PROTECH
HYPERCONVERGENCE IS HERE TO STAY
With an unprecedented number of people at home seeking entertainment, the appetite for visual content has never been higher and the challenges of providing that have been even greater. A hyper-converged solution is the answer, says Paul Cameron With the onset of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, studios, on-demand services and TV networks have had to quickly come up with ways to meet the increasing demand for new content. This has been made all the more difficult given that the industry creating the content is rapidly having to adapt its own business practices. Studios that are able to quickly adjust infrastructure, keep up with productivity and meet content demands are able to stay competitive. A hyper-converged solution is an approach that creative media businesses can take to stay agile and keep infrastructure costs low. When it comes to media data storage, studios and broadcasters have historically depended on on-premises hardware supplied by the major data appliance vendors. Aside from a few exceptions, the majority of these vendors have not yet included cloud-based solutions in their offerings. For these vendors, that makes good sense. Any data moved off their on-premises systems and over to cloud instances is lost business. To guarantee long-lasting profitability, many vendors lock clients into contracts for a number of years, charging extra for maintenance or to move data when the contract period ends.
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This limits the flexibility of a media creation company as it grows as a business. Once locked into one of these contracts, the only available solution for upscaling storage needs is to add more capacity to the existing appliances. This in turn can be very limiting if different business requirements arise, such as workloads delivered from the cloud, which is precisely the scenario that many studios are working in today. This is where hyper-converged infrastructures that leverage software-defined technology come into play. Having a softwaredefined solution built into the storage layer removes the limitations associated with hardware appliances. It gives studios the ability to choose which vendors to work with, when and if needed. This subsequently brings down prices for companies and empowers them with ultimate control over their data. Integrated remote workflows for better user experience Many studios today work with remote teams, running virtual workstations that need connectivity to the studio. Operating within one integrated system guarantees workflows like this can be automated and therefore more efficient. Software with an open API or written in a common coding language such as Python makes it a lot easier for studios and broadcasters to
