The 3rd release of InterConnect is now available (v1.3) and we hope that you’ll agree with us that it is looking good:

NEW in InterConnect version 1.3:

• You can now choose to automatically delete media from Unity shared storage once it has been successfully archived.
• If you have clips in multiple resolutions, you can now choose which formats to archive or restore – for instance, you may wish to just archive the highest-resolution format, saving both time and storage space.
• You can now schedule archive/restore jobs to start at particular times of day or days of the week. For instance, you may wish to drag assets into the “To Be Archived” folder throughout the day and have them all archived as a single job starting at midnight.
• The GUI now displays more information about jobs in progress, including the number of bytes to be copied and the name of the vault being used.
  The GUI is updated more frequently when the job is initialising (previously there might be have been a wait of up to 30 minutes for a large job before the display changed).
• The GUI now has a “Details” button for each job – clicking this displays all the assets in the job as a table which you can sort and scroll through. The table is updated dynamically for a job in progress, so you can watch individual clips being copied.
• If an error occurred for an asset (for instance, media to be archived was offline), it is indicated as a red X in the table for the job. The asset gets moved to a separate folder (eg. “Archive FAILED” rather than “Archived”).
• InterConnect now archives any sequences, subclips and file assets which are in the “To Be Archived” folder so they can be restored in case of accidental deletion from the Interplay database.
  

The View From OM

InterConnect, as with the rest of Object Matrix’s tools, focus on making reliable workflows. It’s easy to move data from A to B, but to do that in a way that makes the operation quick and flexible for the user whilst completely safe against mistakes is a step further. With InterConnect 1.3 we are proud to bring those goals closer to reality for our Interplay customers. InterConnect 1.3 is now out in beta and will shortly be available in full production.

See also: Avid Interplay Nearline Archiving

At Object Matrix we were naturally very interested to see what the Avid offering would be: what would be there key selling points in a market in which we consider ourselves the market leaders*? Competition is good for everyone, especially for the end customers. So ever since we heard about the Avid product launch we began to think what the differentiators might be. As it turns out our pre-launch predictions were pretty spot on…

Functionality
The ISIS 2000 looks like a fantastically engineered device that provides a large pool of disk storage. It appears, at least for now, to be have been designed completely with usage of Interplay in mind. From what we can ascertain there is not much in the way of added functionality allowing customers to put an audited and searchable workflow in place; especially outside of Interplay environments. As we have said many a time, the ability to provide a large, scalable storage pool is the base of what a Nearline or disk-archive should provide, that’s the easy bit. But Nearline data storage isn’t just “stack it up cheap” – it’s also about how you access and use that data. It’s about integration, availability, resilience and about managing that data over time.

Reach
At the moment the ISIS 2000 does not address the Nearline needs of large swathes of the AVID customer base who do not use Interplay. That cements the fantastic opportunity that Object Matrix has been grabbing for the last 18 months, namely to provide an affordable, integrated Avid nearline platform.

The other part of ‘Reach’ comes in that the ISIS2000 seems only to be designed only for Avid workflows. Many of the customers we work with have a healthy mix of Avid, Adobe, Autodesk and even Final Cut, they want and need a nearline solution that can work with them all. Just like a MatrixStore can. In this way Object Matrix totally complements Avid based solutions, and continues to work with Avid when and where possible.

Choice
One throat to choke is fine from a support point of view but we are witnessing a trend where broadcasters and post facilities are also keen to avoid putting all their data and risk in one vendor. Putting all ones eggs in one vendors basket can also be a risk when even the largest of broadcast manufacturers are disappearing or pulling out of the market.

Price
OK this one is more obvious. Given the ISIS 2000 is not meant as an editing platform the price per TB could be seen as slightly elevated but it is certainly not off the scale. However the main barrier to purchase for many people might be the cost of the entry level solution. When pricing a nearline solution do not forget to add in the extra equipment or client licenses that will also be required to support it. Several customers have sought out Object Matrix based not only on the affordability of our solution but also the extended offering we provide.

Validation and Education
Its not that we needed validation of our business plan but to see Avid entering the Nearline market and using similar terminology we have been using for the last 2 years is simply fantastic. Customers in territories we have not yet reached will be educated about the virtues of Nearline storage and dealers we are not yet working with will know more about what the Nearline world requires.

The View From OM
All in all the release of the ISIS 2000 Nearline product is great news for us as we have been happily selling MatrixStore as a nearline for Avid workflows for the last 2 years. We have excellent relationships with Avid in Europe and the USA and we wish to maintain that partnership going forward in order to ensure customers get the ability to choose the elements in their workflow. There are many more areas where ISIS2000 is clearly not in competition with MatrixStore and where we can complement the Avid offering than there are areas where we do come into competition.

*We are happy to provide competitive matrices of functionality to anyone who disagrees!

A common MatrixStore question is – can we do 10GigE? The answer is both “yes” and “why do you need that?”

To understand that response it is good to compare traditional to the MatrixStore way of doing things.

Traditional Data Flow between Clients and Servers

Traditional connections to a server are of course limited to the bandwidth provided by the “entry point” to the server. 100Mbit/s, 1GigE, 10GigE…

A typical traditional architecture:

Solutions being released this year are still based on that architecture.

The first problem with the traditional architecture is that the solution is limited to the speed of the cable in the solution. The better types of solutions in this class maybe have two or more bonded connections, but ultimately you are talking about only a few clients being able to get full speed access: double the number of clients and you’ll lose half the access speed per client.

Pumping all your data through a single pipeline is akin to everyone flying to New York and then transferring rather than flying direct to your final destination.

The second bottleneck in a traditional server is also a major issue: how fast can that server process the packets that it receives? If the server is, e.g., utilising software RAID, then the ability of the server to be able to software RAID more than a hundred MB/s is often limited by CPU power. Without the server having some very powerful hardware inside, a single server is not going to be able to get anywhere near 10GbitE/s, however many 10GbitE/s ports it has.

The third problem is that most post-houses and broadcasters simply aren’t set up with 10Ge infrastructure. There might be a few servers with 10Ge but few have anything other than 1Ge clients.

Add to that the obvious problems of having a single point of failure, and the difficulty in being able to expand the location, and you begin to ask if there isn’t a better way!

MatrixStore RAIN (Redundant Array of Independent Nodes) Architecture

With MatrixStore, the server is a RAIN cluster. Typically we sell each MatrixStore node with two 1GbitE connections. But that is limiting – the beauty of the solution is that the clients using the solution are not limited to 1GbitE or 2GbitE at all. Whilst one client is writing to one node another client can be writing to a second node: the result is a combined aggregate bandwidth:

Secondly, because the work in the cluster is distributed: there are many CPUs to handle the connections being made including the RAID’ing of the data.

Third, all the clients can be on 1GbitE, but the total bandwidth can be as large as the cluster is.

Even if the data is all coming from the same client could be writing many files at the same time to multiple different locations using different IP connections for all the files being sent.

So, in short, if you need more aggregate bandwidth, simply add more nodes!:

Lastly, if individual files need to be sent with larger bandwidths and if your clients support them, then there is always the option to put individual 10GbitE connections on the nodes in the cluster.

The View From OM

If you pack all of your data into a single “server” or node, then you will always be very limited in how quickly you can get data into or out of that node. The MatrixStore model distributes data load, enables flexibility in configuration, and allows aggregate bandwidth to be appropriate to the amount of Nearline data being stored.

Nearline data storage isn’t just “stack it up cheap” – it’s about how you access and use that data. It’s about being integrated into the workflow. It’s about  availability, resilience and … speed.

Author: JM

Cardiff, UK 23^rd April 23, 2012 – Object Matrix, provider of file based and nearline storage platforms for Avid workflows announces the sale of a 3^rd MatrixStore cluster to Gorilla Group, the largest TV facilities company in Wales.

As the Gorilla Group grows so does the requirement for more resilient storage for its Avid workflows. Having researched competitor offerings at the NAB show Gorilla made the decision to continue its investment in MatrixStore.

“With the acquisition of our third and largest MatrixStore we are excited to be able to offer the same ingest, nearline and archive solution across our three facilities,”  stated Rich Moss, MD, Gorilla Group. “Matrix store will be central to our tapeless workflow solutions for all our network drama productions this year and forms the backbone of our data handling and media security” he added.

Nick Pearce, co-founder of Object Matrix stated, “Gorilla are a fantastic customer in that they are local, growing and they are willing to innovate. Our continuing involvement with the team at Gorilla strengthens both our knowledge of our customers’ requirements and also the functionality our solutions provide.“

Implementing a tapeless or file based workflow has been highlighted as one of the top challenges facing creative organizations. With no tape to put on the shelf, broadcasters and post-production facilities are looking for solutions to keep their assets secure and, more importantly, available throughout the production process. MatrixStore is a solution that acts as a pre-production, nearline or local disk-based archive, allowing content to move smoothly through any digital workflow from ingest to delivery.

As with the previous clusters purchased and used but the Gorilla Group the latest MatrixStore cluster was procured through and is supported by The Picture Exchange.

—–Ends—–

About Gorilla Group.

The Gorilla Group is Wales’ largest TV facilities group. It was launched in September 2011 as a rebrand following the major expansion of Cardiff’s leading facilities house, Mwnci. It provides studios, dubbing, grading, graphics, VFX and outside broadcast facilities to programme-makers and producers as well as a comprehensive range of editing services Work for clients include sport, drama, factual and entertainment programmes for BBC, BBC HD, Channel 4, S4C, CBeebies, CBBC, Disney, Animal Planet, Sony, Nissan, Quiksilver. Gorilla has over 50 staff, based in three premises in Cardiff including the newly expanded facilities at the Media Centre in Culverhouse Cross.

We will also be taking a stand/booth so please do drop us a line if you would like to visit us. We will be on stand SL11608 in the South Hall where we welcome the opportunity to show or talk to you about the following:

• Complementing Unity/ ISIS/XSAN with proven workflows in rushes/dailies ingest
• Secure nearline archive for AVID, Adobe and Apple workflows.
• MAM (Vidispine, Cantmeo), DAM (CatDV) and PAM (Interplay) integration, providing an archive at a price point that is compelling

Please get in touch today to book an appointment for swing by the stand to say hello.

The View From OM

We are really looking forward to spending time with the Swedish contingent from Vidispine and Cantemo. Both companies will be available on our stand to discuss your MAM workflows! Also looking forward to spending time with the guys from ToolsOnAir, Archiware and Squarebox. Should be fun. See you all on the other side.

Object Matrix, provider of resilient nearline storage platforms for tapeless video workflows, has today announced a partnership with XenData the provider of digital video archiving solutions.

The technology partnership provides a comprehensive, end to end solution that enables customers to move content seamlessly through storage tiers without having to manage the process. The movement of the data, or objects, from MatrixStore to tape will be managed by a new software module from Object Matrix which is due to be released at IBC in September.

The benefits of the combined solution are as follows:

-  Automatically move content from MatrixStore nearline storage to any LTO library supported by Xendata

-  Policy based data migration coupled with ‘send now’ functionality both available in v1.0

-  Tombstone and Metadata left in MatrixStore to indicate the new location of the data.

-  Multiple data protection policies available ensuring content is protected and available where the customer needs it.

-  Data and Metadata migrated to either LTFS or Tar format.

-  No proprietary formats supported from the nearline storage to tape.

“9 years ago we started Object Matrix with a vision of replacing the need for LTO.  Tape booo, disk yeeaah. Whilst we still believe the economic model afforded by object based, scalable, self-managing clustered storage solutions like MatrixStore enables content to be protected long term on disk, we have also learned from our customers that choice is king. They want and need the choice to put their data on any number of platforms including LTO” Stated Nick Pearce, co-founder, Object Matrix.

“Once the choice to integrate with tape libraries was made the process of choosing a partner was made easy. The heritage that the XenData team has in tape based archiving technologies, their experience in the creative industries and a joint commitment to open standards ensures our customers will benefit from a very complementary offering” he added.

MatrixStore acts as a pre-­production or nearline archive protecting content during the production process and keeping content available on-demand. The technical partnership with XenData allows that content to be protected in open formats on any number of tape libraries in any number of locations ensuring that the customer fully satisfies their internal or external data protection policies.

“Disk-based storage and LTO tapes are complementary technologies that are ideal for managing the lifecycle of video assets,” said Dr. Phil Storey, XenData CEO. “The team at Object Matrix has developed a great solution that now offloads to near-line LTO and externalized LTO cartridges for long term archiving” He added.

Object Matrix (booth: SL11608) and XenData (booth: SL12513) will be exhibiting their digital preservation platforms at NAB in Las Vegas from the 16^th to the 19^th of April.

Object Matrix, a leading developer of scalable object based archive systems has today announced the launch of WatchSpot, a new, free, backup application, designed to work in harmony with MatrixStore, its flagship clustered storage product. The combined solution ensures that MatrixStore customers can automate the protection of content on their shared storage to a highly secure nearline storage platform.

WatchSpot is a simple server based application that watches selected folders on any network file system (XSAN, UNITY, ISIS) and automatically mirrors changes to the contents of each folder inside a MatrixStore vault. When changes to the ‘watched’ folder occur WatchSpot copies the new or changed files to the MatrixStore vault. Version 1.0 of WatchSpot runs on Windows operating systems with a Mac OS and Linux version being release later in the year. Object Matrix customers receive the new application free of charge.

The features included in v1.0 of the WatchSpot application include:

• Watch selected folders on any network file system and automatically mirrors changes to the MatrixStore vault.
• The WatchSpot Administration GUI lets you specify which folders to watch, monitor copy jobs in progress and view historical jobs.
• The contents of the vault can be exported as a list in CSV format.
• Specify a regular schedule for watching each folder (eg. “3am every weekday”).
• A “Scan Now” button lets you start the watch ahead of schedule.
• You can associate a different vault with each watch folder.

Supports multiple versions of files.

Nick Pearce, co-founder, Object Matrix: ”The vast majority of our customer base have, at some point or another, enquired about a solution that can simply backup a folder. They need a solution that is intuitive, that is not prohibitively expensive, does not require constant administration and integrates with their current infrastructure. The features of WatchSpot, coupled with an upcoming integration with LTO archive solutions, are further evidence that Object Matrix is driven by a desire to meet the specialist needs of Creative workflows”.

MatrixStore acts as a pre-production, nearline or long-term disk-based archive, allowing content to move smoothly through any digital workflow from ingest to delivery. Implementing a tapeless or file-based workflow has been highlighted as one of the top challenges facing creative organizations. With no tape to put on the shelf broadcasters, post-production facilities and creative agencies are looking for a solution to keep their assets secure and more importantly available throughout the production process. A single MatrixStore cluster acts as rushes/dailies, nearline or local archive allowing content to move seamlessly through any digital workflow from ingest to delivery.

Availability

WatchSpot v1.0  is available for demonstration on 16^th April from Object Matrix and its worldwide network of business partners.

Object Matrix partners with IVORY in France

Cardiff, UK 24th January 2012 – Object Matrix, provider of resilient nearline storage platforms for tapeless video workflows, has today appointed IVORY to be their representative in the French territories.

“Object Matrix is very pleased to announce that Julien Gachot and his team will be our representative in the French territories; Julien has outstanding experience and standing within the international creative video market. We intend to fully benefit from his strong domain expertise and extensive network which spans all elements of the content production workflow.” stated Nick Pearce, Co-Founder, Object Matrix.

MatrixStore, from Object Matrix, has been a hugely successful product in the UK used there by over 25 leading media workflow companies such as the BBC, BT, and Sumners Post Production. As Object Matrix continues its expansion into European markets key partners are being selected in each territory to promote and represent the benefits and cost savings of the MatrixStore solution set.

“Having recently launched IVORY I am delighted to be representing Object Matrix as one of our first product companies.  I look forward to building upon the impressive growth Object Matrix has enjoyed in the UK market and celebrating our mutual success in 2012 and beyond.” said Julien Gachot, Founder, IVORY.

About IVORY.

Founded in September 2011 by Julien Gachot, IVORY helps companies to define and execute their sales strategy. IVORY accompanies its clients, in a very operational manner, to leverage the significant transformations underway in the media industry, namely in the fields of broadcast and the digital distribution of content. IVORY also offers, to companies that do not have a branch in France or in Europe, a global representation, covering the operations of go to market strategy, recruitment and management of reseller and partner channels, direct relationships with key accounts and overall communication.

www.ivory.fr

The View From OM

I met Julien in 2009 at the Hôtel Matignon in Paris at an event run by the now defunct International Business Wales. The events run by John Rees (highly recommend) and the Welsh Assembly team were simply excellent. The events enabled Welsh companies to engage with senior executives of French companies that otherwise would simply have been out of reach. The direct benefit of those dinners with Madame Fillon came in the form of our first French customers in 2010/2011 and signing an agreement with Julien and the IVORY team. So thanks John and the IBW team, shame your good work was cut short.

Object Matrix will be  exhibiting and demonstrating MatrixStore, our cost effective, near-line storage platform at this years show in a variety of file-based workflows. We will be focusing on Media Asset Management and digital asset protection using the suite of applications from Object Matrix but also showing integrations with leading MAM/DAM solutions from Avid, Vidispine, Squarebox and Phoenix7.

Please do come along to stand K10 to get a demonstration of:

- MatrixStore as a secure nearline or parking storage platform used to offload media assets from the production disk (XSAN, AVID ISIS etc);

-MatrixStore as a pre-production archive for rushes to be protected before they are worked on.

- InterConnect. The affordable archive solution for Avid Interplay environments.

We would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the MatrixStore and discuss the new innovative methods and latest technologies that our customers are using to store and protect one of their most crucial assets – their media files. As an added incentive Object Matrix will be giving away an iPad2 to one lucky visitor to the stand (K10) who gets a demo of our solution set. All you need to do to qualify is to book a demo slot with us before the event or come onto the stand, receive a demo and leave us with your business card.

If you are not attending BVE but are still interested in our storage solutions for reducing the pains of storage management within your creative workflow, then we would welcome the opportunity to send you more information, and come to visit you at your convenience.

The View From OM

Trade Shows suck ……  up time, resource and cash, you get sore feet, sore knees, you eat bad food and drink too much. Apart from that they are great!  They can be and have been a fantastic vehicle to promote your technology and network with every element of your industry. I am sure Emma and the team will put on another great event this year.