Quantum Pro Foundation offers new entry point into storage workflows

The challenge of finding the proper storage system can be a daunting one, particularly for smaller organisations that don’t have large (or even any) IT departments. Quantum is looking to help those type of users make the move into server-based storage with Pro Foundation, on display at IBC this week.

Quantum’s Geoff Stedman says Pro Foundation can make the move to video storage much easier for smaller facilities.

“It’s a new management interface designed to be easier to use, manage, and deploy,” says Geoff Stedman, Quantum, SVP of StorNext Solutions. “It has an entry-level price point that makes our StorNext server a fit for a broader part of the market, like university athletic departments, franchises, and teams where video is important but there are not huge IT staffs.”

The system is able to hit the lower price point by capping out storage at either 48 or 96 TB and also collapsing functionality into a single application that can be used by up to seven simultaneous users.

Also on display is Lattus Object Storage, another useful system for production facilities.

“It is great for those who want a certain amount of primary storage for production but want to add a second tier to move older unused data to lower-cost storage but tie it together with StorNext,” says Stedman.

The system can scale to handle hundreds of Petabytes of storage thanks to a NAS gateway and Lattus S3 HTTP REST interface. Third-party applications that integrate with StorNext Storage Manager have immediate access to Lattus. The Quantum StorNext Q-Cloud Archive can also be accessed, a system that uses Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) on the backend.

In terms of top-of-mind issues facing Quantum’s customer base the need for high-resolution workflows are a point of conversation.

“People are asking questions about being future proof and content producers are starting to produce in 4K event if they distribute in a lesser format as they know they can monetize 4K in the future,” says Stedman. “The other topic that comes up a lot is IP-based distribution of content from a server to any device anywhere. So there is a lot of discussion on the distribution side about how to make that content available on demand.”