Transcript
@StoretecHull Facebook.com/storetec Storetec Services Limited
www.storetec.net
More Complex Media Sector ‘Requires More Data Storage’
The amount of data storage companies have may vary, not least according to whether they have old-fashioned filing cabinets or advanced IT systems with umpteen gigabytes of memory. However, a new report has suggested that the actual amount of capacity required is increasing rapidly, particularly in the modern media sector. This, of course, is a realm in which modern technology reigns, where video and online information are kept electronically, backed-up and stored in a way that bears no resemblance to the old paper filing and rolls of tape kept in a can in a darkened storeroom.
However, with more content being produced and increasing amounts of archiving and back-up required, there is no doubt that the quest to create more storage is a pressing matter for many content producers. This is particularly the case as media firms become better at monetising content and therefore need to protect the data well. Massachusetts-based International Data Corporation (IDC) has predicted that this development will drive a collaboration between the media and entertainment (M&E) industry on the one side and the storage industry on the other. The upshot, it suggests, will be the creation of more extensive storage facilities, particularly via the cloud.
Research analyst at IDC Amita Potnis commented: "New technology and content delivery methods are redefining the M&E industry. "As the industry continues to grapple with constant change, an ecosystem of storage and services suppliers has emerged, often making it unclear as to where, how, and to what extent storage and other related services are used.“ While the report has some notable conclusions about the future, it observed that, at present, there is still some trepidation among M&E firms about the cloud, based on security; the reason for this is the perceived danger that any breach would lead to a monetary loss.
Other difficult issues were also highlighted in the report. One of these was that the means used to share both the creation of content and post-production work tend to rely on obsolete and inefficient methods. Another is that the storage requirements can be increased through the variation in video quality between different geographic regions. While these two problems may be tackled in time as those who are behind technically catch up, there is also the issue of older content and what to do with it, which the report described as creating an "archive all" mindset in which everything was kept – even the most otiose content – and therefore the overall storage requirement increased.
Programme director for storage and data management services Paul Hughes reflected that these issues will have to be dealt with, because the status quo is not a tenable option. He remarked: "The evolving complexity of the digital asset lifecycle is forcing media and entertainment providers to reevaluate their storage infrastructure and services strategies, as data centre capacity demands increase beyond the petabyte level.
"Media and entertainment providers have little choice but to review their existing media lifecycle workflows, eliminate out-of-date processes, revamp existing storage strategies and adapt in real time to prepare for future data demands being driven by higher quality video." Efficient storage is a wider issue than just that faced by the media sector. A global survey by NTP Software earlier this year indicated that 61.6 per cent of data kept on file had not been used for over six months. It also found 49 per cent had not been accessed in over a year, while certain large files take up a large proportion of storage; 0.1 per cent takes up a third of storage. At the same time, there were 900,000 empty directories and 14 million files with zero file size. At the same time, the average file size has increased 45-60 per cent in the last five years.
Chief executive of the firm Bruce Backa remarked: "It's staggering to see just how many stale, duplicate and empty files are being kept on expensive primary storage by organisations of every size across a variety of industries." So it appears that across a range of sectors, it is not just the volume of storage that needs to increase, but the efficiency of its use. Storetec News/Blogs. "http://www.storetec.net/news-blog/morecomplex-media-sector-requires-more-data-storage/". More Complex Media Sector ‘Requires More Data Storage’. November 25, 2013. Storetec.