project deadlines by simply removing the storage bottleneck

• Create breathtaking 3D animation characters in tight production deadlines and gain the ability to take on any advanced

project in the future

• Reduce Total Cost of Ownership by minimizing system and data management resources

Story Board Whiteboard

Paperless Drawing Library

Layout & Animation Render Farm

Final Conform Hub

Film Out

Tape Out

NAS ProtocolsHigh IOPS


Web and Content Distribution

The distribution of digital content is an increasingly complex undertaking for studios. Multiple creative professionals working

in different parts of the world often need to collaborate on the same piece of digital content. The storage infrastructure

for these locations is typically managed by just a few administrators. In addition to the requirement for large amounts of

geographically dispersed storage, studios have to adhere to specific retention policies, store large amounts of metadata

that accompanies each piece of finished content and smoothly handle spikes in demand for popular content. This creates

management complexities that cannot be handled by traditional storage solutions, creating technical limitations for studios

to monetize their assets.

Web Object Scaler is an object-based, cloud storage platform designed for distribution and collaboration of exabytes of

digital content across geographically distributed sites.

Zone: ‘Los Angeles’ Zone: ‘London’ Zone: ‘Beijing’

Zone: ‘Sydney’

CompleteInteroperability

• Increase the monetization of digital content by delivering it to new global audiences

• Reduce storage costs by keeping all media assets in one centralized repository and only pay for additional capacity as

your library grows

• Hit tight production deadlines by building a collaborative workflow to simply and easily share content across the globe

• Simplify management by adding custom tags and metadata to encoded content

• Improve end user satisfaction by pushing content to the edge and creating multiple copies on the fly to handle spikes in

demand for popular content


Storage PlatformsLeveraging 12 years of leadership in simplifying, consolidating and optimizing the most content intensive media

applications in the world, storage platforms from DDN are designed to solve the dynamic requirements of tomorrow’s media

organizations. Let’s understand these platforms in further detail.

xSTREAMScaler

xSTREAMScaler is a high performance, clustered file system solution with extensive data management

features for organizations looking to create an integrated workflow. Complete file system interoperability

with Apple XSan and native support for Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Server, improves workflow efficiency by

integrating applications that run on both Mac and non-Mac operating systems (Windows, Linux and Unix).

All platforms can share storage over both high-speed Fiber Channel and Local Area Networks. This solution is

designed to deliver high-speed ingest and delivery of concurrent video stream with real-time performance

guarantees and zero performance penalty on a disk or enclosure failure.

NAS Scaler

NAS Scaler is an extremely modular and cost-effective file-based storage solution. Providing the ability to

deliver extremely high input/output operations per second, this solution is built to sustain performance even

as the environment grows. Simple and cost-effective scaling ensures you will be able to future-proof against

tomorrow’s capacity and performance demands. In addition to high-performance file-based workflows such

as VFX, Animation and Gaming, NAS Scaler’s efficiency also makes it an ideal foundation for downstream

distribution of digital content with its support for Wide Area Network optimized replication with encryption.

Web Object Scaler

Web Object Scaler is an object based, cloud storage platform that is designed to simplify the creation,

deployment and management of private or public cloud-based global distribution and archive models.

Powerful metadata options allow for custom tagging, simplifying index and namespace management. It

complements our file system platforms and is designed to scale on demand from terabytes to exabytes,

and from a single site to a multi-site platform for efficient distribution and collaboration of media content.


Customers Trust DDNDDN has delivered solutions to over 600+ of the world’s largest media organizations including -

The DDN storage provides us with the scalable capacity, small data center footprint and extremely high performance that we needed in

order to design the state-of-the-art post production facility and having the system support 4 concurrent 4K streams at 1.2 GB/sec is proof

of that. Also knowing that DDN and DVS have successfully deployed over a dozen solutions together was key in our selection.

— Roberto Quintanilla HerranzSupervisor Post Production and Chief Image Department for CATA


Any ContentOnly DDN storage systems enable today’s digital media workflows to capture and serve the largest number of high-resolution

digital content streams – from 25 Mbps to uncompressed 2K, 4K and stereoscopic 3D. With DDN, studio infrastructures are

able to work on any type of content, maximizing their revenue opportunities and creative expression for their artistic vision.

AnywhereSimplifying complex distribution challenges, DDN enables rapid and simple access to content from anywhere in the world

and from any device. From Hollywood to Bollywood, cinema to smartphone, you can collaborate, distribute or achieve

from anywhere.

AnytimeThe world’s largest Media and Entertainment organizations demand the highest levels of availability, reliability and durability

from their infrastructure. DDN is the only organization that can offer guaranteed access to digital content with zero-

performance penalty – even when technology components unexpectedly misbehave. Our systems perform at full-speed

even when there is a loss of drives, drive channels or entire disk enclosures. There’s no risk of dropping frames or the inability

to ingest or deliver data in a production workflow. With DDN’s low latency and real-time products, studios smash through

production I/O bottlenecks and reduce their time to market of new content.

ConclusionThe explosion in the amount of content being generated, combined with the convergence of broadcast, production and

consumer electronics is changing the Media and Entertainment industry in dramatic ways. Enormous opportunities are open

to create innovative business models, reaching new customers and driving new revenue streams. DDN’s innovative, enabling

technology and it’s experience in resolving the challenges of the world’s most content-intensive environments provides its

customers with a competitive edge in this rapidly changing, highly competitive market space.


DataDirect Networks (DDN) is the world’s largest privately held information storage company.

We are the leading provider of data storage and processing solutions and services, that enable content-rich and high growth

IT environments to achieve the highest levels of systems scalability, efficiency and simplicity. DDN enables enterprises to

extract value and deliver results from their information. Our customers include the world’s leading online content and social

networking providers, high performance cloud and grid computing, life sciences, media production organizations and

security & intelligence organizations. Deployed in thousands of mission critical environments worldwide, DDN’s solutions

have been designed, engineered and proven in the world’s most scalable data centers, to ensure competitive business

advantage for today’s information powered enterprise.

For more information, go to www.ddn.com or call +1-800-TERABYTE.

Version 09/11

DDN | About Us

any content anywhere anytime - bitpipedocs.media.bitpipe.com/io_10x/io_101262/item... · create,...

Documents