SwiftStack is modern, scalable, and proven software-defined storage used for data management across the media industry in active and long-term archives, multi-region collaboration and DR, multi-cloud bursting, and CDN origin. With massive throughput performance, a cloud-native architecture, true hardware flexibility, and award-winning support, SwiftStack is enabling optimizations in production and post-production workflows around the world.
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SwiftStack’s software powers private cloud storage that is scalable, has high-throughput and allows for the freedom to move and synchronize workloads between public clouds. This allows your applications in the Media and Entertainment space to utilize SwiftStack as media storage piece for active archive, multi-site production and post-production workflows, and an origin for content distribution.
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In this demo we will be using public cloud tools powered by machine learning with SwiftStack as the primary media storage. In addition to Vizrt, this workflow demo features Cisco Cloud Center, Google Cloud, and a Cisco's UCS server.
The SwiftStack architecture makes it simple to scale network bandwidth in and out of the cluster. This allows it to provide massive throughput for uploading and downloading content, which means that it takes less time to store and retrieve big files. This is accomplished by moving lots of data in parallel—even saturating many 10Gb or 40Gb network links.
There are many ways to get data in and out of SwiftStack. Applications like asset managers and file transfer tools often use HTTP object storage APIs like S3 and Swift. End users can use the SwiftStack Client to browse assets in SwiftStack and upload or download them directly. And for older applications, SwiftStack also has SMB and NFS file protocols built into the core of the system to support traditional applications and workflows.
SwiftStack can be deployed in a single site or used to connect multiple sites together with a single view of the assets stored. Instead of using FTP or a WAN accelerator to send large files from point A to point B, with SwiftStack, any data uploaded at any site can be instantly accessed at any remote site. With SwiftStack, you can write anywhere and read everywhere!
SwiftStack storage is comprised of standard server hardware and is a cost-effective alternative to your LTO tape system. With SwiftStack, you can keep all your assets active—even in your archive—and eliminate the need for risky and time-consuming tape migrations.
If you require your assets to live on multiple media types in multiple locations, you can connect your on-premises archive together with public cloud storage. SwiftStack’s 1space can automatically replicate some or all of your assets to Amazon, Google, or any S3-compatible cloud storage.
In addition to enabling multi-cloud archive strategies, SwiftStack’s 1space makes it possible to utilize compute and processing services across multiple clouds for assets resident on-premises or in multiple clouds.
Need to transcode on-premises assets in Amazon EC2? Need to transcribe S3 assets in GCP? Want to perform facial recognition or some other AI or machine learning algorithm? Need to transparently migrate assets from one cloud to another? With 1space, the data boundaries between clouds are removed, and true multi-cloud workflows have become reality.
As good as our technology is, we know that it’s only one part of your experience with SwiftStack. From our consultative approach in the pre-sales stages to our deeply technical professional services team to our exceptionally attentive support team, we’re focused on our customers’ success at every step of the way.
In addition to many great anecdotes of customers complimenting our support team, we’ve even received official recognition: Based on customer responses, Gartner ranked us as the best service & support experience from among our peers—including the big legacy vendors:Gartner
If your final assets are stored in SwiftStack, then your active archive can also be your playout staging location for a solution like Snell. All assets are available to be moved to high-speed playout storage when needed.
For online publishing, platforms like Vimeo and YouTube often assume that the assets are uploaded from a local computer. With tools like File Access or SwiftStack Drive, all assets stored in SwiftStack can be accessed like they’re on a locally connected drive.
If you don’t own the final content, or if your workflow concludes with the transfer of assets to someone else, then using a tool like Aspera or Signiant might be the last step for you. They support sending and receiving data directly to and from S3-compatible storage, so you can use them to transfer data from SwiftStack to wherever it needs to go. Or, you can provide external access to SwiftStack by sending a “temporary URL” to access a single file for a limited period of time.
SwiftStack is natively integrated into leading MAM systems—providing petabyte-scale storage to keep all your assets active and simplifying your environment by reducing the number of tiers in which your data lives.
Content ingested into SwiftStack is instantly available to any user—even to remote users thousands of miles away. Keeping all assets active in SwiftStack means users no longer have to wait for retrievals from LTO tapes or replication jobs to complete from other storage systems.
As an example, learn about the benefits of SwiftStack’s integration with Vizrt Viz One.
Michael Harabin
Vice President of Technology, Engineering & Media Management
Pac-12 Networks
“Our data-intensive workloads will always benefit from on-premises storage like SwiftStack, where policy-based management of data in our architecture enables us to produce and better deliver our content to our fans."
SwiftStack is commonly used in the production, post-production, and distribution phases of media workflows for use cases like ingesting data from Aspera, providing on-premises access to public cloud services (e.g., transcoding, QC, and AI/ML), synchronizing assets between geographically distributed production teams, and storing finished content in a “forever archive.” Many animation studios, video production shops, post houses, sports/eSports video organizations, and online gaming companies have turned to SwiftStack as their new standard for centralized storage.
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