SVG Europe SportTech Europe 2015: Quantum’s Alistair Washbourn discusses storage evolution for sports

Quantum channel marketing manager EMEA, scale-out storage Alistair Washbourn (Image: James Cumpsty)

The importance of building an integrated storage workflow as sports production requirements continue to grow was the focus of Quantum channel marketing manager EMEA, scale-out storage Alistair Washbourn’s presentation at SVG Europe’s SportTech Europe 2015, held in Manchester on 6-7 May.

With consumer demand driving the need for even more secondary content to be pulled in real-time to support the live action – plus the requirement to transcode on the fly – high-end file-based workflows underpinned by reliable storage are more crucial than ever before, said Washbourn.

Outlining Quantum’s own participation in this area of the market, Washbourn said that the company’s mission is to “enable customers to intelligently capture, share and preserve digital assets over their entire lifecycle.” It’s a task that necessitates “joining the dots between high performance capture and ingest, sharing and collaboration. We work a lot with software vendors, partners and media asset management [providers] to ensure we integrate successfully with their storage.”

The information workflow as perceived by Quantum entails high-performance capture and ingest, real-time sharing and collaboration, scalable processing and editing, intelligent protection and archiving, and high-value results and monetisation, said Washbourn. ABC, BBC, NBC and Turner are among the many leading broadcast organisations to have implemented Quantum solutions for media production and archiving.

Reflecting on the distinct needs of sports production, Washbourn argued that the technology needs to deliver a “slick file-based collaborative workflow; active archive interspersed with live; the ability to transcode on the fly; season work available on demand; 4K pan and scan; and support for the growing number of real-time supplementary feeds.”

Washbourn went on to describe Quantum’s StorNext shared storage solution, which is designed to accelerate complex information workflows. Powered by StorNext 5 data management software, StorNext is available in five ‘flavours’: StorNext Pro Foundation (small workgroup collaboration), StorNext Pro Studio (Xsan refresh storage solution), StorNext Pro 4K (high-performance 4K-ready collaborative storage), StorNext Pro Workgroup (advanced connectivity for production) and StorNext Pro Production (complete content production and ownership).

Quantum also has a popular offer for extended online storage in the forum of its scalable Lattus Object Storage solution, added Washbourn.