Quantum StorNext has really taken off in the last 24 months. Adoptions are cropping up all over the place—the dual workflow shared storage solution and archiving system is the asset-protecting backbone of NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS), The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central), Cougar Town (ABC), and Dinosaur Train (PBS.), among others.
Jonathan Otis, Quantum’s VP for the StorNext Business Team, fills us in on how the company’s managed to hit a storage sweet spot and what’s next for StorNext.
What are some of the trends you’re seeing in the industry that you think are helping StorNext take off?
Well, we kind of have our own little perfect storm going on. Of course, there’s the analog to digital conversion that’s been going on in the last few years. And that’s been pumped up by the move to HD and now the move to 3D. So, more and more, storage is needed all the time. There’s also the growth of social networking—YouTube, Facebook—all of which means basically new uses for multimedia.
Also, the need to archive is growing. Past assets are generating money, so companies need to retain them and have quick access. Companies are finding new uses for these assets, for instance, the remastering of the Beatles catalog for Beatles: Rock Band.
What positions StorNext to take advantage of this?
StorNext is really two products in one: it’s a workflow shared storage product that helps people edit a file at the same time and then it’s also an integrated archive. This makes it much easier to manage data. Two years ago the average customer had a petabyte total in the archive. Now we have customers with six, seven or eight petabytes. And we expect them to get into double digits in the next 24 months.
Were there customer adoptions that surprised you?
It’s great to see quick adoptions. I remember seeing a sale to a TV show that hadn’t even gone on the air yet. And they were building a new TV show and they needed to set up their workflow and archive.
It’s surprising how customers who’ve used StorNext in one division have taken it across the hall to another division without really asking us or telling us. They’re that familiar with the system.
Well, you’ve had great success with Stornext 3.0. Are there plans for a new version?
We’ll have a new release next quarter. It’s a big release for us, version 4. It will have a lot of great new features. We’ll continue to invest in the scalability of the product. We’re working on ease of use so that all the users don’t have to be trained and people can use it on their own a lot easier. We’re looking at a lot more geographic distribution of data through replication and other technologies.
Also, we’ve been getting a lot more interest in the deduplication feature we have in the archive so we will be highlighting that. Deduplication is a way to eliminate redundant data, so you don’t have to store the same copies of things over and over. You can imagine in someone’s area they have 6 versions of the same scene they’re working on. Each version takes up 1 TB. With this technology, they can eliminate redundant data and instead of having to store 6 TB, they only have to store 3 TB, for example.
Well, we kind of have our own little perfect storm going on. Of course, there’s the analog to digital conversion that’s been going on in the last few years. And that’s been pumped up by the move to HD and now the move to 3D. So, more and more, storage is needed all the time. There’s also the growth of social networking—YouTube, Facebook—all of which means basically new uses for multimedia.
Also, the need to archive is growing. Past assets are generating money, so companies need to retain them and have quick access. Companies are finding new uses for these assets, for instance, the remastering of the Beatles catalog for Beatles: Rock Band.
What positions StorNext to take advantage of this?
StorNext is really two products in one: it’s a workflow shared storage product that helps people edit a file at the same time and then it’s also an integrated archive. This makes it much easier to manage data. Two years ago the average customer had a petabyte total in the archive. Now we have customers with six, seven or eight petabytes. And we expect them to get into double digits in the next 24 months.
Were there customer adoptions that surprised you?
It’s great to see quick adoptions. I remember seeing a sale to a TV show that hadn’t even gone on the air yet. And they were building a new TV show and they needed to set up their workflow and archive.
It’s surprising how customers who’ve used StorNext in one division have taken it across the hall to another division without really asking us or telling us. They’re that familiar with the system.
Well, you’ve had great success with Stornext 3.0. Are there plans for a new version?
We’ll have a new release next quarter. It’s a big release for us, version 4. It will have a lot of great new features. We’ll continue to invest in the scalability of the product. We’re working on ease of use so that all the users don’t have to be trained and people can use it on their own a lot easier. We’re looking at a lot more geographic distribution of data through replication and other technologies.
Also, we’ve been getting a lot more interest in the deduplication feature we have in the archive so we will be highlighting that. Deduplication is a way to eliminate redundant data, so you don’t have to store the same copies of things over and over. You can imagine in someone’s area they have 6 versions of the same scene they’re working on. Each version takes up 1 TB. With this technology, they can eliminate redundant data and instead of having to store 6 TB, they only have to store 3 TB, for example.
Sections: Business
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