Universities looking to contribute to society and attract top-tier employees and students from around the globe have found that investing in research and innovation is key to maintaining and growing their competitive edge. Engaging in groundbreaking research, their onsite labs, computational clusters and storage networks can be comparable in performance and capacity to many institutional high-performance computing (HPC) platforms.

University supercomputing environments can generate massive amounts of invaluable data from digital projects that must be stored and protected forever per extensive governmental security requirements.  These research institutions often handle a number of different user needs and navigate the data storage requirements of not only departments, researchers and grant projects across campus, but also external partners and industry collaborators.  Spectra has worked closely with numerous higher education organizations throughout the years, providing cost-effective data storage solutions that help them outperform short- and long-term goals. Find out what we’ve learned about performance, growth, and environmental needs in these educational environments below. read more

Spectra Logic this week announced the support of the new IBM^® TS1160 tape drive and media in the TFinity^® ExaScale Tape Library and Spectra^® T950, T950V, and T380 tape libraries. This marks another milestone for the enterprise tape market with the new TS1160 tape drive capable of storing up to 20TB of uncompressed data on a single JE media cartridge.  It also means that a TFinity ExaScale tape library can hold over 800PB of uncompressed data or over 2EB of data with full compression in a single tape library, making it the largest data storage machine on the market today. The new drive also has improved throughput of 400 MB/s, enabling a fully loaded TFinity with 144 TS1160 drives to transfer data at a rate of over 57.5GB/s. This high level of throughput is not found on any other archive storage machine. read more

Supercomputing research environments in universities must often accommodate different user needs, navigating the storage requirements of not only departments and researchers across campus, but also meeting the standards of external partners and industry collaborators.

This is certainly the case for the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education (ACCRE) at Vanderbilt University, the foremost resource for the high-performance computing requirements of the various research teams and grant projects across the Vanderbilt community. Over 50 departments and more than 850 researchers turn to ACCRE for a multitude of services, from utilizing their Big Data cluster, to leveraging their large high-bandwidth distributed storage network, to employing their tape backup services. read more

It’s been a few years since I last visited NAB NY. At the time of my last visit, the show was called HD World. More than a few things have changed since then. Now branded the NAB of the East, NAB NY has a fresh face and opens its arms to the eastern-seaboard of broadcasters, production shops, and media, entertainment and technology professionals looking for new and innovative ways to create, manage, deliver and monetize content on any platform.

With over 102,000 attendees, NAB NY 2018 showcased the trends shaping the future of media and entertainment and offered big-picture insights and critical details on the latest disruptive technologies in the industry. The two-day show provided an opportunity for Spectra to meet with its valued technical partners – the likes of CatDV and StorageDNA  along with many others – while also connecting us with numerous channel partners and value-added resellers. These meetings help drive the business,  fueling and strengthening commitments to grow our solution sets and integrations and ultimately providing our customers with modern storage solutions that fit seamlessly into their workflows. read more

It’s been a busy quarter for Spectra Logic when it comes to earning accolades and awards.  Spectra Logic is honored to be recognized by a number of prestigious organizations who have identified Spectra Logic and our solutions as being at the top of our industry.  With over 100 patents and a strong investment in research and development, Spectra Logic continues to innovate and the company’s recent accolades underscore its commitment to and success in delivering groundbreaking data storage solutions to our global customer base.  Here’s the award lineup: read more

Spectra Logic last month announced that the British Film Institute (BFI), the lead organization for film in the UK, commissioned OvationData to deploy two Spectra® T950 Tape Libraries and two Spectra® BlackPearl® Converged Storage Systems for long-term digital preservation of the UK’s film history, as part of its Unlocking Film Heritage digitization project.

The announcement and case study received widespread media coverage, with many industry and press outlets detailing how Spectra’s non-proprietary and genetically diverse solution will enable the BFI to protect and preserve its valuable digital assets for decades to come, making its archives easily accessible to filmmakers, researchers and the general public. read more

Today’s media and entertainment (M & E) market is experiencing seismic shifts. The way media is consumed continues to evolve, and the majority of people in the world have instant access to a surplus of content at all times.  The volume of digital assets created each day by media and entertainment (M & E) organizations continues to grow exponentially over time and shows no sign of slowing down, with video being the single biggest driver of growth in the industry through multi-camera images, higher resolution and HDR content. Moreover, the data storage needs of content owners are changing as technology evolves. read more

As I write this, I am currently flying back home to the United States after another great show for Spectra at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam. The show brings together almost 60,000 visitors, attracting different players from the media and entertainment industry from all over the world. The conference’s program of panels, discussions and keynotes features more than 400 speakers and is complemented by a comprehensive exhibition which brings together close to 1700 exhibitors, each showcasing the state of the art in technology. I am exhausted but also energized from all the great conversations we had with customers and partners. read more

By Hossein ZiaShakeri, Spectra senior vice president of business development & strategic alliances

In today’s dynamic and ever-changing market where technology shifts with priorities and business models, there exists tremendous confusion and industry consolidation. It is crucial for media and entertainment (M & E) entities to adapt to the fast-paced market to remain on top, keep a competitive edge and stay successful. Re-evaluating one’s strategies and looking forward is essential – hence the phrase ‘adapt or die’. To stay relevant, entertainment businesses must be agile, efficient, and innovative in the way that they produce, store, manage, and distribute their content. As M & E organizations try to find the right infrastructure to manage content throughout its life cycle, they are faced not only with the question of what strategy will provide the greatest return on investment (ROI) and drive positive business outcomes, but which company they can trust with this business-critical decision. read more

Hurricane Florence is expected to strike the southeastern portion of the United States very soon.  In fact, governors of North and South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia have already declared states of emergency far ahead of the approaching storm.

As Spectra Logic’s customers along Hurricane Florence’s path prepare to protect their homes and families, our team is ramping up to support their business operations wherever possible by initiating our Storage Crisis Lifeline program, which was first introduced in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. read more